"You just need a better RSS reader. Google Reader is fundamentally designed for a world where email was the main method of communication. That's why it has unread items and folders. This is leading to me shamelessly promoting my own service: http://www.rivered.io which treats RSS more like Twitter, and relies on exactly the behaviour you describe of interesting content bubbling up, and doesn't pressure you with an unread item count. RSS is the new RSS." - Jalada