When I first started blogging, I used Bloglines as my aggregator, along with millions of other beginner bloggers.

About 6 months ago, after Google bought Blogger, I started using Google Reader, and found it so user-friendly I abandoned Bloglines in a fit of mid-life-crisis fickleness.

With Bloglines, I faithfully kept all my feeds, adding to them, but rarely culling any, tho I don’t think that has anything to do with Bloglines’ structure or format. With Google Reader, however, I soon found myself unsubscribing from feeds that bored me, that didn’t update frequently (in my case, less than twice a month), or that updated too frequently (like 10 or more per day).

My blogroll today is made up of quite different feeds from when I started 6 months ago or so. However, today I noticed one feed that’s still there, or that’s amongst the long-standing survivors.

Why has it survived?

• the writer posts once every few days
• the posts are fairly long, thoughtful and thought-provoking
• the writer covers many topics, but the focus is pretty much singular
• every now and then, the writer includes a blog entry on blogging and/or Internet tools, like a “top-ten pick of the month”
• every blog post includes links to source blogs, articles and other online resources, which makes for a rich reading experience
• the writer demonstrates intellectual honesty, modesty, fairness and a sense of humour
• (tho I don’t think it’s a reason why I remain subscribed to this blogger, because other long-term survivors in my Google Reader include more commercially-toned blogs), the writer is not trumpeting his own service or product (tho he does plug his wife’s business, and also has GoogleAds).

(For the curious, the blog in question is Steve Olson’s blog.