How many blogs one can read in a day? | Hacker News Reader

How many blogs one can read in a day?

I was thinking about writing a post about this since long but somehow never worked out. But I think this place is perfect to ask this question.

How many blogs one can read in a day? Especially when you are a programmer or co-founder of a startup. I have tens of blogs subscribed in my google reader starting from Techcrunch to PsyBlog. It does give me a feeling of knowing it all but how much it is really useful in day to day life? Does all this time worth spending behind reading them?

Whats your opinion? How much time do you spend everyday to read blogs and how many you are able to read in a day?

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I've got 99 subscriptions in Google Reader right now, but over 1000+ stories unread. I'd say half are from sites that post 30+ items a day. These I won't necessarily read but instead will just skim the titles for key interest words.

The rest, I'll eventually skim through and read maybe 30% of, but over the span of a few days.

With Hacker News though, on a good day, there's potentially 30+ great posts that I'll try to read throughout the day (the headlines of course go through my interest scan filter), from many blogs that I don't subscribe too.

I'd say I do the Google reader thing for about an hour daily, and reading Hacker News stuff another 1 or 2 easily.

Thats good number and good amount of time in a day you spend for reading. But how useful those 30+ posts blogs are? I unsubscribed mashable because of the same reason and I don't think I am missing anything.

It's hard to say, because those 30 vary in topic by the day. I should note that some end up being web comics, or straight up photos and things. Others end up being on topics like Emacs (you can always use more emacs tips, right?), Programming Languages, Usability, Security, new sites/utilities, Photography.

I learn a lot of new things, or at least get pointed to things that I might need to know about some day. I guess I sort of try to be a swiss army knife of knowledge. If you ask me a question, I may have a small tool to help answer, but you'll need a workshop if it's extensive (I normally know where the closest one is though).

I guess I have also developed this kind of ability (swiss army knife) after couple of years of reading habit. Google reader has changed everything :)

Some subscriptions act somewhat as filters for other (possible) subscriptions. I have quite a number of feeds bookmarked; however, I visit only a subset daily, having found over time that they generate or cite the majority of the items I find interesting. Other feeds I touch on somewhat less frequently, when I am in the mood for something different or when an item causes me to "see what they've been up to".

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