To have full RSS feeds or not? |
Loading ...From day one at this blog we’ve offered full RSS feeds. I don’t think it makes sense to cripple RSS feeds for a blog like this particular one. However, I do see this as an individual blog decision and I might want to use partial feeds for another blog and whether or not I subscribe to most (not all, but most) blog isn’t determined by whether they offer a full or partial RSS feeds. bladam is wondering about whether to keep full RSS feeds or not and could use his reader’s help:
Since I do like people to actually visit my site, however (for both selfish and unselfish reasons) I’m debating on whether to keep the full feed or perhaps just run with the summary feed in a bit.
In my case, anyway, the presence of full feeds (or not) doesn’t impact the number of times I visit a site. How did I go to Adam’s site today? Easy, he left a comment here. I am subscribed to his feed but I’ve gone to his site more because he has left insightful comments here or on other blogs I read, not because of whether he has a full or partial RSS feed. I look for interesting viewpoints and I assume if I see a well thought out comment that the person’s blog is probably going to include more of the same. As long as the headline/title is interesting in a subscribed RSS feed, the chance of me at least looking it over is great. However, if someone tricks me with headlines that don’t match the content, then I’ll be less likely to visit. This is one of those your mileage may vary discussions.
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I don’t read feeds that aren’t full text. If I find a good feed I like, I’ll often email the owner asking for a full text version. Often as not, it’s someone who didn’t know their feed wasn’t full text.
Comment by Jeremy C. Wright — February 16, 2005 @ 5:36 pm PST
I title scan when I go through RSS feeds. If something is off-topic I might not even see the partial feed, let alone the full feed. Once I do click on the title to read the actual content, then it doesn’t matter to me if it’s a paragraph or the full feed. I’ll go to the site to read the remainder. Once I’m on a site, I usually do read through other posts on that same site.
On the flip side, my experience has been that we get more readers (RSS or otherwise) when we offer full feeds. However, we get greater participation / comments when we offer partial feeds. It’s a toss up.
Comment by Lora — February 17, 2005 @ 2:47 am PST