Just a while back, commenter David asked about if Sea Slugs! Anime Blog would ever feature full RSS feeds and images. My response was rather dismal:
In the near future, I would have to say no. I’m open to change, but right now I think it makes it way too easy for feed scrapers to steal the content. Also, I’m against the idea of offering the entire content (especially images) on RSS.
Well, never say never. Full feeds have been enabled in SS!AB. The biggest reason for the change? I finally tried out Google Reader. And you know what? Not getting a full RSS feed totally sucks. It makes you just want to unsubscribe from the feed right away, instead of clicking on the link to read the whole thing. I realized that few people use an RSS reader as a headline aggregator instead of as a reader. Obvious in hindsight, I know.
Once I tried out Google Reader, I realized that I still visit the site, even after I have read the articles. In fact I am more likely to go, because I always know when the site has been updated. Having an RSS reader that worked well made me see the light of how RSS can be useful in getting your site’s content out. As a special bonus, I have even disabled hotlink protection on both Google Reader and Feedburner. Besides, feed scrapers can just download your site’s contents even when you aren’t using a full RSS feed. So enough with the FUD, and embrace the spread of content!
A few other factors came into play. First off, I’ll be honest and say that being able to insert Ads into the RSS played a factor in my decision. It’s a small thing, but it takes away one excuse for not offering the full feed, since you can use Feedvertising to insert ads. Also, nowadays I kinda care less and less about how the site looks. As long as it is easy to navigate, and the site isn’t too ugly overall, I no longer wish to maintain super-customized code through every iteration of Wordpress. So I don’t feel like I am wasting a ton of effort when someone just reads the RSS instead of the full site. Hey, the less you invest, the less your ego gets bruised.
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7 Comments
got choice, you just sold me on the idea of re-enabling full feeds on my blog as well
You know, I don’t understand why someone would want to see a plain/simplified version of the site (although, your site wouldn’t be simplified that much, no offense!) I actually like how your site looks. I do miss Osaka though *sad*
Excellent!
I use Google Reader myself, and it helps a great deal in managing the content I’m interesting in reading (i.e. which articles I’ve read, what’s new, etc). Without RSS, I end up missing more content than not, and without a full feeds the experience is somewhat painful as you noted.
So, thank you for allowing full RSS feeds.
Well, I should also thank you, as your question was the impetus for helping me:
1. Realize that RSS can be very powerful and useful
and
2. Get motivated to look into tools that enhance and monitor RSS feeds, so that I could conquer my fear of the unknown
I always appreciate sites that offer fully-featured RSS, since between news/anime/photography/friends/etc I have something like 60 sites on my watch list, and there’s no way I’m gonna go around loading all those pages. It’s just not efficient.
I used to use Google Reader, but recently switched to Feedreader and have found it much nicer for managing a large number of feeds. Anyway, glad to see you’re on the bandwagon now.
Could you also allow loading images in feed entries?
I unblocked the hotlink protection for Google Reader and Feedburner. Was there a specific online Feed Reader you wanted unblocked?
For desktop Feed Readers, I am not sure what to do, as completely disabling hotlink protection greatly increases our bandwidth. This has actually been a real issue before.
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[...] I don’t remember what our storage limit was before, but it’s 200 Gigs now. The cPanel just shows an infinity sign as the limit… More importantly, somehow our bandwidth limit went from 50 Gigs a month to TWO THOUSAND Gigs a month. It’s not quite Son Goku, but that’s a big increase. With that increase, I’ve decided to turn off hotlink protection and let the forum image stealers do their worst. If their guts and training overwhelm the bandwidth, I’ll renable the protection, but until then, all RSS readers should now be able to download our images! [...]
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