Best argument against partial feeds yet

December 18, 2005 By

Steve Gillmor gives me a great argument against partial feeds. Heheh.

It’s funny, but I got a bunch of email whines from publishers about full text feeds. Here’s the deal. I’m not gonna be an arrogant a**h**e anymore on this issue. Go ahead and publish partial text if you’d like. But to read the rest of my thoughts on this issue you’ll …

Heheh.

Filed Under: Blog Tips
  • Tankko

    So why is your feed partial?

    I get your feed:

    http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/feed/

    right from you website, and it’s not full text.

    What gives?

  • Tankko

    So why is your feed partial?

    I get your feed:

    http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/feed/

    right from you website, and it’s not full text.

    What gives?

  • http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/ scobleizer

    Tankko: it’s full text if you use the right aggregator. It’s full text in NewsGator, for instance. My feed includes both full and partial text.

    Which aggregator are you using?

  • http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/ scobleizer

    Tankko: it’s full text if you use the right aggregator. It’s full text in NewsGator, for instance. My feed includes both full and partial text.

    Which aggregator are you using?

  • Tankko

    Thunderbird.

    I get everyone else feeds if full-text, why not yours?

  • Tankko

    Thunderbird.

    I get everyone else feeds if full-text, why not yours?

  • http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/ scobleizer

    Tankko: because your aggregator is pulling my partial text feed for some reason. I don’t use Thunderbird, so don’t know what’s up.

  • http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/ scobleizer

    Tankko: because your aggregator is pulling my partial text feed for some reason. I don’t use Thunderbird, so don’t know what’s up.

  • Stephen Owens

    Interestingly your feed appears as partial on live.com, which is one place I look at your feed.

  • Stephen Owens

    Interestingly your feed appears as partial on live.com, which is one place I look at your feed.

  • http://incoherentbabble.com/ Chris Meller

    FeedLounge shows the full text. I wouldn’t read him any other way…

    Go check out the source of that feed link and see for yourself.

  • http://incoherentbabble.com Chris Meller

    FeedLounge shows the full text. I wouldn’t read him any other way…

    Go check out the source of that feed link and see for yourself.

  • bubba

    But Bobby, I’m able to get Zawodny’s full feed on Bloglines…

  • bubba

    But Bobby, I’m able to get Zawodny’s full feed on Bloglines…

  • Paul

    As some one before me said, look at the source of the feed…

    The partial content is in the “Description” section. The full content is in the “Content:Encoded” section.

    If you aren’t seeing the full feed, your Reader is only looking at the “Description” Feild and ignoring the other. If this is the case, you are getting a lot of partial feeds when you could be getting full.

  • Paul

    As some one before me said, look at the source of the feed…

    The partial content is in the “Description” section. The full content is in the “Content:Encoded” section.

    If you aren’t seeing the full feed, your Reader is only looking at the “Description” Feild and ignoring the other. If this is the case, you are getting a lot of partial feeds when you could be getting full.

  • http://weblogs.macromedia.com/jd John Dowdell

    Robert, your example is flawed, because you don’t get to the point in the first section.

    If you’ll use the inverted-pyramid style of journalism, with the summary in the first sentence and expansion in the first paragraph, then people will *want* to know if they want to read more.

    I’m coming more to the feeling that short feeds are better for the reader, ’cause the force the writer to get to the point — to write for the reader’s sake, not just the writer’s sake.

  • http://weblogs.macromedia.com/jd John Dowdell

    Robert, your example is flawed, because you don’t get to the point in the first section.

    If you’ll use the inverted-pyramid style of journalism, with the summary in the first sentence and expansion in the first paragraph, then people will *want* to know if they want to read more.

    I’m coming more to the feeling that short feeds are better for the reader, ’cause the force the writer to get to the point — to write for the reader’s sake, not just the writer’s sake.

  • http://www.bynkii.com/ John C. Welch

    Robert has to do full text feeds, lord knows his writing doesn’t make you want to hit the “more” button.

    But on a handheld, full – text feeds suck.

