Abbreviated Text in RSS: Do you like it?
Nov 16

Abbreviated Text in RSS: Do you like it?

Question: do any of you subsribe to blogs that don’t publish the entire post in RSS?

USA Today just added Kevin Maney to their new blog lineup. I subscribed, but he just has the first two sentences or something in RSS and you have to click-through for the rest. That explained why he only had two subscribers in Bloglines, I guess. One click of the “unsubscribe” link later, and now he just has one subscriber.

Looking through my feeds, the only one like this is Snopes. That one doesn’t bother me so much, though I can’t tell you why.

by Deane   November 16, 2005 4:54 PM    |   Follow Gadgetopia on Twitter

Comments

by Brad Rhine,   November 16, 2005 5:31 PM  

Yeah, that drives me batty. Give me the full post!

by Hans,   November 16, 2005 6:38 PM  

Sure, doesn't bother me. Then again, I use this technique myself. :-) The idea is that my posts aren't meant to be viewed in RSS readers (or not all of them, anyway). If you want the whole story, you can come to my site. Maybe I'll change that for the next iteration of my weblog, but for now, that's how it is.

by Michel Fortin,   November 16, 2005 7:32 PM  

What I don't like is when text is cut in the middle of a sentence. On my website, RSS feed gives the first paragraph. I haven't got any complain.

by Guillaume,   November 17, 2005 1:44 AM  

No choice ... What I hate even more is the digg style rss: you have to go to the html entry to get the link to the original article.

by Biscuit,   November 17, 2005 6:07 AM  

for some sites, it drives me nuts that they only put in the brief blurb... others it doesn't bother me...

I think it depends on the type of posts, if it's a high volume site and the first few sentences (whatever limit they use, paragraph, words, etc..) give me enough info as to whether I'd be interested in reading the full article. Then it's fine. As long as it takes me directly to the article..

Also gotta agree with Michel Fortin, cutting it off mid-sentence or not giving me enough info (to see if I want to read it), will just prompt me to unsubscribe.

That's my 2p

by Lou,   November 17, 2005 7:13 AM  

Looks like they are using TypePad to host his blog. I agree the random line break is annoying, but I haven't been able to find a TypePad option that allows that to be configured differently - has anyone else? You either syndicate the full post or an XX word excerpt, where XX is the number of words to show for each item. There's no way (that I can see) to make it break at the end of a sentence.

by cmadler,   November 17, 2005 8:54 AM  

Out of 17 blogs to which I subscribe, only 7 give me full text. Maybe I am not subscribing to the correct feeds. Even from this site, I am only getting a link to the new post.

by Deane,   November 17, 2005 9:40 AM  

Even from this site, I am only getting a link to the new post.

You don't get the full text of every single entry in your RSS?

by cmadler,   November 17, 2005 2:50 PM  
You don’t get the full text of every single entry in your RSS?

No. For each new post, I just get the post title and the permalink.

by Deane,   November 17, 2005 3:34 PM  

No. For each new post, I just get the post title and the permalink.

What RSS reader are you using?

by Joe,   November 17, 2005 4:32 PM  

I subscribe to way too many feeds that if they force me to go their site, then they're off my subscription.

by Idris,   November 17, 2005 6:14 PM  

I think they should publish the full post in RSS, and the RSS reader can abbreviate it if necessary.

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