Truncated Conversations: Don’t Tease Your…

By on March 2, 2007 in RSS Feeds with 12 Comments

Picture this – You get an important phone call from someone you do business with. They’re excited, something about a new deal:

You: Hi, This is Buddy

Them: Buddy, we’ve just closed on an account and need your services something fierce. It’s with someone you’ve always wanted to work with.

You: Sounds, great.  Tell me more!

Them: If you want to know more, hang up and call me back. <Click>

That friends, is a partial phone call.  A teaser. And it wastes everyone’s time. I don’t know anyone who does it on the phone, and if they did – they probably wouldn’t do much business.

Mark Goren has an open letter to partial feed bloggers, and I agree with his list of reasons why you should offer a full feed. Mark writes:

I use a newsreader for many reasons.

It’s not like I’m using a newsreader for fun. I do have my reasons:

  1. It’s easier for me to follow all my feeds.
  2. It saves me time from visiting all 152 sites that I follow.
  3. It helps me stay organized/on top of things.
  4. It makes it easier to scan posts.
  5. It helps me learn more and become exposed to new information.

Mark offers more proof in his post and even points to a few feeds he’s put on notice that he may unsubscribe soon without full feeds being published (my list is below in a future post).

I’ll add one to Mark’s list if I may

6.  I’m more likely to comment if I’ve read the whole post in my feed aggregator. Why would I comment on a post I don’t read (and I rarely click-through on a partial feed).

Here’s the thing: If you’re offering a partial feed to drive people back to your site, that’s a clear message you care more about you than your reader (and a great big hint that you’re about to try to sell us something). Try to justify partial feeds all you want – my perspective is that partial feeds is a selfish move.

And no…Buddy didn’t return that phone call above.

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  • http://successcreeations.com/ Chris Cree

    This one touches a pet peave of mine, Mike. I do not like partial feeds. I totally agree that partial feeds are all about the writer and not the readers.
    When the version update of WordPress defaulted my own feed to a partial (Grrr!) I ran right out and installed the Full Text Feed plugin so I my feed was full again.

  • http://www.knowhr.com/blog Frank Roche

    Mike, I couldn’t agree more. I like what you say about a partial feeder being more interested in themselves than their readers. And it’s old world thinking…pageviews are not as important as loyal readers in the long run…unless it’s all about selling some piece of junk.
    I’ve been systematically deleting partial feeds from my Google Reader. I just don’t have time…and I think that I’m down now to only a single partial feed…and if the content wasn’t outstanding, it would go too.

  • http://transmissionmarketing.ca Mark Goren

    I like how you build on the point, Mike. Interesting take on how you see a partial feed as being a cue for selfishness – good exclamation point on a very frustrating topic.

  • http://www.netfrontiermarketing.com alex goad

    This makes for an interesting debate. I myself publish a full feed but I have doubts.
    Selfish is a big word to throw forward…
    Publishing a full feed makes is great for spammers to duplicate all your content with little effort.
    And while feedreaders that never come to your site may have some value, might it not be better to lose some of the readers that can’t bother clicking through in order for you to reap the benefits of more visitors on your site?
    Afterall, most blogs are businesses, or aim to be that. Businesses need to be monetized and putting mechanisms for that in place can hardly be referred to as selfish.
    Self-serving perhaps, but what do we do in our daily lives that doesn’t fit that description…

  • http://www.maryschmidt.com Mary Schmidt

    Mike,
    As you may recall, I don’t subscribe to feeds – they’re just too dangerous for a data junkie like me. However, I do agree that a tease – in blog feeds or anything else- can actually drive people away. We don’t have time to follow the breadcrumbs through the forest. When I get emails with teaser headlines, for example, that start out with some complimentary blurbage from somebody whom I’ve never met – I immediately scroll to the end to see what they’re pitching. Then, I discard it. Sure, their subject line was interesting, but…
    If one does do a tease – it should be for something worthwhile, not a hidden (or blatant) sales pitch. Otherwise, you may get people to come on over once or twice, and then they’ll never come back (and take away a negative perception of you and your work.)

  • http://www.converstations.com Mike Sansone

    >Chris – thanks for sharing that plugin with readers who use WordPress.
    >Frank – Only have a few partial feeds myself – but I don’t know why except to know when they update the site. A great headline may get me to click thru. You’re right about pageviews not being as important as they once were – at least not from a blogging view.
    >Mark, appreciate you re-igniting this conversation. Great post!
    >Alex – you make some solid points, and you’re right – if readers won’t bother to click through, they probably aren’t your target audience. Of course, if you want a larger audience…:-)
    On the point about blogs are businesses (or my customers who are business that blog), it’s important that blogging is a conversation station – not a checkout counter. An engaging, conversational blog might end up becoming a compelling marketing tool – if you try to reverse those, I think the outcome will be disappointing. As for stolen content – boomerang your marketing message.
    >Mary – “…a tease should be for something worthwile”… And most of the time when I see a worthwhile tease, the readers know what to expect on the click, right?
    “Data Junkie” I love (fit?)that term.

