Comments on: An Apology To My RSS Readers – But I Had To Do It. (Updated)

By: Julien

Julien — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 16:17:00 +0000

Also, of you’re worried about duplicate content, Matt Cutts published a video indicating that they use PubSubHubbub as means to detect the freshest content: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LsB19wTt0Q

By: johnbattelle

johnbattelle — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 19:32:00 +0000

I will this weekend!

By: Timothy

Timothy — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 13:16:00 +0000

Please bring back full text

By: Jon

Jon — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 09:09:00 +0000

Simple. On your RSS button, have it redirect to a form. Once people put their email in, they get sent a new RSS feed link. Only people who take the effort to sign up can get the feed. It might help…

By: johnbattelle

johnbattelle — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 15:57:00 +0000

Thanks. When I get a moment I’ll go back to full feed.

By: YK

YK — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 06:36:00 +0000

I’ll put in another vote for full feed – I mainly read through Google Reader, and over the years I’ve found the friction of clicking through for a full article is rather underestimated. It is almost always easier & more satisfying to just skip to another full post, since I have so many blogs to see, so my clickthroughs for abridged posts are in genera abysmally low. It’s far easier to skip to someone else’s full posts, sadly

I’ve been reading your blog for a long time, before I started at Google, during my 6 years there, and still reading now after I left. Was one of the best sites I’ve come across when I was getting into the industry. Thanks for putting out such great content

By: Full text for the win

Full text for the win — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 07:15:00 +0000

I have to say that I’m an occasional reader. I usually skim the full text and decide if I want to commit to the full article. I greatly dislike clicking through because I only get one paragraph to decide whether or not an article is something I want to spend time reading. I have no problem clicking through for content I find interesting, but the decision process is severely limited for truncated posts.

I think the knowledge that one must front-load one’s writing to attract readership also cheapens the writing. Also as other readers have noted, as an advocate of the open web, you have a duty to ‘live by your principles’ in my opinion. I therefore vote for full-text.

Finally I would say that If you do return to full text I will likely click through more often anyway given the level of care I’ve seen you put forth to respond to your readers.
Best wishes

By: johnbattelle

johnbattelle — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 03:14:00 +0000

I think innovation in RSS stopped in like 2008. Alas.
I think I’ll probably go back to full feed.

By: tacanderson

tacanderson — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 00:42:00 +0000

Here’s an idea: I know there are ways to do this, and maybe it’s not worth the effort (I’ll keep reading and clicking either way) but what if there was a way for the RSS subscriptions “relationship” to be more like Facebook and less like Twitter? What is the author had to approve someone to get the full feed? I know you can publish “private” full feeds, sites like NSFWCorp do this but it just seems like there’s a better way to give full access to people you trust vs those who don’t.

Don’t know, just thinking out loud.

By: Merrilee Proffitt

Merrilee Proffitt — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 18:29:00 +0000

Please don’t make me click. I’m lazy and won’t. Especially when I’m on my phone, which is when I do a lot of my feed reading. I’ll probably wind up deleting and missing out on good content. Thank you!