My preferred tool is Google Reader (I know, it's another plug, but I just can't help it). It's a great tool for organising the blogs I read into nice categorised streams and accessing them wherever I want (mobile, iGoogle, Reader, even offline). By using feeds and Reader I reckon I have scaled my reading list by a factor of 10. It means I can stay on top of industry news in downtime on the train or get a quick fix of science at my desk and I can't really imagine a world without it.
The benefits of feeds though are not just for consumers. As a blogger I love my feed too. Firstly because having a subscriber choose to add it to their reading list is such a strong endorsement and getting a new subscriber is a great kick. Secondly because I administer it through Feedburner who let me measure anything I could imagine and add all sorts of cool stuff to it.
So I guess it surprises me when blogs I read do things that tell me they don't love their feed. The cardinal amongst these sins IMHO is the dreaded 'preview' feed. Basically this abberation delivers a tiny snippet of the article into your feedreader and tries to get you to click through to the actual blog to read the full thing. Switching to this kind of feed is the fastest way to get yourself unsubscribed from my Blog Roll (and I bet I'm not alone in that). It's the absolute opposite of what I want from feeds. It slows me down. It doesn't work everywhere. It doesn't work offline. If you want people to read your content don't hide it from them!
So I got to thinking 'Why do well respected bloggers (like the chaps over at freakonomics) do such a crazy thing?'
Immediately two things sprang to mind. The first, as is so often the case, is money. You've got a nice website for your blog (like the new home for aBlog) and you've optimised the various ad placements to get a bit of revenue going and tour a happy bunny. All of a sudden you realise that there are a chunk of readers that are not seeing any of your ads. All those people on your feed are 'eyeballa' that you could monetise, if only they'd visit your site. So you switch to the preview feed and make sure all your feeloading subscribers pay for their consumption with their undiverted attention. I'm pretty sure this is the conversation that happened when freakonomics switched their Blog to the NY Times site. With all that expensive display inventory it must have been too tempting.
This is so wrong, I don't know where to start. First off just because there isn't viable monetisation for feeds today (despite some interesting first attempts) doesn't mean to say there won't ever be. Just ask yourself what is more valuable: someone who has sucked your content into their private mailbox through expression of wish and who will also receive every one of your future posts or a fleeting 'impression' of your site? Secondly the freakonomics team are in the business of spreading economic wisdom and selling books, every decision they make should be prefaced by a discussion about whether it could harm their subscuber base. Anyway the main point here is that on any level for a blogger it's subscribers and not impressions that matter.
The second reason for favouring your site over your feed is a little more understandable but, in the end, no less damaging. This reason is that your blog contains all sorts of other information that you want your readers to see. Mine has friendfeed, last.fm, my blogroll etc. And I really want readers to see that too. It's not bling, it's content. Here again the overriding factor should be respect for your readers. Tempting though it is to think that your widgets are important they're getting on fine without them. If it ain't broken...
That said I think there is a big market for the deed aggregator that let's me (and importantly my subscribers) choose what additional content is packaged into my feed. Tumblr are doing something like this by aggrgating various feeds, but it needs more controls publishers and crucially the ability for subscribers to opt in and put of carups elements of someone's feed. At the moment the process for publishers and subscribers alike is too complex. So let's see someone (feedburner?) come in and fix it.
Long old post that - sorry. Sometimes it's just good to get it off your chest.
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