Full Or Partial RSS Feeds - The Great Feed Debate

This week I want to try something a little different and attempta debate here at ProBlogger. The idea is simple - I’ve chosen twopeople who I think have experience around a debated blogging topic toargue the case for either side of it. These two opinions will act asthe first speaker for each side and then I (as the moderator) will handit over to you the ProBlogger readership to act as the 2nd and 3rdspeakers for each side.

The idea isn’t to have a bun fight over the topic but to flesh it out and engage in some good conversation and learning.

The Topic

The topic for this debate is ‘Full or Partial RSS Feeds?’ - it’s a topic I get asked about a lot and which I know there are good arguments for on both sides.

The Speakers

I’ve chosen two speakers for this debate that I think will get a good conversation going. They are:

Arguing for Partial Feeds is Gina Trapani - editor of the famous Lifehacker blog.

Arguing for Full Feeds is Rick Klau - former VP, Publisher Services at FeedBurner and currently in Strategic Partner Development at Google.

I should say before we start that I put Gina in a position of havingto argue for something that she isn’t convinced of herself. Shegenerously agree to participate however.

So without further ado - here’s some thoughts from Gina and Rickto get our discussion going. Feel free to chime in with your thoughtsin comments below - no matter what they might be.

The Argument for Partial Feeds

Gina Trapani - editor at Lifehacker
At Lifehacker.comwe offer a choice of either a full-post feed (with ads) or partialfeeds (no ads.) While giving the reader a choice is a good thing (at the expense of adding an extra step to the subscription process), I can see why a publisher or a reader might prefer less-popular partial feeds.

As a publisher, providing a pull quote in your feed instead of the full post gives you the advantage of seeing which stories your readers are interested enough to click on. A lot of people assume that publishers use partial feeds just for extra on-page ad views, and that may be true in some cases. But back when I published a personal site -and advertisement-free site - I used partial feeds for editorial purposes. The necessary clicks from feed items served as instant reader feedback. You simply can’t do the kind of traffic tracking with fullfeeds than you can do with partial ones.

As a reader, I prefer partial feeds in some cases, especially from news sources who can summarize the point of the article in one sentence. Skimming CNET’s partial post feed, which just includes the story lead, is a lot easier and more efficient than including the entire article.

The Argument for Full Feeds

Rick Klau - former VP, Publisher Services at FeedBurner and currently in Strategic Partner Development at Google.

More than half a million publishers have burned nearly 900,000 feeds over at www.feedburner.com, so it should come as no surprise how often we are asked which is better: full-text or partial feeds? While there is no single, “right”answer that covers all situations, there are a number of often overlooked angles to consider.

First, I’d like to clear up a few points of confusion. Click throughs alone are an imperfect (if not altogether inaccurate) measure of a reader’s interest in a story. Partial feeds often make it harder, noteasier, for a reader to know whether they’re interested in a story atall. If you just include a sentence or two of a post in a feed, you’re asking the reader to click through to read the rest of the post - when the actual substance of the post is not at all obvious from those firstfew sentences.

Regarding Gina’s statement that “you simply can’t do the kind of traffic tracking with full feeds that you can do with partial ones” - I respect fully disagree. Publishers who use FeedBurner’s feed managementservices can measure both feed item views ( i.e., posts which are readin the aggregator) as well as clickthroughs - giving them an accurate view of both clickthroughs, and more importantly, the clickthroughrate. This is true for both full feeds and partial feeds… and is oftenthe best way to measure how engaged your audience is with your content.It should be noted that in feeds who’ve compared full and partialfeeds, we’ve seen no hard evidence suggesting that partial feeds alone increase the clickthrough rate.

Now for some reasons why full feeds are in a publisher’s (and a reader’s) best interest. I think Mike Masnick at TechDirt hit the nail on the head earlier this week when he posted about this question:

[F]ull text feeds actually … lead to more page views… Full text feedsmakes the reading process much easier. It means it’s that much morelikely that someone reads the full piece and actually understandswhat’s being said — which makes it much, much, much more likely thatthey’ll then forward it on to someone else, or blog about itthemselves, or post it to Digg or Reddit or Slashdot or Fark or anyother such thing — and that generates more traffic and interest andpage views from new readers, who we hope subscribe to the RSS feed andbecome regular readers as well. The whole idea is that by making iteasier and easier for anyone to read and fully grasp our content, the more likely they are to spread it via word of mouth, and that tends tolead to much greater adoption than by limiting what we give to ourreaders and begging them to come to our site if they want to read morethan a sentence or two.

