Note: This is a revised version of a previous (and most popular) post titled “Why do bloggers still publish RSS feeds in summary?“
An often overlooked segment of blogging is understanding how you’re readers are receiving your updates. Are the visiting the site, are they receiving updates via email, or are they using an RSS reader? I could write an entire book on subscriber theory, but for the sake of the 400 word limit, let’s focus on a tiny section: the publication of full-text or summary posts through RSS.
If you’re unfamiliar with the topic, full-text RSS is where the post in its entirety is published and there’s usually no need to visit the site in order to read the content. Summary, often also called partial) RSS is typically the first few sentences of the post then an ellipsis, which is designed to persuade the reader to visit the site to read the post.
According to a non-probabilistic poll on zdnet.com (“Reader poll: full-text or summary feeds” pub. Mar. 30, 2008), 81% prefer full-text feeds. Point being, readers of blogs prefer full-text feeds.
To start, I decided to look at the top 100 blogs, according to Technorati, in November 2008 to see how they published their RSS feed. The results are summary = 47, full = 52, unknown = 1.
Since I have to be brief, the results indicate that full-text and summary are very near parity. The 1 unknown was a blog who wrote in a language and manner where I was unable to distinguish how the RSS were being published. These blogs can publish summary RSS feeds, because they have a well-established authority and community.
