It's no secret that I'm a big fan of Google Reader - the search engine's online RSS aggregator and feed service. I've grown so accustomed to navigating my river of news feeds this way that I've even found myself hitting the "magic keys" of J and K to navigate up and down Web sites that aren't thusly enabled. Today, I was excited to find that Google Reader has been spying on me - in a good way. The service debuted graphical trends that show my last 30 days' worth of activity, highlighted the most frequently updated news feeds I read each day, and those which I most frequently post to my Link Blog (updated multiple times daily).I've shared a number of the images with you.
1. In summary, I'm subscribed to 84 news feeds. Over the last 30 days, I've read 8,077 items, 323 of which made it to my link blog, a ratio of just under 4 percent.
2. Over the last month, the number of read feeds per day ranges typically between 250 and 400. Note that even in the lightest days I got to about 50 or so feeds. This stat shows those I read, not how many items were placed in the feeds.
3. The stats show I'm reading everything, and not deleting or skipping. ESPN.com averages about 24 items per day, or one per hour, all month long. Of these top 10 items, 3 are Technology oriented, 2 are Sports, 4 are Political and 1 is Work related.
4. Expanding on the above you can see which are the most frequently updated feeds. The converse is also available, reminding me that some feeds just don't update for months, even. They can be deleted.
5. Not all feeds are created equal. TechMeme, TUAW and Robert Scoble are among those blogs I've most frequently shared on the Link Blog. Note a tendency towards narcissism as well with my own blog and Sactown Royalty. The more venues these sites are available, the better, in my opinion.
RSS makes the new world go 'round. Google Reader makes it go 'round better and faster. This is a great new enhancement to an already strong service. Go Google Go.