How often do you post to your blog, friend? Don’t answer. I’ll tell you.

See, I read your blog feeds through Google Reader first, which pulls all your stuff onto one page (along with ESPN, Wired News, etc.) and alerts me immediately of your updates. Google recently added “Trends” to the reader, which tells me this…

The Shelf is the most frequently updated personal blog I read. Summer put up new content 0.8 times per day over the past month (and it was all good too!). I’ve faded to a pace of 0.5 (or a post every other day) over the past month, and I’ve realized how much it meant to me to have my Dad out there reading. Stats for other friends: Al Perry and Steve Conley (0.3), Kirby Waggoner and Sam Clark (0.2), Hannah and Marsha and Josh (0.1). Interestingly, as I line all of you up across the top of my screen in Firefox tabs, I see that six of you are using Blogger and only two use Wordpress.

How many posts is “just right?” There is no clear answer. For the blogs that attempt to put out thought-provoking, longer content, I find that less is more. Christianity Today (a magazine rather than a blog) posts 2.2 stories a day, and I’d guess that I find one worth reading every week or so. Out of Ur, CT’s church leadership blog is down at 0.3, but I read a higher percentage of its posts. 43 Folders (0.5) and Signal vs. Noise (1.2) are two of the most influential tech/design/creativity blogs out there, and they post infrequently - and rarely waste words. On the other hand, Lifehacker (which I link to often) is a deluge of posts (13.9) with one or two ideas a day I wish I had time to explore.

One other thing: I do love the Kara blog from my neighbor girl, but it doesn’t have an RSS feed attached, so Google Reader can’t find it.