Blogging – Full vs Partial RSS Feeds

As a professional blogger (and professional consultant) I like statistics. For my blog, I want stats on who reads what, so that I can better understand my audience and the articles that are most interesting.

One way to do this is by “forcing a click” – not showing the entire article on either the home page or RSS feed, thereby requiring an interested reader to click the “More…” link.

However, blog readers frequently find “More” links very annoying. A recent example is the Freakonomics blog, which changed from “full feeds” to “partial feeds” when it moved onto the New York Times website. Angry comments are coming in hourly. Another popular blog “Techdirt” believes that full feeds not only make readers happy, but lead to increased readership.

Perhaps this is a variation of the Schrodinger’s cat phenomenon: tracking readers affects readership.

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