B.L. Ochman discussed why full posts in RSS feeds are a bad idea, and since I don’t totally agree with her reasoning, I thought it best to blog about it (and have this entry come up as a full post in our RSS feed.)
Each part of this entry will be relating to a topic of B.L.’s entry, so here we go.
You Can’t Add Comments To A Post in a Feed Reader
Correct. In fact, this is a main reason why I click-through from full-post entries in a weblog’s RSS feed — because I read the entire post in my RSS reader and I liked it so much I wanted to read the comments and/or comment myself. Commenting functionality is not included inside an RSS reader, because an RSS reader simply aggregates XML data in a way that the user wants, nothing more. It doesn’t take the place of an actual weblog, nor was it meant to, and because of that I don’t see the lack of comment functionality helping or hindering weblogs and their full post RSS feeds.
Feed Readers Aren’t Set Up To Allow Blog Design or Branding
Also correct, but this has nothing to do with full posts or excerpts in a weblog’s RSS feed, it just seems to be an argument against using RSS readers in general. If I want to see a weblog’s design and branding, I’ll click-through and read the blog post from within its nice visuals. The technology of RSS allows you to separate the information from its presentation, so allowing presentation to garble up the cleanliness of an XML feed 1) detracts from its purpose, 2) is a step backward for the medium, and 3) is not what XML nor RSS is intended to do.
XML is a data storage medium that lets you abstract the real, useful information from the way its presented. This is the goal of XML. RSS feeds abstract the weblog’s real content from the design, letting the user decide what they want to do with it. Content is king, and aggregation lets the user have the power over their intake of that content.
Posts That Are Really Long Shouldn’t Be In Feeds
I disagree. What’s the difference between reading a long weblog post in my feed reader as opposed to in someone’s weblog? I’m still reading it on a monitor, which doesn’t do much for my eyesight, so it’s not as though there are real, tangible benefits to clicking through and reading it somewhere else. I want my content, and I want to decide what I do with my content. If I feel like reading a long weblog entry in Bloglines instead of on someone’s site, why should they care? I’m still reading their content — and enjoying it, considering that I’m taking the time to read a long weblog entry in the first place — so where’s the big downfall? It’s benefitting me, a user, because I don’t have to lose context within the rest of my feeds and can read the post I want to as I find it, and it’s benefitting the writer because her content is still being enjoyed by her readers.
Now to support the writing of such long, great, original content, I believe that RSS advertising is the future of the medium. And this brings me to B.L.’s next point:
RSS Advertising Lets People Make A Living Writing Great Content
I agree completely, and the fact that some people have the nerve to unsubscribe to feeds that have advertising in them just makes me sick. Do weblog readers think that producing great content happens with a flick of the wrist and 30 seconds of time? No, time is money, and if I take the time to produce some great content on my weblog then it’s my choice to want compensation for it. There’s no such thing as a free lunch, and free content is no exception. Ads in RSS feeds are slowly gaining ground, so expect the next revolution in advertising to be content-based in your aggregator.
We Can’t Read Every Blog
It seems that B.L. is saying that when we come across a full post in our RSS reader, it takes longer to get the jist of the article and therefore we waste more time on articles we don’t want to read. If you think of clicking through to read a full weblog entry as “purchasing it”, then you could also think that feed excerpts are “limited functionality demos”, and full posts in feeds are “full functionality 30-day trials.” I always prefer full-functionality applications when I’m trying them out; I hate being limited just because I haven’t purchased it yet. It’s like trying out a TV but the audio is turned off because that’s a “pay only” feature. If I’m trying to decide whether a post is good enough to read completely, then let me decide on my own. I can scan a weblog entry just as well as anyone else, so a cryptic excerpt just ticks me off.
And B.L. came up with a few bets as well:
Someone Will Come Up With A Feed Reader that Lets You Read The Actual Blog In The Reader
Well my first thought is to say that it’s already been done, and it’s the fantastic technology called bookmarks. You bookmark sites you like to read, and just as often as you check your reader for new content, you can go and check your bookmarked sites to see if they’ve updated. Great solution to a terrible problem.
All sarcasm aside, I don’t really understand what B.L. is getting at. I use Bloglines which lets me see my feeds right inside my browser window, and if I like something enough to read it fully then I just open the link in a new tab and read it when I’m done looking at the rest of my feeds. I can anticipate when a weblog entry is something that I’d like to read in the actual context of where it was written, so in those cases I just read it inside the author’s blog.
80% of Current Blogs Will Die of Fatigue, and We’ll End Up Just Reading The 20% That Are Worth Reading
To agree with this would be to disrespect the authors of blogs I read currently, so I’m inclined to disagree with that statement. The weblogs I read all give different viewpoints on topics I find interesting, and the day I don’t find them interesting I’ll stop subscribing to their feed. I don’t think that 80% of weblogs will simply cease, for when someone without a weblog (or with a weblog that died of fatigue) reads something from the other 20% they wish to comment on, where will this creative outlet go? Well, they’ll start a new weblog, and then the circle continues.
