Trimming the feed list

I’ve been making great progress lately on catching up on some of the 1000-odd parenting-related blog posts in my Google Reader. Since it’s become overwhelming, I’ve lowered my standards for unsubscribing. Now, one thing that will cause me to unsubscribe is if I can’t read the entire post in the reader. Unless I see a thrilling series of two-line summaries, I don’t have the time or the inclination to click through.

I see the dilemma. If people don’t click through, they don’t know how many readers they have. They may have a harder time selling advertising. What makes me most likely to keep reading and to click through is to be able to see the whole post, and to be intrigued enough by what is written to want to click through and either leave a comment, or learn more about the author.

What are you standards? What keeps you reading, or convinces you to unsubscribe from a blog?

Parenthood Blogging

Around the time I decided to start a blog on the motherhood experience, I also thought it would be helpful to find some other parenting blogs to read – to see what others are doing and how they are getting through the trials and joys of parenthood. Given the huge numbers of parents out there, I thought it would be easy to find some good stuff. I was wrong.

I have sorted through hundreds of blogs in order to find a couple worth reading regularly. I went to Technorati, looked at the blogs under parenting and copied the top 200 or so. Out of those, I liked only about five of them. And most of the ones I liked were at the bottom of the popularity list.

What I am looking for in a blog?
1. Honest, intelligent and insightful writing
2. Not a laundry list of I did this or child did that
3. A focus on sharing information or experiences rather than a focus on trading links, gaining a larger audience or appealing to the masses.
4. A voice I can trust rather than someone beholden to sponsors

I think it’s number 3 that turned me off of so many of the blogs. Technorati rates blogs by “authority” by counting the number of blogs that link to that particular blog. So in an attempt to get more links, more authority and more readers, blogs find all ways to get people to link to them. Ie. put a link to my blog on your blog and leave a comment and you’ll qualify to win A, B or C. Number 4 often becomes an issue after a blog has reached number 3. Once they have become popular, they are able to attract sponsors and their posts may begin to spend more time advertising than providing quality information.

I also suppose that the more popular a blog becomes, the more the blog owner is pressured to appeal to the masses, which can mean refraining from stating unpopular opinions or fearing to criticize something some of the readers believe in.

Here are the blogs I’ll be checking in at in the near future.

All and Sundry
Ask Moxie
Crunchy Domestic Goddess
Frugal Fu
Her Bad Mother
IzzyMom
Suburban Bliss: Birth Control via the Written Word
Unruly Scrawl
Velveteen Mind

I’d love to find others, especially among the less popular blogs. If you have a favorite, please share.