Post full feeds. Please.

Fred Oliveira on December 27, 2005

Syndicated content Face it, if you care about the feeds you publish, you know you’re doing it for the power-users. And if you’re doing it for the power-users, you understand their lack of time - even though they love your content (because they subscribe!) - for visiting your website everytime you post a new item.

Full RSS feeds are, right after quality content, what keeps me subscribed to a given blog. This isn’t because I don’t respect the author, or care less about what he has to say. But the limited time I have to read feeds usually means I only jump to the website whenever I have something compelling to say (I still believe we need a way to comment and follow-up on stories independently of the original website - here’s a research idea for anyone who wants to think about it), or when I’m really curious about what other people are saying.

Full feeds are not attracting plagiarism to your blog, or allowing people to steal your content (like some people are saying). They’re empowering your readers to take your content anywhere and everywhere. Because above everything else, they love what you write. So, care about your users. Post full feeds. Please.

Link to plagiarism story via this post on Om Malik’s Gigaom.

Comments on this post

Wayne Scott

“I still believe we need a way to comment and follow-up on stories independently of the original website”

Interestingly, I found this page after reading Om Malik’s post and then clicking on my “Google blogger comments” extension in Firefox. It does provide a nice way to see who is talking about a page.

Comment by Wayne Scott — December 27, 2005 @ 12:34 pm

Chris Peters

This is by far the most user-centered thing I’ve heard you say. Thanks Fred.

Comment by Chris Peters — December 30, 2005 @ 9:28 am

Michael Z.

I’m very, very impressed that this sort of work is being done; Web Design is getting stagnant with people using just styled
block-level elements to produce artwork. The incorporation of SVG into sites excites me a lot.
How long do you expect it will take for this sort of technology to be widespread?
Obviously you can only speak about WebKit realistically, but if it’s going to take ten years for IE Win to gain (full) support,
we can’t design with it.
I’m amused by the “Becoming more important” line in the first paragraph. This has been a HUGE problem for years -
ever since HTML-2.0 was introduced to be more of a layout language and less of a markup language. For an example,
you just have to look at this site. sex partners Why is all the text
crammed over on the left side of the page with a big blank space on the right side?
Why is the default font tiny and unreadable? Fortunately most browsers now let you override the latter problem.

Comment by Michael Z. — May 6, 2006 @ 8:23 pm

Webreakstuff » Full RSS feeds - I was serious the last time, too.

[...] Almost a year ago I did a quick post titled “Post full feeds. Please” - and I was serious. At the time (it really wasn’t that long ago but it seems like ages in the internet), about 60% of blogs were full feeds, and the number grew steadily. Now it seems we’re getting back to summaries everywhere (much due to the advent of ads in blogs), and that feels like regressing. Here’s why. [...]

Pingback by Webreakstuff » Full RSS feeds - I was serious the last time, too. — September 26, 2006 @ 5:32 am

Full RSS feeds - I was serious the last time, too. > Archives > Web 2.0 Stores

[...] [...]

Pingback by Full RSS feeds - I was serious the last time, too. > Archives > Web 2.0 Stores — September 26, 2006 @ 6:43 pm

Sten76590

I just don’t have anything to say. Not that it matters. Eh. I’ve just been staying at home doing nothing, but I don’t care. That’s how it is.

Comment by Sten76590 — December 29, 2006 @ 6:52 am

mygirlisgood

Hello!

How do you change the size of your monitor?

By the way, I love that too! Where did you get that at?

Bye, - MyGirl!