Full Article Feeds Vs. Excerpts

January 29th, 2007

BlogsThe headline says it all, but I’m obviously on the side of full articles in blog feeds (usually RSS). I also appreciate other sites and blogs that do the same.

The full feed thing as I see it, is partly a PR move. It’s a good-will gesture on my part, to show that I trust subscribers with my content, and I want them to be efficient, knowing that they’re probably subscribing to tons of RSS feeds like I do and don’t have time to click on every headline to go back to the original site and see if it’s worth reading.

Lastly, there’s the whole issue of openness and the whole Web 2.0 trend of sharing information and encouraging user participation. Just as I have comments active on my site, of which I’ve only deleted the spammy ones.

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  • Full article feed all the way. I was without an internet connection for a week, came back to IE7 and it was so much easier reading some blogs than others!

    Webomatica had around 30 posts with a 'full article feed' and that was fine and easiy readable. Another site with 30 posts had only excerpts which meant I had to go through the sites navigation... that took a while.

    Excerpts haven't bothered me until now and this is/was the first time I'd read feeds in 'feed mode' (just to save time), usually I click to go straight to the website.

    I was considering posting a rant about this yesterday!
  • Hi!
    I agree on your points. More than this I have to say that I hate when the sites gives you only a breadcrumb of the information, because they want some more stats, more direct visits, more ads.
    The key is that through the RSS is hard to pass the adverts, therefore it implies less earning.
    From the other side, when I feel really interested in a post, I like to view it in its environment, the color of the site and the possibility to comment...
    ...pro and con, but definitely a point worth a though! Personally I put the entire content on RSS, just because I think that the reader of my blog would appreciate to read what I write wherever they like!

    Cheers
    PS: of course the loss of earning from Google Ads, in my case, should not be taken seriously :)
  • Cool... I as well use my feed reader on my train ride home (where I have no internet connection) and appreciate reading the full articles that come from various sites. Zigre if you post a rant I'm sure I'll comment on it.

    Carlo, true, the ads don't show up in the feed (although with Feedburner I think you can get this to happen) but that's no big deal I think for most of us since that's not the primary reason why I'm blogging.

    I am thinking helping people read stuff is the primary goal - driving traffic to the site is great but not the number one priority. And I don't want to inadvertently drive readers away by not being open with the content.

    Thanks for visiting and commenting!
  • There's only a few partial feed sites I stick with... actually, lorelle.wordpress.com might be the only one now.

    I had to give up on Nicholas Carr's roughtype because I found myself saving it until last all the time because of the partial feeds.
  • Mike
    Same here...I find that I wouldn't even read some blogs if they switched to excerpts (that nearly happened a few weeks ago).

    For me, a blog has to be really, really good for me to go to the trouble of visiting the site for every article.

    You're right, I think it also shows the goodwill of the author...if the blog author knowingly switches to excerpts, that says something about their character.
  • This is kind of a test, but the full articles in the feed plus the different front page design work in conjunction.
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