Elizabeth January 24th, 2008

In this age of RSS, my blog reading is handled almost exclusively by Google Reader. It has become part of my morning routine to read the posts in my “daily reads” group, just as regularly as I check my email. The rest of my subscriptions are categorized by subject, and when time allows I catch up on everything else.

As a result, my feed reader has almost completely replaced my bookmark list. If I come across a blog I really like, I subscribe to the feed so that I never miss an update. If a blog seems interesting, but I’m low on time, I’ll subscribe to the feed and learn about them over time. It’s a great way to figure out which blogs are holding my interest, and which ones have failed to “grab” me over a period of a few weeks.

I imagine that most bloggers would prefer their readers to assess their blogs over time this way, rather than making an 8-second judgment call, or forgetting to go back. That’s why I’m always surprised when I come across a blogger who only provides an excerpt of their posts in an RSS feed.

The truth is, I’ll unsubscribe from blogs who only make excerpts available. My RSS reader gives me the luxury of just moving on to somebody else’s feed, and with so many other blogs to choose from it’s not likely that I’m going to make an exception for yours. It’s not that your blog isn’t worth reading, it’s just a symptom of being oversaturated with blogs that are just as good as yours.

There are only so many hours in the day, and more blogs being written than I can ever hope to read. Unless you’re writing about something spectacular and truly original, I’m probably not going to make an exception for you.

And that means we both miss out.

It’s worth pointing out that I am often clicking through to peoples’ actual sites to read comments, leave comments, or to remind myself of an older post. I’ve heard the argument that RSS readers can slow traffic to your site, but in my experience it works the other way. Forcing people to work harder to read your site won’t attract viewers - especially if they’re not even hooked yet.

I just wanted to provide a description of one person’s RSS reader habits, in the hope that other bloggers will see the merit in making their full posts accessible to subscribers. It is really frustrating to add a potentially great blog to my reader, only to find that I’m restricted to viewing the first 50 words.

I mean, look at my first 50 words. Would they have inspired you to click on a link to “read more” and wait for a new site to load? I wrote it, and I know I wouldn’t have kept reading unless it was already in front of me!

I’d love to hear how other people are using their feed readers, and whether there are some good reasons for RSS excerpts that I may have missed. I’m no expert, so tell me what I’m missing!

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