QotD: Unsubscribe
Posted June 23rd, 2004 @ 09:16pm by Erik J. Barzeski
Question: What reasons do you have for unsubscribing from a blog?
My Answer:
1. Boredom - the content is not interesting.
2. Lack of time - it's precious.
3. Similar to other sites - see reason #2.
4. Slow update frequency - no sense keeping them around…
5. Changed interests - I'm no longer interested in the main topic
I never, ever unsubscribe because I disagree with the author(s). An upcoming interview with me contains this snippet:
I read a lot of blogs by women because they tend to look at things differently, and I read a lot of blogs by people with whose opinions I almost always disagree: I don't see much point in reading blogs by people that agree with you. I read a lot of Windows blogs, a lot of Linux blogs, because I like to see what we (Mac users) could be doing better.
You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.
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Posted 23 Jun 2004 at 10:13pm #
Why unsubscribe to a blog that has a slow update frequency? Part of the point of feed readers is that you can keep up with irregularly updated sites. If someone only posts 6 times a year and their posts are interesting, then why unsubscribe?
Posted 23 Jun 2004 at 10:21pm #
I hate when blogs are just a bunch of links without any reason or opinions behind them. If you're going to post something tell us why and what it means to you.
Acctually, I need to start unsubsribing to a few blogs. My list is getting dang long.
Posted 23 Jun 2004 at 11:12pm #
I think that most of my blogs are hardcore mac users (although I'm not sure there are any other kind). I'm not sure if this is because mac users tend to be more vocal about tech issues that I find intriguing or what. As you may have figured out, I'm definitely *not* a mac user.
Probably the main reason is lack of updating, although I'm probably much more forgiving than you are on that issue. That might change over the course of the next couple months as I tend to move more toward technical blogs and away from personal ones. I hope that this mirrors (a little bit) my trend in blogging, as I add my own opinions on software and stuff like that.
The old criteria used to be that I cared about the person who was writing, but the new seems to be more that I care about what they're writing and to heck with the author as a person.
Posted 23 Jun 2004 at 11:14pm #
If I find myself constantly marking a blog read, without reading it, I unsubscribe from the feed.
Also, sometimes a blog is updated too often. Information overload can be a bad thing. Gothamist is a perfect example of this.
Posted 23 Jun 2004 at 11:30pm #
Numbers 1 and 4 in that order. I generally keep with a blog until I notice that I'm not reading it anymore. Either I find that I'm starting to skip over its content because the topics rarely interest me or I'm skipping over it because in my head I've told myself that it updates so seldom that I never read it. Hence: I end up not reading the blog anymore. When I come to that realization, it's gone from my newsreader.
Posted 24 Jun 2004 at 12:20am #
I'm far more likely to unsubscribe because of too high an update frequency (especially when it's memetic filler or 'every single thing I did today') than too low. Luckily, my aggregator doesn't charge me based on the number of feeds I'm subscribed to, and pulling 304s is pretty quick.
Posted 24 Jun 2004 at 5:55am #
I find if the blog is very negative, I unsubscribe. When it is funny, and that is subjective, I know, and is updated daily, or often, I stick around, even more so when the postings are by a gay guy.
Posted 26 Jun 2004 at 5:29pm #
low update frequency - no sense keeping them around
PF solves this problem nicely I think. 🙂