I’ve been looking at my Bloglines subscriptions and Furl links to ferrit out the meaning behind the categories I use. It’s led me to question how I really use this content and the effectiveness of these categories I’ve chosen. So, what have I come up with? A big mess and no easy answers…but you knew that!
The thing that jumps out at me is my tendency to use content in a particular order: Bloglines subscriptions, saved Bloglines articles, and then Furled links. Within my Bloglines subscriptions, certain buckets of content always get read first: Topical, Media, Entertaining, and so on. One conclusion is there’s a temporal element missing from these categories.
Bloglines isn’t as flexible as I’d like. Unlike Furl, I can’t put subscriptions into multiple categories. It’s difficult to come up with a scheme that’s consistent and allows for clearly defined placement. Try this: where do I put my subscription to Topix search on Chicago? Does that go into “Topical”, “Chicago”, or “Media”? All three are valid. I would prefer one category, however. I think Bloglines’ interface would get too messy.
My Furled links, as I said, tend to get read last. I only go digging into them if there’s a particular reason — I don’t review the content that I put there with any frequency. It’s the morgue. It’s where content that I’m not quite finished with goes to rest. I would like to use the content that I find and link as a tool for co-workers, other bloggers, etc., though things haven’t evolved that far. My categories need to make sense to me, but I need to keep future use in mind.
I’m no longer sure it makes sense for me to organize these sets of content so they mirror each other. Their use is too different. So, these are the questions I’m left to ponder: Should I pursue a temporal organization of my Bloglines content? Does it make sense to get rid of categories in Bloglines? Should I organize by Bloglines Subscriptions by author/site name? Since I keep Furl content longer and that content isn’t time sensitive, should I use a topic-based organization there? If so, should I develop my own categories or use a defined list or a folks-onomy? Should I get rid of categories all together?
As I’m pondering that last question, I notice that Furl’s interface enforces categories, but they don’t provide any suggestions…I’d like to see how other people categorized links I’m saving. Maybe I should put more energy into del.icio.us since they have RSS feeds to keyword categories. Ahhhh, so much thinking to do. So little time.
I’m going to explore how other people organize their Bloglines subscriptions. But in the meantime, if someone wants to offer their thoughts on the effectiveness of their personal categorization schemes, please let me know! Thanks!!
