Don’t Get Stuck Behind Your Feed Reader
Web April 17th, 2007I would estimate at least half of people who read blogs aren’t experiencing the blogosphere to its fullest. These people sit behind their feed reader which is stocked with hundreds of feeds, and let the news come to them 24/7.
Letting the news arrive to your desktop is the point of a feed-reader, but it breaks the experience of blogging in a form. You don’t get the content in the way the author intended you to - meaning you miss out on the blog design, experience, and the opportunity to get involved in the community aspect of the site within the comments.
I currently have 80 feeds in NewsFire. When I stumble across an article of interest I follow the link through to the blog and read it within my browser. The only exception is sites such as Engadget, TUAW, and Gizmodo. For any other blog I click straight through to the article, reading the content in the way the author intended.
This is something I’d like to see more do, as convenient as it is having content coming straight into your feed reader, there’s something about clicking through and experiencing the content in its original form.
How about you, do you often venture out from behind your feed reader?
April 17th, 2007 at 11:05 pm
You introduce this post with an unsubstantiated guess. Entirely made up. Entierly worthless to everyone. Why include this rubbish in a post? Just cut it out.
April 17th, 2007 at 11:05 pm
PS - I ventured out of my RSS reader to post this comment.
April 17th, 2007 at 11:11 pm
@ anon. LOL. If you ventured out a little more you’d realize there was an “edit comment” feature.
I have to agree, I’m fairly sure everyone does leave their feed reader, but I make sure I don’t for really ugly sites/ad-loaded sites. If there’s something interesting, I’ll click through and comment. This post was fairly pointless, but I guess Glenn needs filler for when he’s on vacation =P
April 17th, 2007 at 11:29 pm
Hmmm - I tend to agree with Glen (but then I would http://myapplestuff.com/rss-feed-changes/)
I certainly found that by ‘only’ receiving and reading stuff in my newsreader I wasn’t browsing though some of the sites that I used to like.
April 17th, 2007 at 11:38 pm
I often do the same as you, clicking straight through.
April 17th, 2007 at 11:41 pm
Yes, I will usually read the first paragraph in my feed reader, and if it sounds interesting I’ll click through.
Lol, what a coincidence, I don’t visit Engadget, TUAW or Gizmodo either. Cluttered with too much advertising.
April 18th, 2007 at 12:03 am
Feed readers often strip the formatting of a post. If it’s something I really want to read, and it’s hard to skim it in the feed, I’ll go to the Web site. From there, I often click to other sites.
April 18th, 2007 at 12:04 am
Well maybe the claim might be unsubstantiated but I think empirical evidence could back Glenn up.
Anyway I venture out everytime I see an interesting link like this ^_^
April 18th, 2007 at 12:07 am
For places like Engadget and TUAW, I just read their articles through NewsFire. Even thought places like FeedBurner are increasing the quality of RSS feeds, you still don’t get the same design from the actual blog. That’s why I usually go to the article in my browser.
April 18th, 2007 at 1:18 am
I get out of my reader as often as possible. Especially for articles by Cameron Moll, John Greuber or Sean Sperte. And of course whenever I comment, which is on virtually all my daily reads.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:46 am
I read everything in the reader unless it’s digg. Or if I know there will be a lot of helpful links surrounding the post, I’ll visit the actual site.
April 18th, 2007 at 5:01 am
I tend to read about 85% of stuff in my reader. Why? Mostly because I skim the majority of posts, as they don’t directly interest or pertain to me. Combine that with the fact that my feed reader strips all ads, and formatting, just leaving the meat of the article means that I focus on content.
With that said, with a simple single keystroke, I can load the page, and comment/look at design/etc. I do that fairly often for things I’m interested in, particularly sites I know have decent design.
I don’t see my RSS reader as preventing me from interacting with the blogostan as a whole. If I’m so inclined, I’ll still comment. And honestly, the majority of blogs I read have such poor design (this one, of course excepted), that I don’t want to see them with full formatting every time.
April 18th, 2007 at 5:08 am
I certainly don’t click through enough… Your post has made me resolve to try to click through more :-).
