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Full Vs. Partial RSS Feeds
thewrongadvices.com — According to the FeedBurner blog there appears to be no significant difference in clickthrough rates between full and partial RSS feeds. This is particularly interesting because one of the major arguments for using a partial feed was the assumption that it would drive more readers to your site. But there is still the issue of scrapper sites...
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- zippy757, on 10/12/2007, -15/+1...article says they have the most patents...I thought IBM had the most technology patents globally every year, and has been #1 for many years....
- hardik, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7commented at the wrong place?
- cgomez, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8I have mixed feelings. I dislike sites that don't provide full RSS feeds simply because I'm not always online and like to be able to pull everything into an RSS reader, plus it's just plain easier to read more content than I would otherwise. I really just prefer them to embed advertising. However I can understand a content provider wanting to do a partial to boost advertising, or in the case of say, Daring Fireball, offer a paid option (which I gladly subscribe to).
I'm just thankful RSS has gone as mainstream as it has.- sluggoo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I think it also depends on what one means by "partial." For example, I once set up an RSS feed on a blog that was part of an e-commerce site. The blog itself mostly ran longish pieces (1500-2000 words or so). I set up the RSS feed so that it would include the first couple of paragraphs of the article -- enough to provide a decent amount of content in the feed, but abridged so that an interested reader would have to go to the site to read the rest. But in most cases, I think "partial" translates into one or two sentences, which is admittedly a pain in the ass.
- Anorhc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3In some RSS readers, there usually is an option to load the article on the site itself into the feed. I currently do that with the websites that provide "partial" feeds. In most cases, the partial feeds are only a couple of sentences long (probably 100 characters or so), so that option is a godsend. I use netvibes, in case you want to know.
- sluggoo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I think it also depends on what one means by "partial." For example, I once set up an RSS feed on a blog that was part of an e-commerce site. The blog itself mostly ran longish pieces (1500-2000 words or so). I set up the RSS feed so that it would include the first couple of paragraphs of the article -- enough to provide a decent amount of content in the feed, but abridged so that an interested reader would have to go to the site to read the rest. But in most cases, I think "partial" translates into one or two sentences, which is admittedly a pain in the ass.
- alexforcefive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11My guess would be it's because 90% of all articles on the internet aren't worth reading past the headline.
- anogenic, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1By the way...why don't Digg RSS feeds work anymore on my homepage???
- wazzzup, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5I rarely read partial feeds. I use RSS to save time. If I have to flip between 2 formats (feed & web page) to get your content then I'm not saving time and I quickly move along.
- wazzzup, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8I use RSS to save time. If you only give me part of the information I probably won't waste my time opening a browser window to go to your site. If you just use RSS to get me to go to your website (hear me CNN?) then you don't get RSS.
- grawity, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3partial feeds sux0rz. I hate opening the website just to complete reading the sentence.
- parax, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3Hehe, you said sux0rz. K3wl d3wd!
- bsmang, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1I kinda like partials... Being a bit bandwidth-challenged, I like having lots of headlines to peruse with the information only a click away, and without having to download an assload of content that I'll never look at.
- tommorris, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Another problem with partial feeds is that it requires people to write good headlines. Most often, I actually find the stories I like by skimming rather than reading the headlines. Often, I'll see a headline from a partial feed and click through to find an uninteresting post. I'm more likely to unsubscribe when I click through and find an uninteresting post than if I could have just skimmed the post in my feed reader. Why? Because I'm a mobile Internet user (laptop plus Bluetooth).
- dev3, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0)
If I still have to go to your site, to see your content, it's not simple, It is harder for me. And anyway I have Adblock, so I won't see your ads anyway. - erikjernberg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1A great example of this - is one of my (old) favorite sites for Web design and development inspiration, tactics and techniques - alistapart.com. They publish a partial RSS feed and as a result, I almost never visit anymore. I can't really explain why - but I attribute it partially to the fact that they only display brand new artciles instead of 10-20 like most RSS feeds. There are countless other sites that have fulfilled the need I have, that I can view because I subscribe to the Digg Design and Digg Programming RSS feeds.
I hope someone at alistapart.com reads this article and reconsiders their decision to publish only 2-3 stories to their RSS. If you use something like Firefox live bookmarks, and you're only getting 2-3 list items per RSS feed, you are potentially wasting space in the menu - and wasting time watching the feed. - xJVz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I hate advertisements, but most of all I hate the news and blog (rare though) sites that paginate a short article so that you have to be inundated with tons of animated ads and content squished into 30-character-wide columns. Being able to read the full article in my news reader makes me want to actually read things online since it's presented in the format of my choosing. Perhaps I _like_ to use the full width of my screen to read things. Perhaps I like to have a window that's taller than it is wide. Perhaps I like to read my news in Webdings or at a font size of 48pt (as opposed to the usual 10px used in so many Web 2.0-wannabe sites).
Also, any feed that starts to integrate ads (and any non-relevant pictures) will quickly be deleted from my list of sites to actually read. Are there even enough people out there using feed aggregation that would warrant the infection of advertisements? These aggregator users might also be the main people who email their friends and family about articles which leads to far more page hits than the site would have gotten without a good feed. - crackhead, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I concur...I do not even bother subscribing to partial feeds. The point is to read the content in an app other than my browser. Put all the ads you want in the posts...but if you want my eyeballs you better provide a full feed.
- CommodoreZBT, on 10/31/2007, -1/+0We've got a great write-up about this on our site as well, maybe even a heated debate. My take on it is that a full feed is much more pleasing to the user, and in the end it can only contribute to brand awareness and site loyalty. But dont take my word for it, we've got a bunch of opinions on the subject at www.AskTheAdmin.com
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