The most popular planetlotus.org FAQ. Where’s the feed?
I've been struggling with this question since day one. What's worse; every day I come up with a new reason. Here is where the problems start; I give out the reason de-jour, the one on my mind and never all of them. So what better way to air them all...
Feel free to quell my feelings on the matter but the truth is I don't see a feed anytime in the near future.
*. This site replaced my 81 Lotus blog feeds and may have replaced a lot of yours. I feel it goes against the very premise that site set out to accomplish if I publish a super feed.
*. With this approach to viewing blog posts; all on one page, there is no guilt, the guilt you feel when you see hundreds of piled up unread marks… plus nothing to manage.
*. If put in place why would anyone come back to the site? I would be in affect driving traffic away in huge numbers.
*. One of my favorite features on the site would be devastated, the post view counters. I could put in the feed the same url that counts them but again, if you used a feed reader why would you come back to the site?
*. I could mimic the logic of the satellite and bring you back to the main page with the post highlighted… after a while this would get annoying.
*. I'm still hung up on the drudgereport.com my single favorite website on the web. I go there when I want news, no flood of feeds to be guilty for not reading, I just go to the site, get my news fix and leave. When I started writing this post I was this close to saying, when drudge puts up a feed, I will.
*. I already post everyone's rss feed on the front page and have since day one.
*. Then there is Velonews.com. Cycling is my favorite sport, (first time you've heard an American say that? . Last summer I broke down and subscribed to the feed. It actually slashed my reading. I was inundated with to many stories, where as before I could pick and choose on the page.
*. Advertising. Yes, the ads. I'm not expecting this to put my 3 kids through college but it is fun and exciting the watch the pennies roll in. Again I'm guessing a huge nose dive on the revenue side of the house.
*. Think about your blog and your feed. You can put a teaser in the content to get people to click and view your page. PlanetLotus is a completely different model. With a feed there is ZERO reason to ever visit the site. When your site is feeds and you give out the site in a big feed it leaves you with… a website people use to go to…
*. “Don't worry about it. Only a small percentage of people use feeds.” This is true but the percentage of those that do are the very eyeballs I care most about; yours.
*. Loss of that community feeling, ever notice when you watch a taped show it loose its luster, you're missing out on the communal viewing factor. The feeling you get when you know your laughing with millions other around the world at the same time… again rss would kill this. I'm addicted to planetlotus.org, I just don't maintain the site but I'm reading almost all of your posts. The most rewarding part was watching my boss get HOOKed on the site during Lotusphere. He was on the site for hours reading every Lotusphere post.
*. Future of the site. The blog feeds are only the beginning. With the site offering what does now with a super feed, it would feel so one dimensional and single purpose. I look forward to building out other concepts at the site that will make visiting well worth it.
If I were to do it… I have explored nontraditional ways of setting it up, a light version of a feed. In the end I view this light approach as “don't forget about the site feed”. For instance, every morning at 2 am EST I would post a new feed that had all the previous days news. Every link would come back to the same page which was dedicate to that days posts. The top of the page would state the number (say if its 17 days old) of newer post since this date, say 934. Clicking on that would bring you back to the main page. Just an idea.
So there you have it. Aired.
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January 30th, 2008 - 13:17
I think your reasons are largely sophistry and can mostly be summed up by your desire to fuel your vanity and your pocket. While I appreciate all the hard work you’ve put in, if those are the reasons you started this endeavour, I have to say they’re not very noble ones and are hardly in keeping with your claims at fostering ‘community’.
If every website owner thought as you do there wouldn’t even be an RSS standard today.
January 30th, 2008 - 14:37
I not only understand your reasons for not publishing a feed, I agree completely.
@Lee: What does it matter whether Yancy’s reasons are noble or not? Who cares whether he maintains this site for reasons of vanity, monetary gain, or altruism? The simple fact is this is a great site, and people (including yourself) are flocking to it in droves.
-Devin.
January 30th, 2008 - 14:58
FWIW: I agree with Devin. Dude, this site rocks. Whether or not there is an RSS feed, I really don’t care. You are providing a great service to the Lotus Community.
