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RSS feeds survey
Update 7/26/05: Thanks for the feedback. Since the response was about 50/50, divided between those who favor excerpts and those who favor full posts, we're going to stick with excerpts for now. If Typepad comes up with more options for RSS feeds, maybe we'll offer full posts in the future.
Technical query alert: For those of you reading this via a news reader (most of you?), I'm debating whether to switch our RSS feeds from excerpts to full posts. If you have an opinion, let me know. I set the RSS feeds on "excerpt" originally because we want to encourage people to look at the actual blog... 1, because links to the magazine, back issues, and merchandise are on there....2, because unless people click-through to the blog, we don't get stats on what they're reading... 3, Newsreaders make all feeds look the same and can therefore get disorienting. (I don't know about you all but I often forget which blog I'm looking at when reading my feeds.)
But as a blog reader myself, I find excerpts annoying. Sometimes they don't make sense without the images, and I wonder whether including full posts might encourage people to actually read more. If we did this, though, I'd probably bug you more often to buy stuff from us. I always feel kinda pathetic doing that, but I'm too old to still be working 30 hrs a week for free (15 would be more like it...).
If you care strongly about this, leave a comment or email me at carrie (at) stayfreemagazine.org.
And for those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, I'd strongly recommend trying a newsreader out. Once you start using one, it seems impossible to read things on the web without it. There are a bunch of recommended readers listed here. I use Bloglines myself; it has it's share of problems but at least it's easy.
Posted by Carrie McLaren on 06/30/2005 | Permalink
Comments
However you're doing it now (excerpts, eh?) is great. Gives me enough to know if I should click-thru. Re: RSS readers, may I also recommend the excellent OSX-based NewsFire: http://www.newsfirerss.com/
Posted by: paul | Jun 30, 2005 9:23:10 PM
I'd prefer full text, rather than excerpts, in the feed.
(Also, let me put in a plug for the Sage newsreader extension for Firefox.)
Posted by: Joe | Jun 30, 2005 9:29:25 PM
I'm OK with excerpts. I get enough from my reader display to know if I want to go to the site itself or not.
Posted by: Stephen | Jun 30, 2005 9:41:45 PM
Carrie, I vote full text. I'm going to visit the blog to comment. At least I can say your excerpts are nice and meaty, but still prefer full text.
Posted by: justin | Jun 30, 2005 10:02:33 PM
Stick with the excerpts, imho.
Posted by: Christopher Anderson | Jun 30, 2005 10:27:01 PM
I vote for full text. It's disruptive to keep popping open new windows when using something like Bloglines. If some of the full-text posts point people towards the Web site (features, subs, merchandise, etc.), you'll still get site traffic.
Posted by: LTR | Jun 30, 2005 10:30:26 PM
I read alot of blogs, and it doesn't matter to me either way. (I have 100 feeds in my reader).
The only point that matters is that excerpts are long enough so people understand what a post is about.
Posted by: Simon Pole | Jun 30, 2005 10:42:01 PM
Full posts, please. I read you regularly; full posts mean I might come to the site slightly less often, but not that I will cease to do so.
Posted by: Leigh Witchel | Jun 30, 2005 10:49:20 PM
I don't mind the excerpts, but what does bother me about the rss feeds is that the embedded links don't show up. If there is a way to change that, then make the change. Also, I do prefer the full posts.
Posted by: Erica | Jun 30, 2005 11:55:35 PM
I agree with Simon Pole; excerpts are fine and dandy as long as they're long enough, or structured well enough to understand what a post is about.
Honestly, in a way, I kind of like it when sites have nice excerpts as opposed to full article in the feeds. A nice clean blurb can let me know if I really want to go on to read the article.
As a web developer, I agree with all of your reasons for wanting to keep excerpts, too. They're very valid reasons, and shouldn't be undervalued.
And just to be snide: Anyone who has problems with multiple windows taking away from their surfing experience should consider getting a modern browser that has tabs.
Posted by: andy | Jul 1, 2005 2:00:42 AM
oops... i also meant to say, that I probably end up going to the site 90% of the time, anyway. So.. in a way, my RSS read just kind of serves as means of letting me know that you've put up a new article.
Posted by: andy | Jul 1, 2005 2:02:24 AM
Full text. That's what RSS is all about -- it's more convenient for me to sit at one domain looking at all the sites than it is to click off on every site, filling firefox up with tabs or plodding through sequentially. I don't understand the concept of excerpts -- here's five entry excerpts, I'd like to read three of them, so do I click off on the three -- now I've got three extra tabs to wrangle -- or do I click the main site to load everything in a separate tab and now what was the point of having RSS in the first place again?
