Google Reader and all-time read counts

Recently (yesterday?), Google Reader started pushing out all-time read counts via Trends. However, it looks like the count has an upper limit of 300,000 and, somewhat alarmingly, I need to go back just 264 days to reach at least that limit (i.e., Trends says that Since December 7, 2009 you have read a total of 300,000+ items.)

300,000/264 = 1,136 items/day. Every day. Wow. Use that statistic to extrapolate a read count for the last ~eight years’ worth of feed reading and it’s obvious we’re dealing with some scary numbers. I always knew the numbers were large — I’ve forever been a bit of an information nut — but this definitely puts my problem into perspective and compels me to immediately pare down the number of feeds I track.

(Relatedly, had I submitted my stats to Google’s tongue-in-cheek ReaderAdvantage program, I would have been in the top tier with just a few months’ worth of use. (The top tier required only 314,159 lifetime read items.))