Why Full Text Feeds Actually Increase Page Views (The Freakonomics Explanation)
from the why-full-feeds-make-sense dept
Last week, the Freakonomics blog got some extra attention by moving the blog to the NY Times. Of course, the blog had been in support of the immensely popular Freakonomics book, but the blog has taken on a life of its own. What was interesting was how people reacted to the news. While there were a few congratulations thrown in, the vast majority of the comments on the blog when the news broke was to complain about the NY Times' decision to switch the RSS feed from full text to partial text, where anyone who wanted to read the whole thing would have to click through. This has kicked off yet another round in the debate with some thoughtful discussions about full vs. partial feeds. Techdirt, of course, offers full feeds and always has. This means that plenty of people who read this site absolutely never visit the site. We're fine with that for a variety of reasons (one of which being that our business model isn't dependent on page views or ad impressions).
However, in our experience, full text feeds actually does lead to more page views, though understanding why is a little more involved. Full text feeds makes the reading process much easier. It means it's that much more likely that someone reads the full piece and actually understands what's being said -- which makes it much, much, much more likely that they'll then forward it on to someone else, or blog about it themselves, or post it to Digg or Reddit or Slashdot or Fark or any other such thing -- and that generates more traffic and interest and page views from new readers, who we hope subscribe to the RSS feed and become regular readers as well. The whole idea is that by making it easier and easier for anyone to read and fully grasp our content, the more likely they are to spread it via word of mouth, and that tends to lead to much greater adoption than by limiting what we give to our readers and begging them to come to our site if they want to read more than a sentence or two. So, while many people claim that partial feeds are needed to increase page views where ads are hosted, our experience has shown that full text feeds actually do a great deal to increase actual page views on the site by encouraging more usage. It's the same thing that we've talked about in other areas of the content industry. Taking value away from users to try to force a specific action is almost always going to be less desirable than providing people what they want. So while Dubner and Levitt may have to argue with the NYTimes beancounters who will claim that partial feeds will increase revenue, they may want to use the lessons they learned from their own book to recognize that the opposite may be true. Full feeds can actually drive more traffic overall.
Reader Comments (rss)
(Flattened / Threaded)
More Likely to Comment by C.G. on Aug 13th, 2007 @ 8:01pm
I don't even subscribe to sites that use partial feeds. I even read the full ad supported feeds. I can't enjoy an article that is spaced out or one that I have to click on a link just to finish reading it. I'm also more likely to comment on the article having just read the entire thing - I'm sure that helps promote page views as other people may want to read or add comments themselves.
Now as for the NYTimes... When have they ever been smart about their on-line content?
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Freakonomics and partial feeds by Erik J. Heels on Aug 13th, 2007 @ 8:09pm
Greetings Mike,
See also:
FreakonomicsSucks.com (but not really)
Regards,
Erik
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Full length feeds by Austin on Aug 13th, 2007 @ 9:10pm
As a subscriber who reads your full articles from the comfort of my RSS reader, I'd like to thank you for your continued usage of them. To this end, I've come here to the actual page to comment and click a few ads for you. Thanks, TechDirt!
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Personally... by Wesha on Aug 13th, 2007 @ 9:17pm
I read the full feed -- and more often than not I go to the linked page anyways, because I want to read or post comments (duh, that's what I'm doing right now!)
Then again... I use Firefox with Adblock...
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Broken Link... by Matt on Aug 13th, 2007 @ 9:21pm
Techdirt'd?
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Full Text by Dave Forde - The Connector (Profectio.com) on Aug 13th, 2007 @ 9:31pm
So who's responsibility is it to set the industry standard and when does it start, this debate has been going on too long now.
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:) by jhunter on Aug 13th, 2007 @ 9:42pm
Thank you for full text feeds, I came to the just to comment ;)
Almost as annoying is dotnetkicks.com, which does have full text feeds, but you have to click on a link in the feed to go to dotnetkicks then click on a link to get to the actual article it reference :/
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Agreed! by Buzz on Aug 13th, 2007 @ 9:49pm
I am extremely grateful for full feeds! I use Google Reader Mobile on my cell phone, so I love being able to read whole Techdirt articles from wherever I am. It definitely increases the value, and I am a far more loyal reader simply knowing that Techdirt places the focus on customer satisfaction. I am 1000x more likely to come to this site one day with cash in hand (er... on my debit card) ready to spend. ^_^
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by jon on Aug 13th, 2007 @ 10:27pm
"However, in our experience, full text feeds actually does lead to more page views"
How could you possibly know this if you've always used full feeds?
