Followup 2: Truncated RSS Feeds Kill Conversations

Chuqui 3.0.1 Beta: followup: Truncated RSS Feeds Kill Conversations and Long Term Traffic: Technology Evangelist:

The answer seems to be there’s no really good answer, but it seems clear people (at least those that care enough to discuss the issue) would rather see ads in the feeds than truncated feeds.

well, the Freakinomics folks moved to truncated feeds with their move to the times, so we now have a living experiment, if we get real data out of it:

Online Spin » Blog Archive » Freakonomics Sparks Debate Over Partial RSS Feeds:

Not surprisingly, it was Dubner’s recent post announcing the move to the NYTimes that fostered especially vibrant discussion, both congratulatory and protesting. On one hand, many cheered Freakonomics’ upgrade into the esteemed NYTimes stable. However, roughly six hours after Dubner published his announcement, roughly 100 of the 120 comments were in protest of Freaknomics’ move from full to partial RSS subscription feeds, forcing feed subscribers to begin their flow and then abruptly transfer attention to the NYTimes site via a separate browser window!

A sampling of the comments in Dubner’s post underscores the dilemma that online publishers face as they adapt to a more open Web, heightened competition, attention scarcity, savvier readers, rising expectations and RSS syndication:

What I want to know is not how many people complain — but how many people drop the feed. This is complicated by the fact that they swapped sites as part of the transition and that’ll muddle the waters.

But what matters here, and hopefully, after some time the numbers will be made available, is who votes with their wallet. And, frankly, if the people voting with their wallet weren’t generating revenue anyway, or some other kind of positive contribution. It might actually give us some data to go with all of the opinions. Scary thought.

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