Site Update
Full Posts In Our RSS Feeds Anyone?
Metalunderground.com has built up a solid subscriber list for its RSS news feed, and now I would like to hear from those users. When I originally set up the RSS feed and self-hosted it, I made it a partial feeds with only a blurb of each post due to bandwidth concerns. Now there's no reason to not post the full articles except for my concern about the overall length of the feed entries and daily digest emails.
I would like to hear if there is there any preference from our readership. Would you like full articles in the RSS feeds or to keep things as they are - partial articles with a link to click to Metalunderground.com to read the full article and comment on it?
If you're totally clueless about what RSS is, here's a blurb from Feedburner (who hosts Metalunderground.com's feed now):
The new method for easily distributing online content is often called a web feed and the technical format that makes it possible is called RSS, which stands for Really Simple Syndication, [or] Rich Site Summary... RSS is based on XML, a widely used standard for textual information exchange between applications on the Internet. RSS feeds can be viewed as plain text files, but they're really designed for computer-to-computer communication.
If you want to browse and subscribe to feeds, you have many choices. Today, there are more than 2,000 different feed reading applications, also known as “news aggregators” (for text, mostly) or “podcatchers” (for podcasts). There are even readers that work exclusively on mobile devices.
If you prefer, you can use an online, web-based service to track and manage feeds. Online services give you the advantage of being able to access your feed updates anywhere you can find a web browser. Also, upgrades and new features are added automatically.
I highly recommend the free online services of Bloglines and Google Reader if you want to try something out quickly.
But now I'd like to hear our current subscribers thoughts on the matter - full feeds or partial feeds? Thanks.
What's Next?
15 Comments on "Full RSS Feeds Anyone?"
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Full feeds definetely. That way I don't have to click through everytime I want to read a full article and if it doesn't interests me i just have to press "J" on Google Reader and i'm on to the next article.
And those who complain that "oh i have to scroll down the entire text" should just learn to use a simple keyboard shortcut or press the usually present "next" button, and most feed readers have one of those things or both.
Founder, owner & programmer
Thanks for the feedback everyone. Even with the small number of responses, I think it's clear that some people like the shorter partial feed. So for the sake of not pissing anyone off, I will keep the current feed the same and plan to roll out a full feed at some point, hopefully in the near future. I have a few things I want to look into on that front.
Supporter
Dude! Buzzed and refigureing out the new mobile settings on this site is an adventure! Hahaha! I think so far so good Deathbringer. The only odd thing is the submit button and the comment box on diffrent pages in a few threads, but it does post. Atleast I can read and comment past 60 now and may even keep my phone net now. I will check it out further and see how this goes. Thank you man! *tosses you a shot of Jack*
Supporter
O.k, so I thought that it was Deathbringer who was messing with the site layout for cell phones, but alas I was wrong. It was my cell phone company Sprint, that did it and then changed everything back to normal. I sorta liked what they did even if it was a tad confuseing at first.
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Fine as it is. Nice not to have too far to scroll down if there are 25 new entries. If i'm interested in a band or a story how hard is it to click through to a page like this?