"Techdirt, of course, offers full feeds and always has"
Don't get me wrong; as a user, I'm all for full text feeds, but I'm wondering how you can claim this if you've never tested partial feeds out.
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Right on the money! by Macartan Cassidy on Aug 14th, 2007 @ 12:35am
I think you've got it right in your analysis - full text feeds make the reading experience easier and more pleasurable. The redaer is the much more likely to assimilate and interact with the content.
An example is my reaction to this post - in Google Reader I hit "Share", and then came here to comment. Would I have done these things for a partial feed? Probably not.
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Absolutely true by db0 on Aug 14th, 2007 @ 1:46am
I stopped reading The Register once I switched to an aggregator for my news needs because it just delivered snippets and I couldn't be bothered to visit every link I wanted to read.
I almost stopped reading p2pnet.net but fortunately it moved to full text.
Especially in Technet, it's quite frequent for me to read a news story and click on various links contained within which in turn become page hits.
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You give you what you get by Luke Houghton on Aug 14th, 2007 @ 1:58am
This reminds of the permission marketing stuff that went round a few years ago. It was such a radical idea that giving something away for free that it could lead to more interest from would be customers. I think it shows and builds trust in your would be visitors. Good on you for doing it... keep it up.
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thanks for the lesson by Minter on Aug 14th, 2007 @ 2:00am
Am a convert. Thanks for the tips. Will be sure to spread the word.
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thanks for the lesson by Minter on Aug 14th, 2007 @ 2:00am
Am a convert. Thanks for the tips. Will be sure to spread the word.
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Never knew the reality by Gopinath M on Aug 14th, 2007 @ 2:08am
An excellent article. I'm about to change my full feed(my blog Tech Thoughts) to partial today but luckily i read this article. What ever is said over here is very true. Thanks a lot.
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Not sure I believe you by Stephen D on Aug 14th, 2007 @ 2:44am
On the one hand you say:
...and on the other, you say:More page views than what? You haven't ever tried partial feeds so you don't know.
It doesn't sound like an argument that would convince Dubner and Levitt.
Or, at least your experience with running Techdirt can't have provided any real evidence that full text is better for page views than partial, can it?
I would love to see some tangible evidence for the bean counters, because full text clearly it does provide a better user experience. A handwavy "halo effect" argument is not concrete enough for them.
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by Anonymous Coward on Aug 14th, 2007 @ 5:26am
I do not read The New York Times or the Washington Post or ABC or MSNBC, or CBS on line; to difficult.
In the case of The New York times one is required to log in and have one name recorded just to read a News Paper.
Thanks but NO THANKS.
In the case of ABC, MSNBC and CBS they apparently believe that current day desktop computers are equivalent to TV sets so everything is streamed video which does not play on my computers.
This leaves news sources like BBC, International Harold Tribune, Slashdot and Techdirt. For comics there is Dilbert and UserFrendly.
CNN is half and half. Half way between readable and non playing streamed video.
Assuming that my experience is typical that means that old line news papers in order to protect their paper business model are fast becoming irrelevant given that even though the news is better one can not access their site by business decision design.
On the other side the likes of ABC, MSNBC and CBS are not relevant either with another business model that is failing due to the Dan Rather effect; the assumption that they are the only game in town so people and equipment will just have to do what they demand that you do to access their content.
The failure in all this is the Nollywood business model.
http://www.thisisnollywood.com/
Nollywood, Nigeria's booming film industry, is the world's third largest producer of feature films. Unlike Hollywood and Bollywood, however, Nollywood movies are made on shoe-string budgets of time and money. An average production takes just 10 days and costs approximately $15,000.
Yet in just 13 years, Nollywood has grown from nothing into a $250 million dollar-a-year industry that employs thousands of people. The Nollywood phenomenon was made possible by two main ingredients: Nigerian entrepreneurship and digital technology.
