Some time ago I added the “subscribe” option to the right-hand panel to allow people to register for automatic email whenever I posted a new article. (I’ve also checked how easy it is to unsubscribe if you change your mind - and it’s very easy)
Since then I haven’t been paying attention to how many people have subscribed – but I noticed today that the total number of active subscribers has gone over 250, which is quite nice.
If you haven’t noticed the option you might want to think about it:
- benefit – you don’t have to check for new posts;
- drawback – you don’t get any notification of comments on posts – unless you also subscribe to individual posts
Update 31st Aug 2010: Following the comments about RSS feeds, I’ve added a poll to this article to make it easier for people to express an opinion. If you also want to make a comment about which is better, feel free, but if you just want to register a preference it just takes a couple of clicks.
Update 1st Sept 2010: After 24 hours the votes have come in at roughly 2 to 1 in favour of full feeds – so I’ve changed the syndication settings to full feed, showing comment count.
Update 24th November 2010: WordPress keeps adding little details to their product – and I discovered this morning that the latest change is that they can now send email to a blog owner every time someone registers as a new subscriber. This prompted me to check how many subscribers I have – and it’s just gone up to 347. (I’ve decided to tell myself that this is why my viewing stats seem to have dropped off slightly – more people have decided to do the efficient thing by subscribing and then just reading the articles, so they spend less time browsing the blog and following recent comments, and more time doing their job.)
How nice that you mention it, so I have an excuse to rant about it:
I’ve noticed the option. I don’t like it, though. It sits where search boxes usually sit and looks very much like a search box. I’ve repeatedly tried to subscribe using email addresses like “subquery results cache” and “dbms_xplan”. I’m afraid I’ll soon be banned for abusing the subscribe functionality by specifying bogus addresses.
I subscribe via RSS which works decently as notification (full article text in the RSS feed would be even nicer).
Comment by Flado — August 30, 2010 @ 4:47 pm UTC Aug 30,2010 |
Flado,
Fair comment – I’ve made the same mistake myself from time to time when I haven’t been logged in. So I’ve moved the subscribe box to second item down.
The RSS subset was for the benefit of aggregators – when I started to use them I found it very annoying that most posts were full text, when the first couple of lines would allow me to see which ones I wanted to read.
If a few more people send in a comment agreeing with you I’ll change the setting.
Comment by Jonathan Lewis — August 30, 2010 @ 5:29 pm UTC Aug 30,2010 |
Jonathan,
How does the amount of e-mail subscribers compare with the number of subscribers via RSS feed?
I actually prefer only a subset of the text in the RSS feed as well. I dislike having to scroll through pages of text when I want to try and review other entries in my RSS aggregator.
Comment by Centinul — August 30, 2010 @ 6:47 pm UTC Aug 30,2010 |
I use Google Reader for the RSS feed and I’d prefer the full text as well. Another advantage is for those of us who can’t get to wordpress at work (damn smart filters) we don’t have to wait until we get home to read your pearls of wisdom.
Comment by Jeff Hunter — August 30, 2010 @ 7:40 pm UTC Aug 30,2010 |
I also use Google Reader and prefer the full text in the RSS feed.
Comment by Jordan St.Clair — August 30, 2010 @ 7:52 pm UTC Aug 30,2010 |
I’ll also cast my vote for full text in the RSS feed. Works very well in Google Reader.
Comment by Peter Lyons-Lewis — August 30, 2010 @ 7:58 pm UTC Aug 30,2010 |
Another vote for full text in RSS. I’ve seen some sites with both full and partial feeds, giving subscribers a choice. I don’t know if WordPress can do that.
Comment by Joseph — August 30, 2010 @ 8:09 pm UTC Aug 30,2010 |
I also use Google Reader and I like full text in the RSS feed.
Comment by radino — August 30, 2010 @ 9:13 pm UTC Aug 30,2010 |
I go for Google Reader too (and I guess that foils any attempt to determine RSS subscribers by WordPress, since they’ll see Google picking up the RSS feed, but not how many people view it from there). I also follow comments through RSS
Comment by Gary — August 30, 2010 @ 10:38 pm UTC Aug 30,2010 |
+1 for full text, as another GoogleReaderer.
Comment by Jeffrey Kemp — August 31, 2010 @ 3:14 am UTC Aug 31,2010 |
I’m also use google Reader,I want full text too. It’s a benefit to Chinese Oracler, the internet to the world (mostly facebook,twitter,blogspot,wordpress)was blocked by GFW(Great FireWall) in China.
So,if i want to view your posts, I must buy an ssh account to see it.
Comment by jametong — August 31, 2010 @ 5:16 am UTC Aug 31,2010 |
I use feedly as a front-end for Google Reader (it’s much prettier) and I don’t like full text in the RSS. As Gary I also follow comments and they are fully displayed – which I consider as OK.
Comment by Timur Akhmadeev — August 31, 2010 @ 7:49 am UTC Aug 31,2010 |
Timur,
Thanks for the reference to feedly – it looks like an interesting way to acccess blogs, and I can appreciate why a short feed would be the better choice for you. Does it not have an option to display only the first few lines of an item – or is there some other problem with getting full feeds (such as download time) ?
Comment by Jonathan Lewis — August 31, 2010 @ 8:22 am UTC Aug 31,2010 |
>Does it not have an option to display only the first few lines of an item – or is there some other problem with getting full feeds (such as download time) ?
It has a shortcut for Escape to close the article and it’s enough to stop reading a post as soon as you want. I simply get used to read them on a wider screen.
Comment by Timur Akhmadeev — August 31, 2010 @ 9:43 am UTC Aug 31,2010 |
I use a desktop reader called FeedDemon. It seems to me that any reader worth its salt should have some sort of summary view. FeedDemon gives a nice newspaper layout with the first few sentences, and if I’m interested then I click a button to expand the article.
I especially like full articles because that enables me to read articles offline. But some bloggers like summaries because they can better track readers. This isn’t the only blog I read that currently provides only summaries (which I can only read online). I’ll of course keep reading this blog either way.
Comment by Jeremy Schneider — August 31, 2010 @ 7:13 pm UTC Aug 31,2010 |
I do almost all of my blog reading on the mobile phone. Until recently, every click was a literal physical pain (sharp edges on the “joy”stick), not to mention having to wait about a minute for the browser to open and load the original article. I appreciate summaries for news feeds where I only rarely feel an urge to click past the headline, but I’ve read every single article on this blog in its entirety and intend to continue doing so.
I realize that my complaints sound silly to the people behind the Great Firewall for whom this is not just a matter of convenience, so I’ll just shut up.
Comment by Flado — August 31, 2010 @ 8:43 pm UTC Aug 31,2010 |
We Do Not Use RSS.
Comment by joel garry — August 31, 2010 @ 9:47 pm UTC Aug 31,2010 |
After a conversation on the matter with Jeremy Schneider, I too have changed mine to do full feed. FWIW.
Comment by kevinclosson — September 24, 2010 @ 6:03 pm UTC Sep 24,2010 |