Is there an optimal size for a reading list?
Posted on Friday, February 17, 2006
at 9:23 AM (permalink)
I was reading Jim Moore's blog for the first time, and I came across this recommendation in his instructions for new users of OPML reading lists:
"Q: How many feeds should my reading list optimally have?
A: 5-6 seems like the optimal number. Do try to keep your list under or at 10. "
I've seen this idea before and it's always puzzled me. Amy Bellinger makes the same point: A: 5-6 seems like the optimal number. Do try to keep your list under or at 10. "
"I've subscribed to a couple of reading lists that are way way too big -- either too many feeds, or feeds having such a large number of posts that the effect in my aggregator is to make me sigh and want them out of there. It's going to give people a bad impression of reading lists if they try the concept and end up feeling inundated. I think list makers might want to show that they've done a lot of work to put their lists together so they go for volume. Maybe they'd be wiser to put their brainpower into making the most judicious choices, or in drawing up groups of lists with 4-6 feeds each."
And so does Dave Winer:"Too many feeds in a reading list makes for an overwhelming user experience. Before you publish a reading list you should try using a few to get an idea what it's like. In most situations, ten feeds is a lot of feeds for a reading list. "
One issue may be the technical problem of an aggregator not being able to load too many feeds at once. The solution to that problem is to try a different aggregator. I just tested Anne Zelenka's BlogHer reading list in BlogBridge, and it took under 60 seconds to open 129 blogs and read 1,525 posts. Waiting a minute doesn't sound excessive, and posts were visually loading the whole time, so it was clear that the program was still working. I don't think that experience would scare any user away. I'm sure Jim, Amy and Dave have the user's best interests in mind, but saying people will be intimidated by more than a dozen feeds is rather patronizing. It's like telling students "now don't read too many books on a subject, or you'll get overwhelmed." That is a very individual preference. What is too many books to buy when you want to learn about all the new Web 2.0 technologies? I don't know, but I can count over 50 on my bookshelves. How many books should I buy to learn about philosophy? 100? 200? I'm sure I bought more than that while I was studying history of science. (You probably thought I was going to drop the H-bomb again, didn't you?)
Maybe a better solution would be to signal the user on what to expect before they open an OPML file. I support the tradition of listing the file size next to links for big files, like videos or .mp3s. It could be a good idea if links to reading lists were followed with something like: "(100 feeds)." Then the users could decide for themselves if 10 feeds was optimal.
Update: Amyloo clarifies her comments: it's not my aggregator that stumbles when it gets fed a list yielding 1,500 posts; it's my brain." Her aggregator may not choke when it sees that many feeds, but it clearly isn't giving her a presentation that augments her brain. I still think it is a problem that can be solved with software, perhaps a good feed grazing tool, when it is available. The goal should be to allow users to comprehend and manipulate more information, not to restrict the available information to our inherent limits. I couldn't write papers of any serious length during college, so I switched my major from English to Chemistry. After college there were word processors, and I started writing books.
