I’m Done With Partial Content Feeds
Done. No more. If you don’t provide a full content feed, I’m not reading it. That’s it. The only exception might be comics, and that’s only if it’s really good.
Be like Gawker, and put ads in them for all I care. I’m not going to see them, but I’m not going to see them on your site anyways. Or put a link at the bottom of every post, like techcrunch or engadget. I’ll actually see those. I’m not going to click them, and can easily ignore them, but some people might not.
But don’t, just don’t, only provide a partial content feed. It’s been shown that full content feeds have just as many click-throughs as full content feeds, so you’re not gaining anything. In fact, you’re losing some, because I’m not going to read it. The whole offline support of Google Reader doesn’t really work. I guess I could star some to read later when I’m online, but that’s stupid. I want to read stuff when I’m offline with nothing better to do, not star things to read them when I’m online with better things to do.
I tried to subscribe to about 5 blogs yesterday, only to immediately unsubscribe after seeing the horrible […]. If I wanted to go to your blog to read the post, I would just go to your blog in the first place and cut out the middleman.
I also went through to remove all partial content feed that somehow managed to slip through or decided to change, which resulted in about 15 feeds being removed. Like ArsTechnica, most news feeds, and GNUCITIZEN. GNUCITIZEN, not sure why the change of heart with your feed, but it’s a shame, I really liked your blog. If you change it back, I’ll continue reading, but until then, you’re not on my subscription list.
I also removed any sites that force you to go to their site anything else. I’m looking at you digg. Reddit, keep up the good work. I don’t want to have to jump through hoops just to try to get to the content. But digg, you’re pretty much pointless anyways. Going to that site maybe once a week and viewing the top content is more than most people need.
If make the content accessible by your readers, you’ll do better than forcing people to your site. People want the content to come to them how they want it. And if they have their own sites or whatever, they will be more likely to link to you, which then, people will view your site. Or just let search engines do their work. People still use those, and they’ll view your site. But to loyal people who just want to read what you have to say, give what they want. And if someone wants a partial content feed, offer it to them, but don’t remove support for the full content feed.
Posting your comment
Jori | June 27, 2007 @ 10:53 am
I’m totally in agreement with you. The whole point of the content is supposed to be so that the reader can enjoy it, but now it’s more like a lure & bait. If you want to hook the fish, give them what they want! Then they might just visit to see what else your site has to offer every now and again.
pdp | July 2, 2007 @ 10:57 am
As I mentioned on a couple of places, I’ve changed the GNUCITIZEN feed because we needed to conduct a social experiment, which failed. The full-text feed is back again. Cheers!
ah_skeet | July 2, 2007 @ 1:45 pm
Woohoo! Thanks for bring it back. I’ll enjoy reading it again.