Posted by Kyle Paice on Mon, Apr 20, 2009 @ 02:33 PM
I'm obsessive about my RSS feeds. I read through them daily, and delete feeds weekly. The fastest way to get an unsubscribe from me is to be a "me-too" blog.
Let me explain. Paul Graham or Rands will write something brilliant. It will change the way I think about a particular subject, or at least make me question my assumptions. Then (within 24 hours) the ripple effect begins. The "me-too" posts pop up all over my "Product Development" folder in Google Reader.
There's never much point in reading these "me too" posts, as they're all the same. A few quick paragraphs that either agree or disagree with the original article. The agreements are all half-assed plagiarizations. The criticisms explain why something is a "FAIL", while adding nothing to the overall conversation. It's reactionary blogging, and we're all getting dumber reading it.
The whole point of my weekly RSS sweep is to delete these "me-too's" before I waste any more of my time on them. I'm confident enough in my analytical ability to stick to reading only primary sources like Graham and Rands. I don't need amateur pundits to tell me what a 300-word blog post REALLY means.
What are other dead giveaways that you're reading a "me-too" blog? Let me know what I've missed in the comments.