  • http://www.bikerchicknews.com Janet Green

    Mike, I’ve been reading your site pretty thoroughly over the past week or so and have learned a lot. I disagree, though, that partial feeds are selfish or the sure sign of a sales pitch. As a feed subscriber, I subscribe to feeds for the express purpose of getting the partials, so I don’t have to read through entire articles only to find they’re not of interest. Having to scroll down a page full of entire articles makes that ‘weeding’ process very difficult, especially if it’s been a couple days since I’ve accessed my feed list. I actually find it annoying, uninviting and overwhelming when I click a feed to see a whole slug of full articles reproduced in my reader.
    On the flip side, as a feed provider, I offer a partial feed from my site… and I’m not selling anything! Come to think of it, that’s probably why I offer a partial feed. The site’s strictly for entertainment, and I feel that people should be given the chance to scan updates quickly to determine if they want to take the time to read it all. Finally – far from being more concerned with my traffic than with my readers, I feel that offering the feed is an alternative for people who want to get my updates without sending me their email address. So I’m giving them a secure way to get my updates, AND I’m respecting their time by not making them read through entire entries.

  • http://managetochange.typepad.com ann michael

    Mike -
    I couldn’t agree with you more. I used to offer partial feeds and realized that there was no reason to do it (it was ignorance on my part). I read your blog through a feed and I click through when I want to comment or get the urge to go playing around in your previous entries.
    Ironically since I changed my feed from partial to full, my reader stats (both my page statistics and my feed subscriptions have gone up dramatically).
    To address one of Janet’s concerns, in Google Reader, I can get a full list of all the feeds to which I subscribe in a list by blog with partial text (regardless of what they supply)for those times when I’ve been away a few days. I don’t have to page through full text when there are hundreds of posts I’ve missed. I weed them down there and then go into full text (still in Google Reader). I’m sure other readers have similar features.
    Ann
    PS – I just checked and wouldn’t you know I do not subscribe to ONE partial feed blog!!!

  • http://www.knowhr.com/blog/ Frank Roche

    Janet, I agree with Ann…it’s just a matter of configuring your reader. There’s no reason to have to read the full content of each post…Google Reader, like many feed readers, offers the option of a list view or expanded view. I know that Bloglines has the same.
    I click through to posts that interest me. And partial posts don’t make the list. I have 130+ feeds in my reader, and just this morning I deleted the last partial feed that I had. There are other ways for people to make sure their content isn’t being snagged…but I feel that RSS readers are loyal readers, and I want them to be more satisfied than the occasional drop-in from a Google search.

  • http://www.twitter.com/conniereece Connie Reece

    Kudos, Mike! I recently unsubscribed from two blog syndicates that cover my specific interest but frustrated the heck out of me because of partial feeds: Media 2.0 Workgroup and Social Media Today. The only partial feeds parked in my Google Reader are Shel Holtz (a shel of my former self) and Chris Heuer’s Idea Engine; IMO they’re worth clicking through to read. Everybody else, not so much.

  • http://www.converstations.com Mike Sansone

    > Janet, the beauty of a full feed in a feed aggregator is that each item is a single item. Are you using Bloglines or something? In many aggregators, each item comes in separately – so a full feed would send the whole content of that item (rather than a whole page). While I applaud your care for your readers, is the extra click really saving them time? Are you able to track traffic in your feed? If so, might as well offer full feeds (saving your readers even more time). By the way – love your blog…stay contagious with your voice!
    >Ann, Great suggestion about Google Reader and thanks for adding that to our conversation. Any recognition to whether comments grew after going from partial to full?
    >Frank, Good points. Most readers allow the subscriber to receive a feed how they want…so might as well make it full and give the reader their choice, right?
    >Connie, I too confess I subscribe to two partial feeds – though I rarely click through. I have other blogs ‘bookmarked’ but have you seen my bookmark list? Yikes! Is it spring cleaning yet?:-)

  • http://www.frugalvillage.net Sara Noel

    Mike,
    Thank you. I thought my blog was on full text, but it was defaulting to partial. I use wordpress and didn’t realize it until I was prompted to doublecheck because of what you wrote.
    Thank you Chris for the plugin info too.

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