What do you do drink from the firehose? It’s really hard to keep up on what you’re reading on Twitter and RSS readers without pulling out your phone at every waking opportunity. I’m pretty certain that I don’t want to live my life that way.
These days, when things get busy at work, I have a hard time keeping up on tech news and I start purging people that I’m following to limit my reading needs on Twitter. I like to read my whole feed, it keeps the interactions more authentic.
What do you do keep up on feeds when you get busy. Do you ignore them, and hope to catch on? Ever worry that you’ll miss an important trend because of it?
4 Comments
Its funny you ask,Im watching 25th anniversary of rock & roll and it only reminds me that time is fleeting,pay attention to what is most important!
When I began to use Twitter, it was very easy to limit who I followed and to try to read every post they made. When more Twitter accounts were created that I felt I “needed” and wanted to follow, limiting the number of accounts that I followed became very difficult. If I limit myself to following only those I can read every post from, I’ll miss something great from those I don’t follow. There’s too much coming out of the “hose”, I can’t drink it all in, so I just catch what I can when I can (to try to stay aware of what’s happening). I’m sure I have, and will, miss something important…it’s a numbers game that I can’t win.
We either have to find DJs or be our own…
It’s all about filtering now that there is such an abundance of content. Since you limited the convo to Twitter and RSS Reader, let’s focus on those two.
With Twitter, the addition of lists and the Retweet feature and tools like Tweetdeck, make it easier to filter the content coming out of the hose so you can focus your attention on those people you want to hear from and that content your interested in most (subject matter/keywords).
With the RSS Reader, it’s less of a stream that you can miss so sometimes the number of unread items can build, but I can read those at my leisure and in the priority I set.
Overall, I think you need not be (or shouldn’t be) pulling out your phone every waking opportunity. I’m going head up to 30,000 ft here (as I tell my clients): Start with the goals and objectives for your life (personal/business), see what tools are important to meet those objectives and accomplish those goals. If Twitter and an RSS Reader make the list, see if the content coming out of those tools is helping you meet the original goals and objectives you set originally. If it’s not, it’s just for fun, hobby, or simply a waste of time.
It’s more important than ever for those of us who are early adopters and have the firehose problem to be selfish.
What do you think Brad? Others?
I follow about 1000 people, and have great difficulty keeping up with twitter. I don’t know how some people follow 30,000 people. @Unmarketing is pretty insistent that he can keep it real following 30,000 and I just have to assume he has a lot of time for twitter. I find that I skim looking for a few people that I am most interested in. I fear if I dropped 500 people, I’d have no followers left! I know it’s shameful for me to think that way, but I do. I also specifically go to the profiles of a few people who I always want to know what they’re writing – it’s one way to catch up with them.