Jo’s Cafe

I manage to read through about 300 RSS feeds a day. No - not all at once you nut, but throughout the day. Google Reader keeps me attached to my favorite blogs, news, and entertainment sites. I can get to my list at work and via my Blackberry. So it stands to reason it is going to take me a few days to figure out someone hasn’t posted in a while.

Google Reader has an area where you can see your Reading and Subscription Trends. Under the Subscription Trends is a tab for Inactive Feeds. Here you can see when the last time a feed was updated and how long ago; with the oldest at the top of the list.

When a lightbulb goes off that I haven’t seen a feed from someone in a while, I go there to see how long its been. Happened last week in fact.

I went over to the missing site and found a whole theme redesign. After finding the RSS link, I compared the URL to the one I had in Google Reader and they were different. Updating Google Reader brought that blog back into my reading fold.

But wait a minute — 300 feeds and *I* have to keep up with them? No - don’t think so. If you want people to come visit you via your RSS feed, the blog owner needs to make sure that the sidewalk is shoveled, not the visitor.

I use FeedBurner so no matter how many times I may change the theme, the feed will always remain the same. No worry about lost friends in a snow storm of RSS feeds.

Check Your Feed URL folks … or you could be lost out in the woods and no way to be found!