Forgive this nuts-and-bolts post on this Thursday morning, but I wanted to solicit your feedback on a change I’m considering making: switching my RSS feed from showing the whole blog to only showing partial posts.
If you don’t read this blog in Google Reader or another feed reader, check out this incredible GIF of a hilarious cat and have a great day.
If you do read this blog in a feed reader, I’m very curious to know what you think. This impacts you, and I don’t want to mess things up.
Here’s the thing – when I started this blog, I wanted everyone to be able to read it as easily as possible. I didn’t really care if that happened on this blog or on other websites or anywhere possible.
But lately, I feel like the discussion on the blog has become a bit fragmented because so many sites out there are syndicating this blog willy nilly. People don’t always realize the great discussions that are happening in the comments section on the for-real blog because they are reading it in a place that just pulls the blog content and leaves it at that. If people were forced to click through to read the whole post I feel like we could attract even better comments.
I’m also finding this blog pop up on more and more sites where you can get the whole blog… only other people are advertising on the page. So basically you can read the whole blog only someone else is making money on it.
But I don’t want to cramp your style. Would it bother you if I switched to a partial feed and people had to click through to the for-real blog to see the rest? Do you mind if I give it a trial to see what happens?
Let me know what you think. Thanks!
Art: Geometrie & Vermessung & Messstab – Walther Hermann Ryff
Truncated posts in my reader annoy me. Seeing as how I do most of my feed reading at work, my work server has a tendency of blocking some sites. So I couldn't click through if I wanted to. If I can read the post in the reader and I want to comment and the blog happens to be a blocked one I can forward the link to myself and start commenting from another computer. If I can't even read the blog post I just pass it by entirely.
I love ya, Nathan, but going to a partial RSS feed would probably cause me to stop reading your blog. Indeed, I find partial-feed blogs so annoying that I wrote a post about it:
http://www.coffeehousewordsmith.com/2011/04/top-five-reasons-i-quit-reading-your.html
I can't speak for everyone, but I beg you to take pity on those of us who embrace the Google Reader lifestyle. 🙂
-j.
I read in Google reader, and I don't mind if you make the switch.
Personally, my click through rate on partial RSS feeds is pretty poor. However, I can see your frustration and, honestly, would probably click through on your posts. Maybe not on EVERY post, but on those that pique my interest.
Hello, Nathan. I use Google Reader to read your posts, but I do not think it would be bad if you switched to the partial content feeds. I use the feed reader mainly to have a quick look at the numerous feeds and decide which ones I will open in a separate window.
I tend to not click through with partial Rss feeds. Sorry 🙁
I have to be REAL interested from the first four lines to click through, but I do it for some posts. I'd keep your blog in the feed and probably read every other post.
I read via RSS, and I am not a fan of partial feeds. I won't say I'll stop reading for sure, but I'll be much less likely to click through to read the full article. And whenever I realize I've gone a long time without actively reading a feed, I remove it to clear out the clutter in my RSS reader.
So it seems likely I'd stop reading eventually, were the change to occur. 🙁 I understand your reasons, though.
I read in Google Reader. I'm not likely to click through to read whole posts. I am, however, likely to click through for comments when it's a topic I'm particularly interested in. I know which blogs I read have active comments sections, and I keep that in mind when I'm reading.
Auuuggh, please don't. I am significantly less likely to click through on truncated posts. In fact, I can only think of one blog with truncated posts that I will always, without fail, click through to read. There are lots of others that I'm technically subscribed to but effectively don't read, because of the truncation. And there are even more that I unsubscribed from because I got annoyed with them cluttering up my RSS feed when I never read them.
Like Joe, even though I enjoy this blog, if you switch to truncated posts, odds are almost guaranteed that I'm going to stop reading.
I'm not a fan of the partial posts in my Google reader. If I like a post, I'll click through and comment, and I'm much more likely to read an entire post and click through to comment, than click to finish reading a post that may or may not interest me.
I always read by visiting the actual full page, so my vote really shouldn't count.
Well, I don't read through a reader, so no feelings there. But the larger issue concerns me – it bothers me to hear that people are using blog writing without permission.
Do blogs have rights? What about copyright? I always thought that there was an automatic copyright with blogs. Or are blogs considered public domain?
I would love it if someone linked to my blog, or maybe put up a portion or a quote, but it would really bother me if someone lifted my full material and put it on their site without my permission.
In terms of more commenting, this may not work for you, but a regular posting schedule, even once a week, gets readers into a rhythm.
I use Google Reader on my phone and I'm not a huge fan of truncated posts. I try to limit my data usage and set my phone to download the posts before I go about my day. Truncated posts force me to go to the website or skip the post until I get home. Odds are I'll forget about it by then.
Partial feed: BOO!