QUOTE

Yesterday I showed yet another team at Microsoft what weblogging is all about.

They did not believe that I'm now watching 618 websites every day. They couldn't understand how I do it. When I proved to them that I was, indeed, watching that many sites, their eyes popped out.

And, I'm adding more. I visit weblogs.com once a week or so looking for cool new weblogs that the rest of you don't know about. (That's how Dave Winer discovered me, by the way).

Last night I actually measured how much time it took to read 618 weblogs and websites: 34 minutes.

Whoa. That's freaking amazing, right? It's all due to RSS and my news aggregator (I use NewsGator inside Outlook).

I showed the team yesterday why it's possible to read so many websites so quickly.

Now, let's try an experiment. Go off to a random new weblog in your browser. I visited Paul Glenn's weblog over on Live Journal (I just clicked on his link in weblogs.com). It took 31 seconds to come up in my browser. I'm on a high-speed cable line. Your experience may vary.

Now, let's go over to Outlook. Inside Outlook, I have an "RSS Feeds" folder. Inside that folder are 618 other folders (with sites from lots of you). Each folder comes up instantly the minute I click on it. No waiting to read. In 31 seconds, I can scan through about five to 10 folders (er, RSS feeds), each with a few updated items in there.

But, here's the real secret why RSS works. Not everyone updates their weblog every day. So, out of 618 weblogs, only 100 are "bold." (Outlook shows folders that have new items as "bold").

If I find something interesting, I might read it in detail right then, but usually I just drag it over to my "blog this" folder to read later. I find that it's easier to be in a "skimming mode" for the first hour of my browsing, and then I'll read in depth and decide whether or not to blog about it later on when I am doing my "blogging time."

Your workflow may vary.

The other thing is, after doing this you get a lot faster at skimming for the good stuff. I look for key words in posts. You know, anything technology related. If I see a title like this: "my cat is so cute" I don't even open it. I know from past experience that the likelihood that that post is gonna be interesting is extremely low.

Now, think about this in a corporate environment. How much time are your employees wasting waiting for websites to come up in a browser? How much time are you wasting? And, do you visit 618 sites every day to watch what your industry is saying about you?

And people yell at me when I ask "can this industry get beyond the browser please?"

If you are surfing with your browser you all are wasting so much time it isn't even funny. Get into the RSS news aggregator revolution. Yesterday another team at Microsoft did. Will you get it in time?

11:30:48 AM