Comments on: Full-Text Feeds are Dead

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 27 May 2005 02:20:50 +0000

another reader gone… just unsubscribed

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 26 May 2005 13:28:39 +0000

As the guy who runs technology updates, I just wanted to say that we have removed xmlmania as a source. We really try and avoid aggregating aggregators for the reason chris pointed out above. It just annoys everyone.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 26 May 2005 05:41:19 +0000

Alrighty then. I'll just hit this little unsubscribe butto

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 25 May 2005 16:33:53 +0000

I give this site 1 week to bring back full feeds or I am gone…I figure I won't be the only one in this camp. I don't have time to fart around digging for a story that is ultimately nothing worth a crap anyways….

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 24 May 2005 21:19:09 +0000

I see it this way. I enjoy reading full-text feeds more than I do partial. I'm more likely to link to full-text. So, ya, you won't have the link problem with partial text. I agree!
-Randy

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 24 May 2005 17:57:55 +0000

You should have asked C.Doctorow about this question in your great interview with him a little while ago. It was obvious that you really admire the guy, I think we can all guess what he'd say about this issue: don't give us a locked up version of your product so obsessed with profit for you and attempts to control the users that you don't trust that all of us end up missing out on our ability to use your product the way we see fit.
I also hate partial feeds and find contextual ads in rss feeds interesting enough with appropriate ratio. Good luck with your psyche after this discussion. I'm sure you're just trying to figure out the best way to do things but obviously many people think you're taking adverts too far.
Marshall Kirkpatrick
http://marshallk.blogspot.com

By: Roger Benningfield

Roger Benningfield — Tue, 24 May 2005 13:55:09 +0000

Chris: A few thoughts…
(1) The problem isn't full-content… the problem is sloppy attribution in poorly designed aggregators. If I subscribe to you using my web aggregator, it will produce a feed that point to you via the rss:link and a text/link credit in the rss:description. So even if a downstream aggregator consumes your content through me, it's still your link that's being passed on, not mine… that pointer-to-a-pointer business is nonsense.
(2) Failing to provide full content isn't just an annoyance… it cuts out a whole lotta options. If you provide full content, I can read your feed on my TiVo, on my cellphone, or my iPod. If you don't, I can't.
(3) I've been back-and-forth on the issue myself, so I'm sympathetic to those struggling with the decisions involved.

By: Jorriss

Jorriss — Tue, 24 May 2005 13:43:39 +0000

I'm with Scoble full-text feeds are the ONLY way to go. It's so inconvenient to load up a browser. Say I can read a full-text post in a minute. If that feed isn't full-text the page has to load, I've got to find the content and then read the post in the format (i.e. handwritten?!?) given. All this will probably take double or triple the time. So you tell me is full-text worth it?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 24 May 2005 05:37:47 +0000

I just put the option to full-text yesterday because I want that the readers read my posting not just coming to my weblog. I will see if the hits will decrease. I do not think so, because as one reader commented: “if it is interesting enough I want to read more of your postings and will come to the weblog to give a comment:.

By: singleton

singleton — Mon, 23 May 2005 22:41:02 +0000

You are not going to like this, but I rarely go to lockergnome because I hate have to scroll two screens to get past all of the google ads to read the body of your post. You've got ads on both sides, why have to go past even more ads. I am only here now because MicroPersuasion (which I do read) linked to you.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 23 May 2005 21:12:05 +0000

All of you who are complaining about ads in blogs (or on websites in general) need to wake up. Advertising is never going away, and you can only ignore it to a point.
What about billboards on your way to work, or TV commercials? Those aren't going away anytime soon, and you already have obviously accepted those forms of advertising.
The point is that you are never going to get something for free. You might get it for free, but it will always be at someone else's expense.

By: cameron conner / desk003

cameron conner / desk003 — Mon, 23 May 2005 17:49:18 +0000

Chris, Chris, Chris. I agree with most of these guys. Partial RSS Feeds SUCK BALLS! I hardly ever check out your site since you switched from full to partial rss feeds, because it's a waste of my time. I'm about to delete every feed that has ads or only has partial entries. You know why? Because there is NO GODDAMN REASON that we should be forced to click twice to see an article, only to have it surrounded by ads. and I'm sure you hate ads… But you still put them on your site. I'll admit, I tried ads on my site. I promptly removed them, because I hate ads on other sites. I'm not in blogging to make money. And I think you have switched to needing to make enough to live to goddamn, I can get rich at this, if I just add 20 more ads to the page, that already has 25!
Chris, you suck. I don't know why I still come here.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 23 May 2005 16:08:02 +0000

I subscribed to your feed a while back, but I almost never actually click through to read anything. Yup -- yet another proponent for full-text feeds.

By: Patrick Ritchie

Patrick Ritchie — Mon, 23 May 2005 13:44:17 +0000

Many others above have said it much better than I ever could, in short: return to full text RSS or lose even more readers.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 23 May 2005 10:50:53 +0000

Frankly, I wish it were year 2000 all over again. The daily Lockergnome was a morning favorite … complete in every way. Screw RSS.