RSS Feeds

Libby's post at Technagora got me thinking a bit about blogging. Ironically, linking to it is precisely what she suggests bloggers should NOT do. But I disagree to some extent and left the following comment:

Guilty.

I know what you mean. And I am certainly guilty. I like to think there are two types of blogs: original and popularizers. Tyler Cowen, for example, is an original thinker. But he writes a lot of stuff that I could care less about. So a popularizer might scan through all of Cowen’s posts (and all of McArdle’s and Healy’s and etc…) and then pass on the most interesting. So someone with little time can come to the blog of a popularizer and get the good stuff without sifting through the rest. And popularizers will specialize in different subsets of Cowen/McArdle/etc. It is not always so distinct, but you get the point.

I would say I am a popularizer at present. I would like to be more original. But if I only posted original posts they would be few and far between. And that is not a good strategy for blog success. So I link a lot and write original posts when I find time.[...]

As for the RSS feed, I think you should decide whether you want a feed of popularizers (and if so, which ones since similar popularizers overlap) or original thinkers. Too much overlap will result in a clogged reader.

What does my RSS reader look like?

Division of Labour, The Austrian Economists, Cafe Hayek, Marginal Revolution, EconLog, Organizations and Markets. And I am thinking about adding Heroes of Capitalism which is arguably the most interesting blog I read.