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Another thing to consider by Petréa Mitchell on Aug 14th, 2007 @ 9:02am
It's interesting that I should get the full story about this here. The problem as described in comments I saw was that the RSS feed was broken. Another of the costs of degrading the user experience is the number of complaints you will get that your service has developed a bug.
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by Anonymous Coward on Aug 14th, 2007 @ 9:08am
I completely agree - in my (admittedly anecdotal) experience, I'm much less likely to read the partial feeds that I subscribe to. Even when I really enjoy a blog, if they only offer partial feeds I tend to skip them with the intention of going to the site to read them at a later time. This somehow never actually happens. But the full feeds I subscribe to get read. And then I go to the page to comment, and I send links to my friends, etc, etc.
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Re: More Likely to Comment by Jim on Aug 14th, 2007 @ 9:21am
I agree totally. I only subscribe to Techdirt's RSS feed because everything else seems to be partial feeds. I HATE partial feeds. So thank you Techdirt! You are one of the few sites that I read BECAUSE you have full feeds.
-Jim
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by Ed Kohler on Aug 14th, 2007 @ 9:28am
Great explanation. Of course, in the short term, the NY Times folks who chose the truncated route will be proven right since people will click through at first. Over time, they may choose to unsubscribe from the feed and pick a different source of insightful news for their RSS reader.
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by Fred on Aug 14th, 2007 @ 11:45am
Complaining works. At some point, the NYT quietly switched the Freakonomics feed to full text, although Dubner never actually announced that they had done so, perhaps to avoid setting a precedent forcing other NYT feeds to full text. At least my feed seems to be full text now.
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Full Feeds Lead To Comments by Lance Fisher on Aug 14th, 2007 @ 12:32pm
Yea for full text RSS. I find that I'll read the articles more, and if I want to comment on one, I'll end up clicking through.
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Give readers a choice of full text feeds or partia by Improbulus on Aug 16th, 2007 @ 1:25am
I've always believed in offering subscribers full control - it should be up to the individual subscriber to decide whether they'd personally prefer full text or excerpts only, or indeed just headlines. I feel strongly that the consumer should be given the power to choose exactly what they want. Feedburner Buzz recently linked to a post I wrote a while back which explains step by step how to provide readers with a choice of full feed, partial feed or headlines only. (For an example of this in action, see the dropdown in my blog's sidebar.) I have about 50% more subscribers picking full feeds than partial, and just a handful wanting headlines only.
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Measurement is great - what about re-use / splogge by Rich Pearson on Aug 16th, 2007 @ 12:04pm
This seems like a very testable concept, and Improbulus's numbers support the hypothesis put forward in the article. Full feeds are where every publisher should be driving towards for the reasons stated above; however, given how easy it is for sploggers to monetize content with ad sense, I can understand why content creators and publishers are reluctant to do this. Until content creators have visibility of re-use and a means to come to a negotiated outcome (not litigation!), we will continue to see full feed reluctance . . .
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Measurement is great - what about re-use / splogge by Rich Pearson on Aug 16th, 2007 @ 12:06pm
This seems like a very testable concept, and Improbulus's numbers support the hypothesis put forward in the article. Full feeds are where every publisher should be driving towards for the reasons stated above; however, given how easy it is for sploggers to monetize content with ad sense, I can understand why content creators and publishers are reluctant to do this. Until content creators have visibility of re-use and a means to come to a negotiated outcome (not litigation!), we will continue to see full feed reluctance . . .
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Re: Measurement is great - what about re-use / spl by Improbulus on Aug 19th, 2007 @ 11:06am
Rich, if you're suggesting that publishers generally should offer a choice of feeds and then look at the relative numbers that's a great idea. It would be very helpful to have aggregate stats from lots of blogs and sites to see where the demand lies. Like you, I suspect it would be very much in favour of full feeds (from the subscriber side anyway - I fully realise why from the publisher's side there would be a reluctance to put out full feeds).
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Demand rules.... by David Armstrong on Aug 21st, 2007 @ 11:31am
I still love the Internet. Demand rules...the wisdom of the crowd drives. On the net...demand chases supply, if the supply is hard to find..via logins, registrations, partial feeds, popups, etc..etc..someone fills the need...