As I wrote earlier this yearon our corporate blog, full posts also contain far richer informationwithin the posts - hyperlinks - that can be exploited by services like TechMeme, Technorati, and other RSS-aware services. Those links arevaluable indicators of the relationships between posts - which can yield tremendous context for readers who want to discover related content. Partial posts rob readers (and automated services) of that context, as the hyperlinks themselves aren’t included in the partialposts.

Commercial publishers who distribute feeds often worry about the lack of revenue - they make money on their site and are understandably concerned that they are “giving away” their content through the feed.But it’s possible to monetize your feed directly (through FeedBurner’s feed and blog ad network,among other options) - and if you buy Masnick’s argument above, trafficto your site will actually increase thanks to the fuller feed (whichmeans your site revenue will increase as well!).

Readers clearly prefer full feeds over partial feeds; one need only see the outcry from Freakonomics readers(read the comments) last week when they switched from a full feed to apartial feed to understand that readers value the delivery of information in its entirety, to an environment (their newsreader) they prefer. Certainly there are occasions when a partial feed is required:many commercial publishers have licensing issues that prevent them from including full text in the feed, and in those cases, some content’sbetter than no content. But when it’s better for the readers (who getwhat they want, where they want it), better for the publishers (who can drive more revenue and satisfy their users), and better for the ecosystem (which get more information, which allows them to add more value to their users), it’s my opinion that full feeds are simplybetter.

Have Your Say

OK - Rick and Gina have kicked the conversation off - it’s time to have your say!

Do you use Full Feeds, Partial Feeds - or both? Why?

RSS输出:全文还是摘要——关于Feed的大争议

这个星期我想做一些特别的事情,所以我想在ProBlogger这里发起一场讨论.想法很简单--我已经邀请了两位嘉宾来讨论这个话题,他们对于这个问题有丰富的经验.他们的观点将成为辩论双方最初的论据,而我作为主席稍后将把话语权交给你们,ProBlogger的读者们将成为各方第二或第三个辩手.

我们的本意不是发起一场正式的辩论,而是抛砖引玉,使这个话题更加丰富.

话题

这场讨论的题目是"RSS输出:全文还是摘要?"--我被很多次地问到过这个问题,而我觉得两种各有利弊.

发言人

我为这场讨论选择了两个发言人,相信他们之间会有一次非常精彩的对话.他们是:

"应该输出摘要"观点支持者是Gina Trapani--著名的Lifehacker博客的编辑.

"应该输出全文"观点支持者是Rick Klua--FeedBurner前任出版部副社长,现在Google战略合作伙伴发展办公室.

在我们开始之前,我想申明,对于"辩手"这样一个必须与人争论的定位,Gina感到不是很适应.她比较倾向于团队合作.

所以不要管稍后更进一步的讨论--这里仅仅是Gina和Rick的一些想法,它们能够让我们的讨论继续.稍后请你们敞开胸怀,不论你的想法是什么,将你的想法发表到下面的评论区.

关于摘要输出的论据

Gina Trapani --Lifehacker的编辑

在Lifehacker.com我们让订阅者选择全文输出(有广告)或者摘要输出(无广告).让读者来选择是一件好事(虽然这样对于我们的程序会增加额外的步骤),这样我就可以明白为什么发表者(或读者)会更喜欢摘要输出的feeds.

作为一个发表者,在你的feed里提供一个段落而不是全文,这样的好处是可以让你知道哪些文章可以吸引你的读者来点击.大部分读者都会有这样一个假设,那就是发表者使用摘要输出是为了吸引更多的页面广告流量,而在某些情况下的确如此.但是回溯一下,我在做我的个人主页的时候--那是一个无广告网站--我使用摘要输出,这样我就能编辑一些资料.从feedback条目返回的点击量是很必要的,因为它可以作为一个瞬时的读者回馈.这些点击信息甚至可以取得比流量跟踪的全文输还要好的效果.

作为一个读者,在某些情况下我也更喜欢RSS摘要,特别是从新闻源而来的Feed,它可以在一句话里总结新闻的要点.Skimming CNET的摘要输出Feed就仅仅包含一个事件题目,这比起全文更加简捷并且更有效率.

