Nifty, a blog dialogue. It happens every day, and it happened to be happening here as well. Anyway, John tried to point that the recently updated MacMinute RSS feed is actually not the full one. I agree, getting used to the whole RSS feed thing you usually tend to want all of the article's text to be included. However, I can clarify that although I am in charge of the technical aspect of the above mentioned site, I have no control whatsoever on the content. So unless "the management" decides to include full text of the articles in the feed, I cannot do much. ;) You are more than welcome to actually suggest some marketing ideas about monetizing of a complete RSS feed -- maybe that will push this and other sites on the Mac side to implement these feeds. In the end, we all benefit, right? =)
Posted by slava at 06:05 AM
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Slava... I ran MacMinute's feed through the RSS validator and it found a few bad dates... You gotta have GMT I believe (and state that it as such). It's got a whole explanation:
My Mac site (MacMerc.com) has been putting all that you can see on our front page in RSS for a long time (6 months at least) and it's a big draw.
Jon, thanks for letting me know. I've fixed the problem and the feed fully validates now. Woo haw! ;)
Posted by: slava on January 23, 2003 10:22 AMI just wrote about this yesterday: RSS: Spreading the words.
In short, full feeds bring more traffic, not less. What's more, it delights readers who read through a newsreader, which means when they're NOT using the newsreader, they may think of your site as a FIRST destination for information research.
I can, however, see posting an additional headlines/excerpts only feed for people who want that sort of thing (e.g. for bandwidth reasons).
Posted by: Jay on January 23, 2003 10:24 AMMonetization ideas:
Put ads in the RSS feed. (Yikes! Did I just type that!)
Provide More, More, More on the site. Does the site have comments, useful images, related articles, etc.?
Create a feed with more data and less data. Meaning 2 or 3 full items versus 10 or 15 titles only.
That's it...
Posted by: pete on January 23, 2003 1:59 PMI know in my own personal experience that I find title-only RSS feeds to be next to useless, especially when I can go to the front page of their website to see a "intro" to the content, to see if I want to read the whole thing. I unsubscribe to the RSS feeds that don't give me, at least, an idea of what kind of story it is I'm being directed to.
The ability for RSS feeds to contain actual content, not just a title, is what gives the technology such a refreshing feel to it. I don't have to peruse fifty websites to find what I'm looking for. I don't have to "click away" popup ads left and right to find what I am interested in. The day is coming when RSS is as commonplace on the internet as HTML: browsers, clients, servers, etc. Taking away the best part of RSS "for the sake of bandwidth" is just going to cut the legs off of progress.
This, of course, is just my own viewpoint as a user of RSS. If you disagree, please let me know -- I would love to hear another point of view.
Posted by: Nick Rosencrans on January 23, 2003 2:38 PMI suggest anyone that wants the full articles to use the this feed:
http://them.ws/feeds/index.php?feed=macminute
Posted by: Sarah on January 23, 2003 6:24 PMI posted this over at Inluminent [permalink] but I will say it again here.
Two things wrong with that. You're breaking MacMinute's copyright... It doesn't work in NetNews Wire.
Slava, Stan, Larry and company all like to eat, don't steal their content.
MacMinute pays a lot for their server... It's used to serve up news, but more importantly it's used to make money (by selling ads). They give an RSS feed that includes 1 sentence to get you to click through and see an ad.
If you have the whole post, why click through? Now on the other hand, if everyone that used that feed started donating $5 a month to MacMinute, I'm sure their feelings would change quickly.
Over at MacMerc we don't make money... It's a labor of love and a few affiliate programs that don't do a whole lot of good but are still very tempting to use. In our estimates it's cheaper to give full summaries over RSS (less bandwidth), but even then we run a text ad. The text ad is more of an experiment and we hope to soon start turning a profit on the RSS feed. We don't offer extended text via RSS, but we still offer more than most Mac sites.
That screen scraped MacMinute feed is that same thing as if someone started up a rogue TV station that broadcasted NBC but without the ads... It seems logical NBC wouldn't be supportive. Sure it gets the word out about NBC, but it's threatening their business model. TV content producers don't even like Tivo's.
MacMinute is a lot cooler than NBC but I still try to support them (I want them to stay around). I have bought things through their ads and will do so in the future.
I used to run a screen scraper before I talked Stan into getting an RSS feed. Now I use their feed, even though it gives me less.
pete's on the money about RSS feeds, offer more, yet less. Title only feeds are pointless, no doubt about it. Advertise in the feed, advertising from sites we like isn't a big deal.
And if you rely on web advertising to make money you'll be gone in no time.
This is a post I wrote about this a while back: http://them.ws/index.php?fid=304
Posted by: James on January 23, 2003 10:29 PMJames:
How do you think MacMinute makes money? I agree about RSS advertising (we're doing it, and not many are) but advertisers are much more willing to shell out for a much more tried and true form of advertising.
Many sites rely on banner advertising. The big high profile sites died off, but there are lots of sites still living off of ads.
I want a full feed for MM as much as anyone, but I want MM to be around long enough for me to enjoy it :). If you're wondering whether or not it is right, ask. I'm sure Stan would be happy to give you a yes/no.
Posted by: Jon on January 23, 2003 11:43 PM"Make" money or bring in revenue?
It's not a question of right or wrong, from the information given it's right. Until I hear otherwise it's right. As long as people want the content in the way they want it tools will be provided to give it to them.
I don't visit MacMinute, didn't before making the feed, I don't after making the feed and I don't even use the feed. They don't offer anything of value or unique to me. How many Mac news sites must there be?
Posted by: James on January 24, 2003 1:01 AMKeep comments on topic. If a comment is unrelated to this post, it may be removed or moderated.