Comments on: What Should Go in a Default RSS Feed?

By: Mike Davidson - Presto Chango

Mike Davidson - Presto Chango — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 05:04:01 +0000

[…] after running this poll about a month ago, I’ve decided to include original and shared items in the default RSS feed […]

By: Mike D.

Mike D. — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 19:52:53 +0000

Thanks for the nudge, George. Posted.

By: George

George — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 14:53:35 +0000

Mike

Any thoughts on the new ESPN.com homepage?

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 19:20:18 +0000

Which will be ready first Mike, the house or the blog? HAPPY NEW YEAR!

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 20:19:52 +0000

Is it coincidence that my Live Bookmarks in Firefox stopped working for this site around the time you posted this? It’s an ominous sign if even considering a change makes things stop working!

By: Ted

Ted — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 17:53:08 +0000

Why note provide the following:
– an RSS feed of just your articles
– an RSS feed of just interesting links
– and if people want your Twitter feed, just provide your screenname and they will be able to get your RSS from Twitter.

This way, EVERYONE will be happy.

Those that don’t want to get bombarded with too much news can just select the feeds they want.

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 14:54:29 +0000

I think update frequency (ie. not updating *enough*) is only an issue on websites, not in RSS feeds. For people with more than 10-20 feeds, my favorites are the ones that don’t update very often. The ones that update daily or intra-daily are too much for me to keep up with. I unsubscribe and check back on the site from time to time (I’m sure missing plenty, but that is unavoidable).

I’ve seen at least one site offer a “Best of the week” feed to get around this. Not that I’m suggesting that in this case.

By: PanMan

PanMan — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 14:22:17 +0000

I like what Jeremy Zawodny does: He has 2 feeds, 1 with full articles and one with small links. I’m subscribed to both, but read them at different moments (article mode and link mode are different).
I’d say the main feed shouldn’t include too many updates, but would include all real “articles”, so nr 1, 2 and 3 above.
Currently I read all your posts as I see them, but with too many posts, it would become one of the “Yeah, I should check up on that” feeds.

By: Eric Atkins

Eric Atkins — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 08:33:37 +0000

Full articles. I know how to stalk you elsewhere.

By: Paul Irish

Paul Irish — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 02:20:20 +0000

Out of the 600+ feeds I’m subscribed to, I believe yours is the only one to still remain an excerpt-based feed.
Just like the others, I’m eager to see that changed. :)

By: Mike D.

Mike D. — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 19:24:56 +0000

Adam: Yeah, that was my first instinct too, however: a) From the polls, it seems like the majority of people want to see a little more in the feed, and b) I don’t mind putting a little extra in there as long as it’s not overwhelming or noisy. Very touchy situation though, for sure.

Scott: With regard to the cross-posting thing, hmmmm… that will probably be a bit of an issue in the default feed but I’ll provide options to mitigate it.

Kevin: Thanks. Yeah, I kind of feel the same way about most blogs I read. I read don’t want more than a couple of updates a month.

Mike: Yep, great ideas. I am planning to do all of that.

By: Mike

Mike — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 17:14:55 +0000

What if say... you gave the option to your readers. Instead of having a link to the XML RSS feed at the top, you linked to an RSS options page. There the use can decided how they would like to receive the content from you. Granted that would only take care of NON-subscribers (or non-RSS readers). But, similar to you your post Adding a Subscribe Bar to Your Blog, you can always add a temp bar, only for a few months and only specific to your RSS users, across the top to draw attention to update their feed settings. Again this only solves the problem for those subscribers that read the content on your site instead of a reader. The final solution ... is to update the Feed 'Layout' itself to include a link (again only for a few months) that links to the feed settings page. As for the Settings page itself, the page will have a number of options to either ADD or REMOVE categories, get FULL or PARTIAL articles, and maybe even a small tutorial on the syntax of your RSS URL for the more even more customization. Then again this could be all too much for most users. My folks still have a hard time wrapping their brain around RSS ... they always ask, "Why not use Email?" Frustrates me a bit.

By: Kevin Cannon

Kevin Cannon — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 14:35:09 +0000

I subscribe to your blog because I value your opinion and viewpoint in the articles you write. I don’t know if I’m in the norm, but I’m quite happy to wait a few weeks between articles. I’m not all that interested in links you’d post, though I’m sure they’d be interesting, but it’s the full posts that you post that I really value.

Just make sure to keep that RSS feed whatever you do! :)

By: Tom Q

Tom Q — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 06:15:49 +0000

Another vote here for full RSS feeds.

By: Scott

Scott — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 06:12:10 +0000

I’d want to see everything, except cross posted content. I have this problem with a few people I follow online – I follow them on twitter and I subscribe to their blog, and I’m getting a lot of their content twice. They tweet their blog entries, and they blog their tweets. Neither seem to be fully inclusive though, so to get all of their content, I need to subscribe to both.

I’m subscribed to your construction blog and I follow you on twitter, so I wouldn’t want to see that in your RSS feed. Everything else is fair game IMO.