Truncated RSS Feeds Kill Conversations and Long Term Traffic: Technology Evangelist

Truncated RSS Feeds Kill Conversations and Long Term Traffic: Technology Evangelist:

I am so tired of truncated RSS feeds.

Why do you continue to work under the assumption that you’re better off forcing people to click through to read blog posts or news stories rather than allowing them to read content within their feed readers?

This is wrong.

Why?

This is something I’ve been grappling with. there are no good answers, either.

Given that at some point you need to monetize your systems, what’s the lesser evil? using a non-full feed (truncated, whatever) to encourage people to click in to where the advertising is, or do put advertising into the feed?

There is a third option, which is neither — but TANSTAAFL. it’s not necessarily a viable option.

So, I want to toss this out. Once you decide you really need to monetize that feed, what’s the way to do it? I personally dislike ads in an RSS feed, but if you do a full feed, you strongly discourage feed readers from clicking through o where the advertising is.

I’m not sure which option I prefer. Or more correctly, dislike least.

thoughts?

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  • Chuqui 3.0.1 Beta

    followup: Truncated RSS Feeds Kill Conversations and Long Term Traffic: Technology Evangelist

    Chuqui 3.0.1 Beta: Truncated RSS Feeds Kill Conversations and Long Term Traffic: Technology Evangelist: So, I want to toss this out. Once you decide you really need to monetize that feed, what’s the way to do it? I personally dislike ads in an RSS feed…

  • http://socialstrategist.com Jay Neely

    I almost always read feeds in bulk, skimming them, and then opening any entries that interest me in a new tab. So publishing a full feed doesn’t necessarily mean people won’t click through to the site.
    The best way to make certain people come to your site is to make certain it offers something more than just your entries and a pretty design.

  • http://seinjunkie.livejournal.com/ Wayne Elgin

    Why is neither “not necessarily viable?” The original article you link to provides a very strong case that it is, in fact, viable and put into practice on a large number of feeds. Sure, nothing’s free, but RSS is very close to it for both parties. You can’t ignore the value of pushing your content (which is your product) and exposing more people to the quality of it, thereby generating more trackbacks. I’m not the only one in the world who is bothered by the arrogance of truncated feeds (Fark is one notable exception) and immediately unsubscribes from them. Lesser of two evils is naturally ads inserted in feeds, but the best for consumer and producer in the long-term is no restrictions on information, as everyone benefits from freely available information.

  • http://jasonekirk.blogspot.com jason kirk

    i GREATLY prefer to see small ads in my reader than have to deal with truncation.

  • Mike

    I do a lot of rading offline (such as on Caltrain or when flying), so partial feeds become a show-stopper. If the whole post is in my reader, I can actually finish postings
    Full feeds give me more control over how I do my reading.

  • http://aqualung.typepad.com/aqualung Ric

    You’re right – it’s a “lesser of two evils” thing, with no perfect answer. My own behaviour: I have removed some feeds from my reader that only publish partial feeds, and refused to subscribe to new feeds from “old friends” because they now use partial feeds. I have stayed subscribed to full feeds that have ads inserted.
    The guy I didn’t follow to a new feed suggested that I could (and I do) ignore the ads – but my objection is not the ads, but the having to click again just to get past the teaser (and it’s even worse when you then have to visit multiple pages to see the whole thing – that’s REALLY crass!). As you can see (I read you via feed), I DO still visit when I feel I have something to contribute to the conversation, or occasionally jsut to remind myself what the site looks like, and check the blogroll and other items of interest. But when you follow more than a couple of blogs, having to click-through starts getting second-hand.