Right now I click through if I want to comment, but no more. I agree, clicking through is good to get a feel for the blog.
April 18th, 2007 at 5:43 am
Depends. I use the google custom homepage (note: NOT google reader) for my feeds, though I’m testing out Newsfire. I’m having trouble adjusting to Newsfire, though. Google seems to offer me the ability to see many, many posts from various sources at once due in large part to my screen size and its three column layout. And that modularity decreases the amount of time I have to spend sifting through less important or old information and gets me right to the good stuff. And 75% of the time I’m coming from behind my reader, because it’s hard for me to keep my mouth shut and I do so love commenting.
April 18th, 2007 at 5:43 am
As it happens.. newsreaders is a topic on the Screencastsonline forum at the mo - http://screencastsonline.com/forums/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1176689035/0#0
(Wish I had time to look at blog designs but alas I don’t so that’s why I use rss…)
April 18th, 2007 at 6:18 am
I guess that’s the point of an RSS reader… to save you time and “clicks”.
The challenge is for the bloggers, who have to capture the reader’s attention. If I see something that really interest me, I click.
Time is money ;-)
April 18th, 2007 at 7:02 am
I have become to rely on the reader more as I tend to wander too much and it allows me to focus efficently on the stuff most interesting . Several feeds tend to lead me down rabbit holes but they are generally quality rabbit holes. Boing Boing is one.
I use Bloglines for my reader, it has a handy browser button to subscribe. I find I have to clean it out every couple of weeks though. I also quikly scan the feeds and tend to open them in new tabs to read when I can.
As far as how the auhtor intended, the majority of post I read the content is greater than the formatting. With Bloglines, unless the author has worked there feed to do otherwise, I get almost all of the content. I think formating is sort of moot with preconfigured css for post and what not.
April 18th, 2007 at 7:38 am
I don’t use a RSS reader, I just check the blogs / sites I like everyday manually. Although the amount of Blogs I do read isn’t as vast as your 80 Glenn.
I enjoy the excitement of loading up the page, seeing if anything new has changed. Quite sad really.
I haven’t really embraced the whole RSS thing yet. Well except in iTunes, I use RSS for podcasts.
April 18th, 2007 at 10:00 am
If there’s something I want to read, I open it in my browser.
April 18th, 2007 at 10:51 am
I use NetNewsWire which also has a fairly basic built in webkit browser. It allows me to skim feeds for articles that interest me and then easily open up a tab to browse the article and post comments :) Check it out, its pretty seamless.
April 18th, 2007 at 10:53 am
While I can certainly see the point of your… points, I prefer to stay in NewsFire as long as possible. After all, that is the point of RSS. If a blog does ANYTHING to prevent me from using RSS to it’s fullest, I get mad, and might easily ditch it from my list altogether (unless it’s REALLY good). And I think that is a bigger point - working WITH the feed, not against it. Don’t make people click “read more” to see the entire content. Include the FULL article in the feed. Don’t post links to smaller galleries, include the pictures in the feed. Don’t link to movie files, embed flash-video.
I want to READ the entry in my RSS reader, and if I have anything to share (comment for instance), I open the entry in my browser and get involved.
But certainly you have a point. And putting so much work into a design on your site, you don’t want everyone to just read the feed. Still, make the feed as good as possible, and THEN make sure you have something that can’t be incorporated in the feed, to send people to the site.
April 18th, 2007 at 11:10 am
My feed reader provides only headlines, and if I am interested I click on through. If not, I just move on. I guess that makes headlines very important.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
I go straight through for websites with good design. Hopefully readers will do the same on my new site.
April 18th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
All the blogs I read I get via my feed reader — but every post I view I always view it at the authors website. I only use the feed reader to alert me there’s a new post, and to give me a direct link to it.
April 19th, 2007 at 5:10 am
I avoid feed readers. I’d much rather visit the site itself. While readers are convenient, it’s a little boring. Especially for web surfers like me. Who likes seeing the same old boring interface day after day?
May 10th, 2007 at 8:44 pm
I alway read the interessting and long posts in my browser, shorter ones get read directly in NetNewsWire.
Greetings