On the Scalability of Feeds & Aggregators

“The increase in the number of feeds will leave many users frustrated, as there is a limit to the number feeds one can scan and read. Current numbers suggest that readers can handle  150-200 feeds without too much stress.  But users will want to read more and more as new interesting feeds become available and they run into the limitations of the metaphor of  current aggregator applications. The current central abstract of aggregators is that of a feed, and there is a limit to how many individual feeds one can actually handle. Aggregators will need to find ways in which the users can be subscribed to a select set of feeds because they want to read everything that comes from these feeds, but also subscribe to a much larger set of publishers for which the feed abstraction may not be the right metaphor. Aggregation, fusion and selection at the information item level instead of at the feed level seems to be a first abstractions to investigation. ” [All Things Distributed, via del.icio.us/rss]

I’m seeing this myself, as I’m starting to hit a wall at around 250 feeds. The second generation of aggregators (that should also include more advanced authentication) can’t come fast enough.

I look forward to reading Werner Vogel’s full analysis on this issue, which of course means I have to add his feed to my aggregator. Wait a minute….