I have quite a few pet peeves, which isn’t surprising knowing me at all.
I like to make my online time short and sweet, and efficient. I have a slower computer, and links take longer to open. I enjoy reading blogs. I love having a little window into your homes, reading some insights, sharing your joys and sorrows, and being inspired by crafts and other ideas.
I use Bloglines, sometimes Google Reader to be more efficient in reading through what interests me.
But even though there are favorite blogs I love to read, most of the time I don’t, because only a snippet is released to Bloglines, and I have to click to open the blog and read it on the blog.
I KNOW that it gives hits to the blog, and I know there are all sorts of pretty graphics, sidebars, and great info to read, but I just want the post, please. I don’t need all those bells and whistles. It makes my online time doubled, sometimes tripled, waiting for the blogs to load to then read the post. I do visit blogs, but my pattern is usually to click on the blogs that I get to read the entire post so I can leave a comment.
I’ve had to whittle down my list of blogs, because it just wasn’t worthwhile clicking every single entry. I so appreciate the blogs that give me the entire content.
So, pretty please, won’t you consider your readers and allow your whole post to be put into Bloglines and Google Reader? I think you will find you’ll have more regular readers!
October 22, 2008 at 1:27 pm |
:lol: I have the same pet peeve! So the ones that don’t include the whole post aren’t read until I have “free” time. Same thing — I need just to go a few places quickly as my slow computer can’t take too much.
October 22, 2008 at 1:33 pm |
Thank you for saying this – what confuses me is that the same people who make you click through do not normally have ads, so what is to gain from us clicking through?
October 22, 2008 at 1:50 pm |
Sadly, I often neglect some of my favorite blogs because all of the ‘bells and whistles’ not only take forever to load, but sometimes crash. Thanks for inviting bloggers to re-think this decision!
October 22, 2008 at 1:52 pm |
I so agree with you! I rarely click through to read the entire article, but I can’t quite delete the subscription from my feed reader.
If I really want my feed subscribers to come directly to my blog, like to see a new seasonal header, I’ll ask directly.
October 22, 2008 at 4:16 pm |
I’m with you! I often read on my iPod and having to click through is a pain. Even on a “proper” computer it’s a pain.
October 22, 2008 at 5:16 pm |
Me too, me too! Since I have loads of blogs I’m trying to follow and share, I don’t click through unless it looks particularly special. I love full feeds!
Unfortunately I don’t know how to publish a full feed for love2learn.net. It’s kind of an obscure format. I would love to figure out how to do it.
October 22, 2008 at 5:52 pm |
Jenn
I so agree with you, I have deleted most of the blogs off my bloglines that don’t give the full post as I don’t have the time either.
October 22, 2008 at 6:31 pm |
I totally agree.
October 22, 2008 at 10:45 pm |
I understand your point, and prefer full feeds myself, although I do have mine set to short feed…
The reason I set my blogs to short feed, is not to get more hits to the blog, but rather to have more control/knowledge over who (pictures) and what is being looked at. I don’t like knowing that if I have my blog set to full feed, and I choose to delete a particular post, it will remain in all the Google readers of all the current subscribers. (Currently, I can still read blogs that were deleted months ago since I was subscribed before the bloggers deleted them — same with particular posts, on other blogs, that have been removed. I don’t like that.) Personally, that little added security makes me feel a little better about blogging (I am still questioning the safety of it all — especially after the recent attacks on a couple other bloggers), even if it affects the number of readers that I have. This may not make any sense, but this is the reasoning I have for why mine is set to short feed.
I am sorry for the inconvenience… Especially to those of you above that still visit me anyways. Thanks! :)
October 22, 2008 at 10:56 pm |
One more thing… I think it would be different if you knew WHO was subscribing to your blog, but that isn’t possible. If it was all just other Catholic Moms and friends and family, that would be one thing, but there is no way of knowing.
With the Catholic Cuisine blog, its not as big of a deal, but for some reason in my Google Reader that posts were getting quite distorted, and that is one of my own pet peeves, so that is why I changed that one to a short feed.
Ok — I’ll leave you alone now.. For some reason I felt like I needed to defend my case! :)
October 22, 2008 at 11:46 pm |
Couldn’t agree more! Glad I’m not the only one with this pet peeve.
October 23, 2008 at 10:35 am |
It’s very nice to read a full post at Google, but I do understand why others only post snippets. Thanks for bringing this up Jenn :) it’s something to think about!
October 24, 2008 at 9:40 am |
That’s an annoyance I agree, and I want to add this one-music on blogs! I will be reading along and all of a sudden music pops on. Makes me jump and scares the baby every time!
October 26, 2008 at 7:37 pm |
Interesting to read what Jessica posted. I also have a hard time clicking through to the blog. I prefer to read on Bloglines.
October 29, 2008 at 3:14 pm |
oh, this is a pet peeve of mine as well. a friend told me that blog “scrapers” steal content off RSS feeds — basically, they take your content and reproduce it elsewhere, stealing your words & even your images. so i know that’s one reason some choose to only put excerpts in RSS.
but honestly, i have unsubscribed to blogs that do this – it’s just too inconvenient to have to click over.
October 29, 2008 at 8:04 pm |
I do appreciate the comments…I’m glad I’m not alone. Jessice and Lori make some valid points. I do know that even though when you delete something it’s not deleted but cached. The Wayback Machine is a perfect example. It’s just easier to find things for a while on Google Reader or Bloglines. Eventually the deleted blogs will disappear.
October 31, 2008 at 10:35 am |
Well, I hadn’t considered how having music might slow the download time on a blog, so I pulled mine off. I’d been treating it like a little ipod anyway for when our radio was down on the boat – must have tunes!
Regarding the full feed though, I don’t seem to be able to find a way to select full publish at sailblogs, I can change how many posts I want shown in the RSS but I haven’t figured out how to show the full post yet. Does it matter which feed you select when you subscribe on Bloglines? Usually there are three options, I wonder if one is the full post, and the others are samplers?