  • http://www.bynkii.com/ John C. Welch

    Robert has to do full text feeds, lord knows his writing doesn’t make you want to hit the “more” button.

    But on a handheld, full – text feeds suck.

  • Christopher Coulter

    For a Marketing guy, you sure divide people into opposite camps, if you feel strongly enough about said issue, work in some sort of win-win; not playing ‘us vs. them’ polarizing games.

    I know half of Microsoft hates me, but they sure could use me. Tap me when they pull in a that marketing overhaul and get new blood.

  • Christopher Coulter

    For a Marketing guy, you sure divide people into opposite camps, if you feel strongly enough about said issue, work in some sort of win-win; not playing ‘us vs. them’ polarizing games.

    I know half of Microsoft hates me, but they sure could use me. Tap me when they pull in a that marketing overhaul and get new blood.

  • Christopher Coulter

    pull in a 180, that….

    What be with disappearing words and sentences on comments? I get that ever so often, drives me nuts. Well, not as much here as TypePad. Egads. Cached comments sent up, outtages, glitches, postings hours after submit, comments randomly ate up. Ben and Mena sure hatched a monster in TypePad.

  • Christopher Coulter

    pull in a 180, that….

    What be with disappearing words and sentences on comments? I get that ever so often, drives me nuts. Well, not as much here as TypePad. Egads. Cached comments sent up, outtages, glitches, postings hours after submit, comments randomly ate up. Ben and Mena sure hatched a monster in TypePad.

  • http://imeall.blogspot.com/ Conn Ó Muíneacháin

    Robert, what is “”, and why does the full text of your post appear in that element and not in “”? There is no mention of “content:encoded” in the RSS 2.0 spec at http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss

    Obviously some aggregators (such as Bloglines) know what it is, but some don’t. The thing is, I don’t think you can blame the aggregator if the feed is not RSS 2.0 compliant (even though it says rss version=”2.0″ at the top).

    I want to read your full feed – but the mobile aggregator I’m using right now sticks rigidly to the RSS 2.0 spec – and I can’t really blame them for that.

  • http://imeall.blogspot.com Conn Ó Muíneacháin

    Robert, what is “”, and why does the full text of your post appear in that element and not in “”? There is no mention of “content:encoded” in the RSS 2.0 spec at http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss

    Obviously some aggregators (such as Bloglines) know what it is, but some don’t. The thing is, I don’t think you can blame the aggregator if the feed is not RSS 2.0 compliant (even though it says rss version=”2.0″ at the top).

    I want to read your full feed – but the mobile aggregator I’m using right now sticks rigidly to the RSS 2.0 spec – and I can’t really blame them for that.

  • http://imeall.blogspot.com/ Conn Ó Muíneacháin

    [Sorry - I used angle brackets in the comment above and they got parsed out of it. Corrected version below:]

    Robert, what is “content:encoded”, and why does the full text of your post appear in that element and not in “description”? There is no mention of “content:encoded” in the RSS 2.0 spec at http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss

    Obviously some aggregators (such as Bloglines) know what it is, but some don’t. The thing is, I don’t think you can blame the aggregator if the feed is not RSS 2.0 compliant (even though it says rss version=”2.0″ at the top).

    I want to read your full feed – but the mobile aggregator I’m using right now sticks rigidly to the RSS 2.0 spec – and I can’t really blame them for that.

  • http://imeall.blogspot.com Conn Ó Muíneacháin

    [Sorry - I used angle brackets in the comment above and they got parsed out of it. Corrected version below:]

    Robert, what is “content:encoded”, and why does the full text of your post appear in that element and not in “description”? There is no mention of “content:encoded” in the RSS 2.0 spec at http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss

    Obviously some aggregators (such as Bloglines) know what it is, but some don’t. The thing is, I don’t think you can blame the aggregator if the feed is not RSS 2.0 compliant (even though it says rss version=”2.0″ at the top).

    I want to read your full feed – but the mobile aggregator I’m using right now sticks rigidly to the RSS 2.0 spec – and I can’t really blame them for that.

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