Too Many Posts ?
I received an email from Frank, who writes:
“I’ve been following your blog for about a year now, and while it has definitely been a good source of information to read concerning various financial market stories, the number of postings that come through the RSS feed has gotten to be too numerous to be able to handle in a reasonable fashion.
Google reader tells me that “The Big Picture” averages 100 posts per week, well more than any related financial blog I read (The Atlantic Business Channel comes in second at 60, Brad DeLong at about 50 — Brad might get cut next — Across the Curve got cut a long time ago). I am trying to cut back on the amount of information I’m exposed to via RSS, and I’m afraid that The Big Picture will be getting the axe first due to the low quality/number-of-articles ratio (it’s the denominator that is killing more here).
I would advise having sub-categories or different RSS feeds for different categories of articles on The Big Picture that has; this would allow for a better signal/noise ratio (as “signal” is often determined by the reader).
Thank you for bringing this up — I actually addressed this very issue in a recent upgrade, but I have been remiss in publicizing it.
You now have the ability to subscribe to the RSS feed of just the main page – The Big Picture — minus all the other tabs.
If you do the main subscription, you are now getting the main section, plus all 4 tabs (Think Tank, Video, Books and Weekends). In the Think Tank, Peter Boockvar’s excellent Macro-Notes alone must be close to 25 short posts a week. Add in guests’ longer posts, and it can add up.
If you look on the right hand column, about 2/3rds of the way down, there is an RSS feed called “subscribe via RSS to homepage.”
The link is this – http://feeds2.feedburner.com/ritholtz/dWnM – and its about 25-30 posts per week.
July 18th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
This is a really good example of “Customer Centered Innovation”.
It starts with Good Product.
Good Product —> Good Customers
Good Customers will assist in your R&D
+R&D leads to Better Product
repeat, as often as One cares to stay in/grow one’s Business..
you know, LSS .
July 18th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
I don’t think 100 posts per week is a problem, because you can always skip the posts that you are not interested in or that give you some information that you already know. If I were to axe The Big Picture RSS, or Zero Hedge (82 posts per week) for that matter, I’d miss out on a lot of useful information. Keep it going, Barry! Your work is much appreciated.
July 18th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Hey Barry, any way you can just subscribe to Peter’s notes? While his analysis is spot on, it seems kind of lost in the Think Tank; 400 word blurbs vs the 4000 word essays that often inhabit them. Other than that, keep up the good work!
July 18th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
I don’t know if all the posts are useful, but they are almost all interesting
July 18th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
I know this is not going to be a popular reply, but I want to subscribe only to Barry’s posts.
Not interested in anyone else who posts at the Big Picture.
I have too much to read.
Can I do that?
July 18th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
I would rather have “too many” posts than too few. I don’t have to read them all, after all.
Thanks for all of the stuff you post.
Beth
July 18th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Now you’ve done it. You’ve added to the count, and that’s the last straw. You’re out!
July 18th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Thanks for posting this!
As much as I love your work, Barry, I’ve been hitting “Mark all as read” more and more for you feed and was also considering unsubscribing due to information overload. I’ll try the reduced feed & see if that does the trick.
Lux
July 18th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Wait wait — there’s such a thing as too many posts? Huh. That’s what Google Reader is FOR, kidlets!
Geez, weaklings. ;^)
July 18th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Come on now — there’s a perfectly good capitalist solution to this problem. Clearly the price is too low for the demand. Raise the price — charge a fee to read or read & respond. That will handle the overload.
July 18th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
i like all your posts. can’t be too many good posts. of course i don’t read them all, but many.
i like the daily reading list too
July 18th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
Well it would be helpful if the initials of the writers where included in the titles like
BR Too Many Posts ?
PB Housing Starts
So you could select on basis of preference which post you open.
July 18th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
First and foremost, Barry, do what you wish. It’s your blog. With that said, personally, I believe your blog was strongest, in terms of posting frequency and raw passion, around two years ago. Still, you remain one of the best in the blogosphere…
My recollection was that you had around two or three posts per day along with a “linkfest” and “Friday Night Jazz” on the weekends.
Things change. You have a personal life and a schedule to attend to. Personally, however, I am a “less is more” type of person.
I’ll leave you (and your readers) with some words you already know:
“… in an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.” Herbert Simon (1916 – 2001)
~~~
BR: The book was a killer — that really sucked a lot of life out of the me.
The Blog readers were a huge source of help – info and research and art work. I have to honestly say that Bailout Nation was very much crowd sourced.
July 18th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
I signed up for Barry Ritholtz, only.
July 18th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
Low Quality Posts @ The Big Picture?
Never!
This blog is a magnet for writers whose words become content for the data-driven masses.
July 18th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
I agree with Mike, beth1708 and Donna. But I do not agree with the Herbert Simon quote. From the many blogs I frequent, I read from 15 to 20 articles a day. Many adults today have a short attention span, so don’t blame it on information overload.
July 18th, 2009 at 10:22 pm
How do you guys keep up with the comments in the various threads? Just keep revisiting threads to find new comments?
July 18th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
I would keep Big Picture and axe Zero Hedge. When the Henry Weingarten …
http://www.afund.com/
… of blogging, Zero Hedge, tells you Goldman Sachs front runs their clients and that Renaissance Technologies is a ponzi scheme, you know you’re dealing with a clown…
http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/04/incredibly-shrinking-market-liquidity.html
…shoot for bucket number six Zero Hedge… ROFL. Nice big floppy shoes Zero.
July 18th, 2009 at 11:31 pm
Big E
If you keep each thread open in a separate tab, you can just refresh to read the new comments in each without losing your place. That’s how I do it. I also keep the main page in a separate thread and refresh it periodically. I don’t do the RSS thing.
July 19th, 2009 at 5:17 am
I agree with onlooker Big E. Right click the date and time link for the last post and ‘open in new tab’ that way you’ll know if anything has posted under it because the refresh will go right to that post on the page
July 19th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Herbert Simon. A seriously deep thinker. Have no idea how he continued. (Sigh).
Guess it was a different era.
July 20th, 2009 at 9:31 am
Which posts should be removed?
Sort of like in ‘Amedeus,’ Mozart’s response to the royalty who when asked to comment on his recent piece, describes it as having “too many notes.”