In order to make my life simpler, I am subscribed to most of you through google reader. First because it also allows me to integrate any new interesting writer in the blogroll, second because it allows me to tag and share something particuliarly worth reading you wrote in my worthwile reading section, third because when I have a bit of time at work what is in google reader will (most probably) remain safe from the corporate firewalls.
Which doesn’t stop me from clicking through to comment when I actually have something to say or even bookmarking for later commenting from home (if your site is firewalled).
Unfortunately, some among you are using short feeds instead of full ones. You certainly have your reasons, but if you were to reconsider full ones, I for one would be grateful, as I could read you whenever I have a spare moment. Sometimes your most interesting posts need a longer introduction than what the short feed allows for, and I usually don’t bookmark to click through short feeds which I can’t read at work.
Yes, this is obviously an entirely selfish request. If you were to grant this to me, I wouldn’t beg for a pony for a while. Promised.
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8 Responses to “A plea to my WoW blogging peers”
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I like to see the click-thrus to see my traffic, and where people come from.
RSS readers eliminate that possibility, so I purposefully shorten my feed.
Sorry!
Shortened RSS posts bother me to no end. I’m half tempted to remove these blogs from my RSS reader altogether and not even give these sites traffic.
Reading the web has changed. Bloggers should expect much of their traffic to come from RSS feeds.
I monitor traffic on my blog and never has. Just not something Ive worried about much. I don’t have any RSS feed set up either.
For every blog I read whether its listed or not every single blog I read I actually visit all the sites and do catch up reading to see what I may have missed when I was busy on time. Majority of times I read all my frequent blogs on my IPhone as I can read anywhere and anytime with no worry about blocked corporate firewalls as I do work for one. I know my own sight isn’t blocked so are many the other blogs I usually click their links to read.
I’m not sure if you can view mine but if you can’t do let me know.
Correction my post above which should say ” I don’t monitor traffic to my blog site and never has”.
A bit hard to correct post when doing this on a IPhone.
You have a feed, Galo, courtesy of blogger
@WyldKard:
Sure, and bloggers do expect RSS to play a huge role. But why should we expect people to get to the content without actually taking the 0.3 seconds to click through and visit the entire site?
If you never click through then you never get to see the site design (and some of us, like resto4life & ego have put a tonne of effort in here), or see the extended content we maintain. Also, we never get credit for any google (etc.) ads we may have - which is something that some blogger use to defray the time investment that they have made so that YOU can get useful information.
Your sense of entitlement is beyond baffling…. do you have any clue how much effort writing a blog takes? Unsubscribe from me if you wish for the inconvenience of clicking a single button - be my guest!
(Not directed at you at all Gwaendar - just Wyldkard.)
Personally I like to visit the sites of the blogs I read. Whether its from bookmarked sites or hitting my own links to get to anyone site thats just how I prefer to get there. Thats just me. I dare say I visit on average 30-40 sites daily. Thats my own time taken to visit someone elses blog I enjoy reading and I show them and their blog their respect by hitting various links to get there.
Sometime I read on someone else site and jump from there on that site links to anyone else site I usually frequent. To me it credit that site too for linking tobanyone else. I also enjoy at looking at other people site when I’m there to see if there is anything else around to read I may have missed or a article they have of interest linked to someone else, that adds even more to how I get around the blog community. So its one reason why I never have used RSS, I take the time to get around and I’m just as busy as anyone else or more.
The next time I get to someone else blog you can just about bet I actually took the time to hit a link to get there and that i looked around for more content while I was there to read.
@Karthis
Whether you or other bloggers like it or not, RSS has changed how many people use the web. It is much easier for people to keep an RSS reader open on their computers to read subscribed feeds/sites than to load page after page. Not only is it more time-effective, but it is more bandwidth-friendly, which is very important considering the growth of mobile web browsing (ala this new iPhone craze we have), where downstream data is much slower than the broadband most of us have in our homes. Similarly, non-US audiences often have similar bandwidth issues, as they’re on dial-up and pay by the minute. RSS feeds circumvent these issues, and is a service that most bloggers should use in consideration of their readers.
If your news/blog posts make clear that you maintain static content on your site, it will only convince me to actually go there, usually by following a link in one of your own posts. However, if you’re not including those links in your posts, or referring back to previous things you’ve written, then why do I need to manually load your web site? To earn you potential ad revenue?
I’ve run personal web sites for over a decade. I don’t do it for money, and the time investment can often be significant, especially when it comes to hand-coding things. To argue that RSS feeds deprive sites of ad revenue which defray the costs of content is a shame; if your site is so popular that ad revenue actually pays enough to truly defray your time, then RSS feeds shouldn’t bother you one bit.