Too Many Blogs – Too Many Podcasts

When is enough? I was just looking at my Google Reader and then zipped over to iTunes when I noticed some new Podcasts has been published… and then it struck me: how will I ever consume everything that interests me?
When I think about that, I’m reminded of a day, many years ago, when I was in a very large used book store. I was on the second level looking through the poetry section (back then I was a huge fan of Charles Bukowski and Bill Shields – still am). There were tons of authors, books and chap books that I had never heard of. There were even more that I had heard of, but never had the chance to read. It felt like the moldy-stenched store started to spin around me when I suddenly realized that I’ll never get to read everything I should in my lifetime. No chance. Plus, there were tons of published authors with something to say and they all wound up on a shelf in a used book store.
As Blogs and Podcasting take hold and more people start producing content, it seems like as the days roll on, I’m falling even further behind on Blog postings and Podcasts. There’s no way to add more time to a day as more independent producers of content come online. Something has got to give.
The river of news in my Google Reader and smart playlist in iTunes titled, Podcasts, are simply not manageable. I know Steve Rubel over at Micro Persuasion, either deletes all feeds every now and again only to rebuild it based off of what’s important now, or he’ll just hit the “mark all as read” button and start again. Those are both not solutions to the challenge. There are simply too many Blogs and too many Podcasts… and yet, I wonder how many great new people will join the fray in the coming years?
I’ve spoken often about Digital Darwinism. The idea that those who are of relevance will rise to the top (people will subscribe to them) and those that don’t will simply be posting in the wind (lots of words, no readers). I’m hoping that those who are stricken with Blog (or Pod) fade will actually remove their content from the Web. Let’s keep The Tubes clean.
In the meantime, it’s a beautiful Saturday afternoon and instead of raking leaves, I’m raking feeds.