matt ryall’s weblog

A while ago I found I was subscribed to way too many feeds. It would take perhaps two hours per day to read through everything, only to get up the next morning and find just as much stuff to read. I did what answer self-aware addict would do: I went cold-turkey.

I switched off my feed reader for about two months. The content I needed to read for work — internal blogs and whatnot — I found via other means. Other than that, it was silence. Blissful silence.

After a while, though, I found myself missing a few things. I missed John Gruber’s insightful posts about the latest Apple gear. I missed the wry humour of my colleagues, like Charles’s Fishbowl. I opened up my feed reader and started adding just a few subscriptions. Low volume ones. Stuff I could stay on top of.

I resigned to keep work and leisure separate. My work feeds are retrieved by Vienna on my Mac at work. My personal feeds are retrieved by Google Reader and accessible anywhere. I’m back on the horse.

But the point of this article is to say: I may have missed your feed.

Dave wrote to me the other day to point out a response to my Drawing the digital line, called Cracks are vanishing. I completely missed his article because I’m not subscribed and I haven’t implemented trackbacks. Now I’m subscribed, Dave.

If you’re a friend or acquaintance who has started or kept blogging in anger during my feed hiatus, and I haven’t mentioned or noticed something you wrote, please get in touch.