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I've got a workaround by Tom on Aug 22nd, 2007 @ 2:26pm
For those interested in getting the full feed, see here:
http://labs.echoditto.com/fulltextrss
Here's a direct link to the feed after being passed through the service:
http://labs.echoditto.com/projects/fulltextrss/?url=http%3A%2F%2Ffreakonomics.blogs.nyti mes.com%2Frss2.xml
I understand the position that Mr. Dubner's in, but the advertisers are flat out wrong -- they're fighting a war that will inevitably be lost. The sooner they realize this and adapt to the way readers want to consume content, the better.
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Full Feed is the way to go... by Anurag Bansal on Aug 23rd, 2007 @ 2:27pm
As others also mentioned, if your content is good, the people will always come back to the site and visit you frequently. But if you force them at the very first place to visit your page, at least I won't go that way. Feed is made to be read in feed readers, then why the hell there should be an option for partial feeds. I am always for Full Feed. Below are my personal feeds...
http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogofknowledge
http://feeds.feedburner.com/thinkboutit
http://feeds.feedburner.com/justlaugh
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Full feeds vs short feeds by Steve Pinches on Aug 24th, 2007 @ 3:54am
It's true full feeds might help out a blog such as yours which is not a large brand leader like Freakonomics (it's the 'any publicity is good' principle). However for a major, respected brand, giving away full text feeds in this way is absolutely ridiculous. It's the equivalent of giving away free papers in the street but with no ads in them, or indeed any branding. Anyone who objects to having to move their mouse a few centimetres to click on a headline a read the article in context on the site it was published on (where they are also exposed to related stories and tools, and can get the proper context that was intended for the article) is lazier than Mr Lazy and should be taken out and boxed round the ears with a copy of the New York Times' Sunday edition.
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partial feed means click for really, really, reall by Michael Pereckas on Aug 24th, 2007 @ 6:34pm
Naturally, the sites that provide only short feeds are especially likely to be really slow to load, with blinking animated stuff everywhere (don't you love it when the blinking thing keeps covering up the text?) and weird hard to read colors and browser compatibility issues. Usually just not worth it. Also, a partial feed where you're not quite sure if it's partial is extra annoying, where rather than being obvious about it you get a few sentences. Is there more, or is that it? Have to load the blinking malfunctioning flash to be sure...
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Full feeds not always best by Warren Whitlock on Sep 8th, 2007 @ 1:44am
I'm sure your test results are valid, but I would not assume that full feeds are always best. Big world out there.. lot's of agendas. Lot's of reason to use RSS. Souund marketing reasons to include mini feeds on other sites. I use full feeds a most sites (http://dailywarren.com) but for maketing and promotion have used mini-feed too. More specific to the big media sites and their own feeds.. one has to assume that they are more interested in cramming in content than providing quality writing. With that mindset, easy to see why they believe that full articles get in the way. The uproar today come from quality content switching to a model that is made for thoughful readers. Your results here prove that your readers like the content. The comment support that too. Some mass market media types with a lot more capitalization than me will probably say that the masses don't read. Which is why I presonally prefer full feeds.
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You just never know by Boris on Oct 22nd, 2007 @ 8:38pm
Has any thought been given to these full feeds might cause a duplicate content problem?
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Partial Feeds Must Go by Becktemba on Oct 26th, 2007 @ 12:06pm
Partial feeds have to go unless you are trying to protect your commercial content or limit access to information. The FEEDBURNER automatically truncates feeds from EVERYBODY thats just killing the service. Why does a Auntie Ann’s Baby Blog need have a partial feed? Want to print your blog out like a newspaper or magazine? A new application I’m excited about is the FEEDJOURNAL. Check it out at: www.Feedjournal.com Tell em Becktemba sent you.
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From Bontb by Business Blogger on Oct 26th, 2007 @ 2:51pm
Well yes this above is true you get more views etc, but with full feeds you also get a lot of scrappers that duplicate your content.
I had that happen to me, some guy opened blog and just grabed my feeds , checking out that he had at some keywords better ranking than i did!
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