关于全文输出的论据

Rick Klua--FeedBurner前任出版部副社长,现在Google战略合作伙伴发展办公室.

超过50万的发表者在www.feedburner.com爆炸式地发表了大约900,000篇日志,毫不惊奇的,我们经常被问到,全文输出或者摘要输出哪个比较好?我想说这不是一个单纯的问题,"正确"的答案会考虑到所有的情况,有很多经常被忽视掉了的状况是应该考虑的.

首先,我想理清一些使人迷惑的地方.点击链接查看全文的方式对于经常阅读新闻的用户来说是不太理想的.RSS摘要输出经常使文章变得更难懂,更难以获得,对于读者,他完全不知道自己对这个故事是否感兴趣.如果你仅在你的Feed里面摘录一句话或者两句话,那么你也就是在要求读者点击以查看其余的内容--在你这篇文章的前几句话不足以概括全文的时候.

关于Gina的"这些点击信息甚至可以取得比流量跟踪的全文输还要好的效果"言论,我表示反对.发表者使用FeedBurner的Feed管理服务不仅可以像点击条目一样统计Feed条目浏览量(例如在聚合器里被阅读的日志数量)--这可以给他们一个关于点击到达的精确概略,更重要的是,关于点进率的概略.对于全文输出和摘要输出都是如此......并且这也是一个最好的统计你的读者对你文章的赞同情况的方法.需要说明的是,某些人曾在Feed里比较了全文输出和摘要输出的好坏,但我们还没有发现强力的证据以证明摘要输出会增加点进率.

现在我来说明为什么发表者(还有阅读者)会对全文输出更感兴趣.我认为Mike Mansnick在TechDirt的一篇日志中说中了问题的要害:

全文输出...当然会增加一些页面流量...全文输出使得阅读的程序变得更加简单.也就是说,一个读者阅读了全文输出的Feed,然后就会完全明白它说了什么--然后使它更有可能被传递到其他地方,可能是他们自己的blog,可能是Digg或者Reddit或者Fark,也可能是任何可能的地方--那样就会吸引更多的流量和对此感兴趣的人,随之而来的是新读者带来的页面访问量,他们极有可能订阅我们的Feed,也就是说,成为我们的定期读者.RSS全部的想法只是使阅读变得更简单,更简单,让任何人都能阅读并且完整地抓取文章,如果你限制了你给读者的内容,并且卑躬屈膝地请求他们(如果想不只看一两句的话)来自己的页面查看未在摘要中显示的部分,文章就不会口口相传,更难获得公认的好评.

在我今年上半年写团队博客的时候,全文输出的Feed包括更加丰富的信息--超级链接--它能被TechMene,Technorati还有其他这样的Rss-aware服务商利用.这些链接是表明了日志之间关系的符号--它能提供庞大的背景知识,这对于想挖掘文章内容的读者来说很有价值.但是RSS摘要不会包含超级链接,这剥夺了读者(和自动软件)挖掘背景的权利.

具有商业性质的发表者经常担心收入的减少--他们靠自己的页面收入,我们能了解他们不得不为自己从Feed中"流失"的内容而忧虑.但是它也有可能直接提高自己的Feed(通过FeedBurner’s feed and blog ad network,或者其他选择)--而且如果你购买了Mansnick的评论,你页面的流量的增加毫无疑问要感谢全文输出(也就是说你的页面的收入也会增加!).

读者显然会更喜欢提供全文的Feed而不是提供摘要的;只需要看看上周Freakonomics把全文输出Feed转换成摘要输出时读者的抗议(看看那些评论),Freakonomics是想在一种它更喜欢的环境下(他们的newsreader)看看读者如何评定它的整体信息.在一些场合下,摘要输出当然是必要的:许多商业性质的发表者的牌照限制了他们,禁止他们在Feed中提供全文信息,在这些情况下,能提供信息总好过什么也不提供.但是当我们处在这样一个环境:全文输出有利于阅读者(他们各取所需,信息唾手可得),有利于发布者(在取悦用户的同时能获得更多收入),有利于网络信息链(获得更多信息,为用户增加更多价值)......我的观点毫无疑问,全文输出当然更好.


现在该你们了

OK --Rick和Gina已经结束了他们的对话--现在该你说了!

你使用全文输出,还是摘要输出--或者都用呢?为什么?