Why Full Posts in RSS Feeders Don't Make Sense

Umm, I was joking when I said that instead of individual blogs we should all just publish RSS feeds that can be read on Feed Burner, etc. I was being sarcastic. Trying to show that publishing full posts is not the best solution to the information overload that makes it so hard to get through everything we want to read. Here's why I'm anti-full posts in news readers:

* you can't add comments to a post on a feed reader. You have to visit the blog to interact with it and interactivity is a key element of blogging;

* Feed readers are not set up to allow bloggers to differentiate their blogs with graphics or design -- imbuing them with personality;

* it's just plain ridiculous to put posts that are thousands of words long onto a device that is meant to speed up reading. In fact, if bloggers weren't so in love with their own prose and learned to write tight and short, we'd all have a lot more time;

* to people who don't want to read ads in RSS feeds: I hope you're enjoying your trust funds. Some of us are trying to make a living blogging. We are keeping our content free with advertising.

* blogs are just a content management system. Just like we can't possibly read every book every published, we can't read every blog. Content is still king, and the blogs with the best content are the ones we'll still be reading years from now.

And my bet is that one of two things will happen:
* Someone will come up with a feed reader that let's you read the actual blog in the reader

* 80% of current blogs will die of blog fatigue and we'll just need to read the 20% that are worth reading

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Posted by: Amy Gahran at June 15, 2005 10:14 AM

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