To Excerpt or To Full Rss Feed & Publish it Right the First Time
24Jan2008 Filed under: Blogging Author: Brad Huntsman
It just hit me a few moments ago that the few feed subscribers I might have might be getting a less that good version of my posts. It’s not Feedburners fault. And it’s not Wordpress’ fault. It’s mine.
See, when I write my posts, I use a program called BlogJet. It’s a cool little app that sits on my computer and communicates with Wordpress to try to make things easier for me. I don’t like typing on a webpage. It never fails that something happens and everything I’ve typed gets erased. (I know there are other ways around this but someone introduced me to it a while back and I really like it.)
I can write a draft and save it to my computer, gather my links and pictures and come back to it later, then publish the post. But I don’t usually do that. I don’t want to have drafts saved on my computer and there isn’t a way to save drafts online (maybe someday). I write my post, publish it, gather my junk, the edit the post and republish it. It really isn’t as time intensive as it sounds.
But then it hit me. Which version of my post is sent to RSS and Ping. I would bet it is the first published version of the post. So, I thought I would check. I subscribed to my own feed to see what it looked like. Open up Google reader and there I was. Excerpts. I remember clicking this button to make this happen. I had read that it is a good way to get visitors back to your site from their feedreader (there are downsides I know, but that’s another post). The good news here, other than irritated readers who can’t read the whole post, is that the whole post isn’t there to be the wrong version. The reader would have to go to the website where sits the newest version.
So, that is a good thing, but two problems still remain. First, I need to make better use of my initial publishing and make sure it is right so I don’t have this problem down the road. And secondly, what are your thoughts on excerpt versus full RSS feeds. Are you less likely to finish reading the post if you have to click the link to go to the website? Do you simply delete the feed from your list when you find it’s an excerpt?
Please, leave your thoughts in the comments.
3 Responses to “To Excerpt or To Full Rss Feed & Publish it Right the First Time”
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About Lernr
Our lives are overflowing with information. Everywhere we look we are being screamed at by all sorts of media: books , movies, magazines, blogs, podcasts, newspapers, TV shows, and much more.
At some point we have to make a decision about what to do with it all. We have to either turn it off and throw it away, ignoring it all because we can't take anymore. Or we have to sort the wheat from the chaff, figure out what it is telling us, consider what we can learn from it, and implement that practices that can make us better.
Lernr is about that process of learning what we can from different sources and applying it to our lives.
The man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.
~ Mark Twain
Brad Kelly
January 27th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Thanks for mentioning BlogJet, I’ve been thinking about trying an offline tool but hadn’t done the research yet…I assume you’re pretty happy with it overall, I’ll look into it.
I personally send out full feeds rather than excerpts, and prefer to read full feeds, but I think it’s a matter of personal preference…I don’t mind having to click through to some sites.
Brad Huntsman
January 27th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
I started using blogjet early on. I don’t think it is the best. I would probebly be better off just using microsoft word or similar and saving posts, cut and paste and publish. I like blogjet because it takes out those last 3 steps. On larger posts, ones where I’m cooberating, i’m using Google docs. I’m liking that.
I don’t like that I had to pay for it. But I got over that.
I think I will change my feeds shortly. I got thinking more about it. I don’t have any feeds that I read that are excerpts. I don’t read them myself because I personally don’t like it.
Thanks for your comments. I LOVE COMMENTS.
Ben Cook
February 17th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Sorry I’m a bit late to the discussion but I’m a HUGE fan of full feeds. Personally I’m a big believer in let the visitor read the content however they’d like. If it’s in an RSS feed reader and not on the site, so be it. At least they’re reading at all. Plus, if the article is compelling enough, they might very well click through to comment or interact with the rest of the community.