And of course there's always the aggravating bit when the excerpt is n words and then the full text is n+~5 words.
Lastly, an excerpt maimed me last year when I was getting off the Name of Your Mass Transit System at Randomly Chosen Station Name. The settlement totally sucked. YMMV.
Posted by: Jimmy Jimson | Jul 1, 2005 3:13:55 AM
yes yes yes, full text. please. i notice how i tend to skim over rss feeds who only offer excerpts. it always slightly pisses me off having to visit the blog to get the goods. it feels like i am being coerct to browser-visit the page. it would be so much easier to just do my all reading in the rss propper instead of having to "earn" the links and images by visiting the website.
from full text rss i can directly visit the websites that get linked to and if i feel like commenting on the blog its still only one click away as well. so me, i don't understand summary. why limit a tool like so? the only argument i accept would be bandwidth.
Posted by: pieceoplastic/jan | Jul 1, 2005 4:49:41 AM
FULL FEEDS!!!
It doesn't piss me off to have to visit the site, I'm just usually using a really slow browser or connection and it takes too long to visit anything, tabs or not.
Plus, it's not always obvious that there is more to the post than the excerpt (unless it cuts off mid-sentence). That applies to all blogs in general, not just stay free!
I just went up and re-read what everyone else said, and realized that I didn't see the rest of your post explaining your reasons. But I think most of your readers know it's worthwhile to pay a visit to things you link to, so you'll still get traffic, non?
Posted by: caitlin | Jul 1, 2005 8:34:41 AM
I vote for Full text feeds.
By the way, you can add a site icon to your feed in order to brand it more.
Posted by: Randem | Jul 1, 2005 8:55:37 AM
Full text, please! It is certainly much more useful for us information junkies.
Posted by: Andrew | Jul 1, 2005 9:06:15 AM
I prefer the excerpts, because then it reminds me to click here to get the comments too. I have seen Live Journal users comment *there* on full-post RSS feeds, forgetting that what they're reading didn't start in LJ.
Posted by: peregrin8 | Jul 1, 2005 9:09:32 AM
+1 on full text also
http://feedburner.com can help you with stats based on the feeds
and this is the internet, you have no control over how i view the data you provide :)
Posted by: peter royal | Jul 1, 2005 11:26:30 AM
Full. Always full. I'd rather be slowed down by full articles than try to assimilate hundreds of excerpts. We're not in that much of a rush, are we? If we are, there's something wrong with the way we're living. Full text for me. I hate bullet points. I hate ads that use slogans instead of information. I'm not a nitwit, for fuck's sake. . .I can read.
Posted by: Tod Brilliant | Jul 1, 2005 12:43:21 PM
Excerpts is fine, since I'm going to go to your blog anyway for reason #3 exactly - I can't read all the blogs in the same newsreader format - too blah. Thanks!
Posted by: Kristin | Jul 1, 2005 2:04:06 PM
I use Sage and I prefer excerpts, because I don't read every article. The excerpts have been well-written, and Sage makes it easy to go to the full text and see what's going on. You deserve the traffic to the site!
Is it possible to provide both feeds? Lifehacker does this, putting ads in the full text version.
Posted by: Jason | Jul 1, 2005 2:14:56 PM
I noticed you just switched to excerpts only. As you said, they're annoying... So why? Just add Feedburner so you can get stats, and switch back to full!
Posted by: Andy Baio | Jul 2, 2005 3:15:02 AM
I prefer full text, just for convenience, but as long as an excerpt is juicy enough for me to get the gist, I can live with it.
And I like bloglines, myself. I fooled around with Awasu, but like having a browser-based RSS reader.
Posted by: Max Roswell | Jul 2, 2005 9:04:49 AM
Full text, please. I'm using NetNewsWire now, just switched from NewsFire.
Posted by: Brizmo | Jul 2, 2005 10:57:58 AM
First, please note that whatever you will use (full news or excerpts), it will be fine to me (and better than NO news at all).
But, 'cause sometimes your news are too local-related for foreign readers, I think I prefer excerpts, for myself.
Izard
Posted by: Izard | Jul 4, 2005 2:36:17 AM
Full text please!
but I understand if you need the site traffic.
so yes, either way, I'll take it however I can get it :-)
Posted by: Kirsten | Jul 5, 2005 12:47:51 PM
I'd love full text...
Posted by: Colin Mutchler | Jul 5, 2005 6:17:14 PM
Please go over to full text! I like to read from Bloglines too, and I find excerpts much too limited to be useful.
Posted by: Iggy Sol | Jul 6, 2005 12:37:33 PM
