Intimidated by my RSS Feeder

I used to love my RSS Feeder. I still do, but....

Up until this summer, I was only subscribed to friends' blogs, and a few random blogs I was personally interested in. From my email, I could flip to my Google Reader and it would have a number at the top of unread posts, usually a number between "2" and "7." Few of my friends try to post daily.

Now, however, in an attempt to "get serious" about my latest career goals, and under the duress of many speakers at panels I have attended who all say "read the trades if you want to be serious," I've recently subscribed to multiple feeds from Hollywood Reporter and Variety.

Part of the problem is that when you subscribe to a new feed, it will load a large amount of back-content all at once, and these need to be physically scrolled through in order to be cleared. Then I think--well, as long as I'm scrolling anyhow, I should just skim the headlines. Skimming leads to reading, so I'm not clearing out the backlog as fast as I would like.

My current Google Reader post status: "1000+". They actually use that plus sign--as if to confirm, that if you have over a thousand posts to read, the exact number doesn't matter anymore, you should just be overwhelmed.

For any other wanna-be industry types out there like me, who want to keep up with the information-Joneses but don't want to be crushed under the weight of it, I highly recommend "Film News Briefs." They cull through the other industry news sources and give you the low-down on what they think is interesting. Breezily written and easy to read, when the day comes that I start deleting some of my new feeds, this is one I'll keep.