Publishers who don’t understand the medium they’re in
Yes, this is yet another rant directed at everyone who only publish a couple of words of their feeds. Are you really so afraid to get your content stolen? If so, there are others ways! Use the HTTP request fields to filter those! Preventing YOUR readers to read your content wherever they want is not just selfish… it’s stupid.
What lead me to write this is the increasing volume of this kind of feeds I see being submitted to our collection. More and more feeds end up in the ever-so-hated […].
Let’s do an exercise:
- Imagine opening a feed in your mobile device.
- You see an interesting title and you actually want to read it. Even if it requires heavy scrolling. It’s that interesting.
- You start reading it and get even more interested… until you come up to the limit and you have to open a whole different page, which most likely will not be ready for mobile consumption, to read the rest!
See where I’m getting at?
With this in mind, I’m going to start exploring ways of filtering the feeds that do come in. In a first phase, I’ll simply implement mechanisms to let me know when such a feed is submitted. Later on, I expect to deny all incomplete feeds being submitted and actually I’ll even go as far as removing some from our present database.
I know I’m not alone on this:
- Darren Rowse (Problogger)
- 34 reasons why readers unsubscribe from your blog March, 2007
check the 3rd reason
- 34 reasons why readers unsubscribe from your blog March, 2007
- Fred Oliveira (webreakstuff)
- Post full feeds, please. December, 2005
- Full RSS feeds - I was serious the last time, too. September, 2006
I hope this reaches some of those publisher’s ears and if not for me, listen to Darren Rowse. He’s a blogger worth listening to… if you take your readers seriously, that is.