Which RSS Feeds Do I Actually Read?
January 4, 2008
I’ve listed some of my favorite business feeds before, but it has always just been my opinion. This time I decided to be a little bit more scientific about showing my favorite feeds.
The RSS reader I use is Google Reader. If you haven’t started using an RSS reader yet, I recommend you try it out. Sign-up for Google Reader, and then use the RSS subscribe button on the right side of my blog (that big yellow button).
Currently I’m subscribed to 31 RSS feeds. To pick out my 10 favorite RSS feeds below, I simply looked in the “Trends” option inside Google Reader
I looked in Google Reader and went to the “Trends” option to see my own Reading trends.
What I was looking for were blogs with a high “% Read” stat meaning I was reading a majority of their posts. The first two blogs on the list had a 100% readership rate which meant I read every single post on their blog in the last 30 days.
Then the numbers started dropping from there with the 3rd on at 95% readership and so on. Of these 10, my lowest readership rate showed I read it 55% of the time. I noticed of my other 21 blogs, I was reading them less than 50% of the time (over the past 30 days).
1. Ed Rivis
He publishes consistently good information without all the hype normally associated with internet marketing sites. For example you can see his 2008 Campaign Testing showing the 10 methods you should concentrate on for marketing your site. I also own his Blogging Calendar and it’s a great tool I’m personally using.
2. Pat B. Doyle
She was tied at 100% in my Trends list with Ed Rivis. If I had to best describe her blog and why I’m reading it, it’s because she’s authentic. You can just feel it when you read through what she posts.
3. Copyblogger
Great headlines! It’s so obvious why I read 95% of Copyblogger’s posts. It’s because the headlines are so enticing. The content of course is interesting as well, but I’d subscribe to his list just to see how he constantly does his blog headlines.
Something I find interesting is Robert Phillips has the highest rate at which I read his blog specials. When he runs a 24 hour special or weekend special, I seem more likely to read his than anyone else. Why is this? I think it’s because they’re such good deals.
Good content with short posts. Yes, I’m much more likely to read shorts posts as long as they don’t require me to click a link to get full info. As a sidenote to the entire process, I also unsubscribed from several blogs this week simply because they published partial feeds…meaning I had to click a link to get the full post. Forget it. Not happening.
6. DoshDosh
Some of his posts are extremely good. For example, check out this one Stumbleupon. Other posts seem to be a little long and I don’t end up reading them all, but DoshDosh is consistently in my 10 of readership.
7. Lee McIntyre
He is a newer internet marketer and a very good teacher (makes sense since he was a former teacher that he probably likes to teach). I guess I would say his only weakness is he is a little hypey at times.
Michel Fortin is an excellent copywriter. Check out his article on how to generate excellent fees as a copywriter.
9. Ryan Healy
Ryan Healy is another great copywriter. Wow…notice a trend here about how many of the blogs I read are by copywriters? His old blog can be seen here, but he just moved over to this new one (so the stats are based off his old blog).
10. James Brausch
If I tracked this by the number of posts I read, James would have gotten the number #1 slot. Google trends lists that James wrote 2.6 posts PER DAY over the past 30 days. I think his posts with the title “Check This Out” dropped his percentage read for me as I quit reading those (they required you to click on another link to see the full information).
Other Blogs
There are a lot of other blogs I love to read, but every single one of them had below a 50% readership rate over the past 30 days. This is including blogs like Shoemoney, John Chow, Problogger, etc.
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What Terry Dean Reads…
Yesterday, I made a major announcement that I would no longer be blogging at my old blog hosted by Typepad. Already my most loyal readers have updated their links and their RSS feeds. Terry Dean is one of those who has done this.
In fact, Terry just wr…
Terry, thanks for the kind words! I’ll try to keep being authentic
I read every one of your posts too.
It sounds like Robert’s specials are so great because he just steals from others instead of creating his own products.
I know he stole one of Brausch’s products and was giving away the paid download link. Brausch doesn’t do business with him anymore because he has no respect for copyright law.
I’m surprised to see you promoting a thief.
Comment #3 by Chas was a tough one to decide if it would be published since it’s a direct attack on someone else.
It is obviously the ravings of someone who has quite a bit of hatred for Robert Phillips.
Chas says, “I know he stole…”
How do you know this?
Were you there when he did it?
Were you a part of any emails that were exchanged about it?
Are you an attorney involved in the case?
I choose to believe the best about people whenever possible. I know about the fight Robert and James had recently, but I wasn’t there so don’t have enough information to say one is 100% in the right and the other one is 100% wrong.
So I look at it as a misunderstanding between them until I see proof beyond a shadow of a doubt that would cause me to cut off all relationship with one or the other of them.
Thanks for the mention Terry!
Your blog is on my list too!
- Aaron
Thanks for including me in the list Terry!
It’s a fantastic honour to be included in a list alongside so many other fantastic marketers, and you’ve made my weekend.
Thanks again!
Lee McIntyre
Hi Terry,
BLIMEY, I nearly fell off my chair when I read that! What a great start to the weekend.
Thank you. I’m honoured, and hope I don’t disappoint as the year progresses.
All my best,
Ed.
PS. And I probably would have blogged about something other than ‘chipmunks’ yesterday if I’d known this was going to happen
Terry,
Seems you’re against publishing a blog with partial feeds.
You do list Michel Fortin’s blog above. He does publish partial feeds; you have to click on a link in order to read the full article when you’re on the home page.
You said “Forget it. Not happening.” Is this just you or did you run tests as for percentages of how many do click through and how many do not?
Your insight is much appreciated.
Thanks Terry for this WONDERFUL list.
Tell them they have all gained an additional subscriber
Happy New Year my wonderful guide. Wishing you and your family a wonderful 2008
Thank you all for commenting.
In my Google RSS Reader, Michel Fortin publishes full feeds. You do not have to click to get to his posts (or he wouldn’t have made the list).
On his site and in his emails, you get partial feeds (same as with my email subscription option).
The “Forget It, Not Happening” is me in the fact it annoys me as a reader too much to subscribe to RSS that way. Remember this was MY list of readerships - not anyone elses.
Very good list. I have subscribed to some of them. Thank you
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Interesting post Terry. I only just got Google reader recently and I’ll be checking out the trends feature.
Glad you’re reading Terry… thanks for the mention and the compliment.
I have to assume that Sciencebase.com was just outside the top ten at #11, right? Right?
db
Interesting. I post on average once a day anyway, so hopefully that should help with audience engagement.
Judging by the slow, yet steady growth in RSS subscribers, I’m sure you’re right.
Nice to see Lee’s name on this list, he’s one of my favorites too
All success
Dr.Mani
Titles are important for me since I subscribe via the FireFox Web browser (which displays only the title of a post in my Bookmarks section for Blogs).
This seems to be a good way to save time checking latest posts and save some treats for later reading in my leisure time.
With the A list bloggers posting so frequently, only viewing the Title of posts is a good time saver I think.
Also, I like to visit an actual site rather than read the feed in a feed reader.
[...] http://www.terrydean.org/which-rss-feeds-do-i-actually-read/ [...]
Thanks for mentioning me Terry. Obviously I’m a regular reader of your blog too.
Hi Terry,
glad to see Ed on your list, he has such a generous and supportive nature he definitely deserves to be at the top of the pile.
I also read every post he sends through… but then I am slightly biased being an old friend of his ;¬D
And now I’ve found you I look forward to getting some gems on here.
Thanks,
~ Carol Bentley
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