Final Thoughts
RSS and feed aggregation are a way to empower the reader and let them decide what to do with the information presented to them. That’s what XML is, a way to remove data from how it’s presented so you can do with it as you wish. Feed aggregators aren’t anything revolutionary, they’re simply a way to display data that’s in XML format and keep track of which XML files have already been used. If a weblog author, or any site for that matter, publishes their content as an XML feed then they’re relying on people to use that XML feed the way they want to use it. So, why not let them?
About Mike Rundle
Thanks for taking the time to examine my post so closely. I’m flattered.
I guess I didn’t explain my point about 3000 word posts in blogs very well. What I am trying to say is that as a medium, I think blogs are best when the posts are short and concise. A log is a summary – an idea explained in short form. Web blog; blog. Short posts. :>)
BL
Great post, this affirmed my own feelings about exerpts vs full feed. Especially the part about the limited functionality demo.
If a user wants to view the post on the web as opposed to in an RSS Reader, then that’s their choice. Don’t force it on them by not supplying an entire feed.
Also, this post is a very long post, and I would’ve been disappointed if it had been shorter just because “oh, this is a blog… we shouldn’t have such a long post.”
Why should blog posts be short?
Blogs are about content, it shouldn’t matter how long the post is.
There are so many factors that rule into making the decision of providing a full RSS feed or excerpts.
First off, the content being provided may require being “read” by coming to the page, simply because the content is rich. Images, audio and/or video all come to mind. Fully realizing that enclosures exist, I am mainly speaking of the fact that sometimes things need to be presented in a certain way – that may not be possible via a feed reader.
Another thing I can think of, is providing excerpts to drive traffic to a Web site. Thinking that RSS is only used by blogs is asinine. RSS is an XML standard and will eventually branch out to be used in much more than just Web logs. For instance, Apple uses it to distribute their top 10 most popular itunes music store albums. The song title, album name and artist are included in the feed, but going to the itunes music store will give you much more information about the artist and the album. Should one consider that an excerpt?
Thinking that blogs should be short in length is absolutely dumb. I usually respect everyone’s opinion as best I can, but there is no reason that I can think of to keep a blog post of certain length. If you, B.L., are thinking that people will not read a long blog post, not only are you wrong – but most people will not care. Blogs, since we’re talking about them, are journals written by people. Would a journal entry ever be considered too long?
Providing excerpts or full feed is the prerogative of the Web site Author, whether or not the reader chooses to accept that is theirs. Personally I think empowering the reader to choose is a nice option. Typically RSS readers have that option – and so do today’s CMSs.
another reason why long weblog entries in rss feeds are a good thing is that it gives someone on dial-up a something to read while the page is loading. or at least it’s what i do.
I have to wonder which RSS readers you use and have used. Most of what you say seems to be specific to whatever RSS reader it is that you use.
For example, many RSS readers allow you to read the comments on a post directly in the reader, using CommentRSS. I assume your RSS reader doesn’t support this feature. I guess I could go onto every topic you disguss, but I’m gonna have to resist.
Randy – it depends if the weblog you’re reading has a Comments RSS feed. Many blogs don’t, but the ones that do, I usually subscribe to them. Unless your feed reader scrapes weblog entries for comment HTML then I’m not totally sure what you’re talking about.
Many times throughout the entry I mention that I use Bloglines exclusively because I find it the most intuitive. I’ve used David Watanabe’s excellent NewsFire and NetNewsWire in the past, but I like having my feedreader be a page inside my browser.
I personally like full posts. Or, more specifically, I like the *option* to select a full-post feed. Why not give users the choice? It should be trivial (depending on your CMS; it is with Expression Engine).
I use my laptop a lot – and I’m often offline. Full-post RSS feeds let me read my favorite sites offline. Great for the train!
I also like the fact that just reading the feeds is somewhat reductive – it lets me focus on the words (content!!) and not the presentation. It lets me choose a consistent typeface and stylesheet for the act of reading.
When I relaunch my blog this year, I plan on always including a summary paragraph in each post – mostly for search results. But, I can let my users choose which feed – full posts or summaries. Give them the best of both worlds!
And, of course, good writing and concision should be the rule. Some types of content *need* to be short and sweet. Others are for sitting down with your coffee and reading slowly, savoring each word.
Just an idea: offer all three, with the default being a full feed.
It can’t be that hard for the option to be implemented in a blog.
Personally, I like the full thread version, RSS readers (I Just an idea: offer all three, with the default being a full feed.
It can’t be that hard for the option to be implemented in a blog.
Personally, I like the full thread version, RSS readers (I Just an idea: offer all three, with the default being a full feed.
It can’t be that hard for the option to be implemented in a blog.
Personally, I like the full thread version, RSS readers (I Just an idea: offer all three, with the default being a full feed.
It can’t be that hard for the option to be implemented in a blog.
Personally, I like the full thread version, RSS readers (I <3 Safari) surely have the ability to ‘auto-excerpt’ it (only have x words showing), so why not have the full option there.
To me – it’s all about options. Make the ‘general solution’ the most commonly desired, but have on offer the alternatives for those who care.
On a related topic, is there any reason to limit the number of posts that appear in an RSS feed? Do you know of any standards/guidelines on how big is too big?
It seems like some feed generators default to approximately the ten most recent posts. Any thoughts on why this is done?
Hey Ed, I responded to your comment via email.