The Reader Appreciation Project

To follow, or not to follow. That is the question.

This past week I gained about sixty or so followers thanks to Jeff’s Twitter post over at WeblogToolsCollection.

After scanning through each of my new followers, I was faced with a decision. Do I follow just because they’ve followed me? Or, do I follow because there is a genuine, and hopefully, mutual interest?

It’s really the same dilemma I find myself facing when it comes to feeds. I would love to subscribe to each one of my readers’ blogs, but I typically only subscribe if I can relate to the subject matter in the areas of interests, language, and material.

If you are on Twitter, what is your criteria for finding people to follow? Also, what would cause you to unfollow (is that a word?) someone?

For those interested, here’s some of the RAP contributors’ Twitter profiles.

• Andrew Rickmann
• Isabella Mori
• Ronald
• Simonne
• Vivien

Yesterday a new reader(Alex, from Not a Niche) approached me over Skype: “You should change the settings to see more than only 10 posts in a feed.”

“What?” I asked. “You can only see the last 10?”

“Yes, only 10.” he replied.

“How many posts would you use?”

Alex responded, “Do thirty to fifty. If it’s a new subscriber, he wants to read some. I know some bloggers who show the last 2 years.”

Wow, Fifty Posts?

Alex as a new reader wanted to read our content, but when he subscribed he could only see the last ten of our posts. I immediately went into my WordPress settings and increased the count to fifty posts per his recommendation.

In WordPress you can access this setting under Settings (or Options) and in the Reading panel.

WordPress Feed Settings

I’m sure Alex is not alone, so do your readers (and new subscribers) a favor and increase that feed post count to whatever you feel comfortable with.

PS: While you’re at it, make sure you have “Full text” turned on also.

Today I read my first ever WordPress Wednesday in my feed reader.

Blog Herald Partial Feed

It’s sort of my Wednesday tradition. I wait for Lorelle to publish, I head over to the Blog Herald, and I read over the latest news. But today I opened up Google Reader, clicked on the post, and it was ALL there. No “read more”, no teaser — the whole shebang.

I didn’t quite know what to do. I was floored. And perhaps it happened because of a few outspoken Blog Herald readers?

When Jonathan Bailey wrote why not to switch to partial feeds, several readers cried foul.

The article mentioned:

The second exception [to sites having full feeds] would be sites, such as the Blog Herald itself, that have used partial feeds for a very long time. In those cases, the audience has been built using partial feeds and the readers have shown that they don’t mind.

But the readers had a different take, including our very own reader Sue.

Hope I’m not being inappropriate, but, I DO mind. Every time I have to click on your partial feed to open the whole post, it annoys me.

Jonathan obviously had no say in whether the Blog Herald turned on full feeds or not, but the readers sure let him have it, some telling him to practice what he preaches.

I challenged the Blog Herald twice to turn on full feeds.

Just one day after Jonathan’s post, David Peralty wrote on the Blog Herald about creating barriers between your readers.

Again, the call to turn on full feeds was mentioned:

If I enjoy your blog, and I want to subscribe, then you are gaining access to a piece of my mindshare. If you publish partial feeds, I will no doubt unsubscribe.

In my second challenge, I weighed in:

Two articles in as many days discuss having full feeds. Any chance of Blog Herald trying this out? I’m sure your readers would love it.

David responded, saying that an attempt at full feeds on Blog Herald was being made, but won’t be made complete until WordPress 2.5′s release.

I was quite pleased with David’s response. So imagine my surprise today when I was able to read WordPress Wednesday for the first time in my feed reader. What bliss!

I hope I’m not jumping the gun here, as David said some posts will still have issues, but I’d like to personally thank Blog Herald for turning on full feeds. Hopefully it works out for you all over there. And thank you for listening to your readers.