January 30th, 2008 - 17:08
I’m with Devin, too.
January 30th, 2008 - 17:54
OK, let’s see if I can add a little more constructive criticism of Yancy’s reasons before everyone jumps in and agrees with him and decides to hate me!
“Against the premise of a super site”: I don’t see how an RSS feed will negatively impact the sites whose news you link to. Simply code the feed to offer a headline of the article and have the main link open to the original site, just as it does now on the web version.
“Guilt over unread marks”: This is your problem. Please don’t confuse your problems with everyone elses’. Just because you let RSS feeds stack up does not mean that everyone else does and this is hardly a valid reason to not offer one.
“Why would people come back to the site?” Which site? Your own? Your site offers no content other than everyone elses’ anyway, so in effect you’re merely driving traffic off to the sites of those people who provide your content. I’m sure they would be grateful for that, just as they’re grateful for the traffic the web based version gives them. The only person who loses out there is you. The rest of the RSS-using net loses out if you don’t offer an RSS feed.
“Post counters”: The links you provide as part of the feed could easily call a script on your site to update the counters and redirect to the new URL. This point is not a valid consideration IMO.
“Bring back to the main page” : I didn’t get this. Why not just send the RSS link directly to the story and bypass Planetlotus altogether?
“Drudgereport”: That’s your preferred way of accessing this site. I would hazard a guess (since you yourself say that RSS feeds represent the No 1 FAQ) that most people do not work the way you do.
“All RSS feeds are listed” : This is a fair point and if you really don’t plan to offer an aggregated feed I guess this is what those of us who would like one will need to do. Either that or hack together a script to rip the links from the site. Seems a bit backwards though. There is added value in Planetlotus that those individual RSS feeds do not provide, however, and it’s that additional functionality that we would like to harness in a superfeed.
“Ads”: This is perhaps the oddest reason, albeit a fair one if yours is a commercial enterprise. But…why not just put your ads in the RSS feed?
“No reason to visit the site”: Which site? Yours or the person who provided the content? If yours, then yes you’re right. Put ads in the feed and your only legitimate concern has been adressed and nullified. If the content providers, then link to the full article. I don’t see how this can be an issue either way?
“Loss of community”: No, I’ve never noticed that. Again, I think that’s you expressing a projection bias as with your ‘Drudgereport’ and ‘guilt’ reasons above.
“Future of the site”: Now we get in to an area where you could answer your own concerns. Give people a reason to come back to the site. The forum is one such reason, your ‘other concepts’ will also add additional value in the future. If you build it they will come, RSS Superfeed or no RSS Superfeed!
Personally I would like to see a normal RSS feed, ad supported if necessary, with summary descriptions that link through a script on Planetlotus to record clickthroughs and then auto forward on to the link in question.
If you want to start to add value to the content you use from other people then send the links to a discussion topic for each link in your forum. It works perfectly well for sites like Digg and Slashdot. Why not make Planetlotus the Digg of the Lotus world?
Phew, that took a while!
January 30th, 2008 - 21:36
OK, let’s see if I can add a little more constructive criticism of Yancy’s reasons before everyone jumps in and agrees with him and decides to hate me!
-> Feel free to include me in on this as well.
“Against the premise of a super site”: I don’t see how an RSS feed will negatively impact the sites whose news you link to. Simply code the feed to offer a headline of the article and have the main link open to the original site, just as it does now on the web version.
-> My ego prevents this, or in your words my vanity.
“Guilt over unread marks”: This is your problem. Please don’t confuse your problems with everyone elses’. Just because you let RSS feeds stack up does not mean that everyone else does and this is hardly a valid reason to not offer one.
-> Blogs would be boring if we didn’t share a problem or two. Also, I was airing my reasons, who said they had to be valid?
“Why would people come back to the site?” Which site? Your own? Your site offers no content other than everyone elses’ anyway, so in effect you’re merely driving traffic off to the sites of those people who provide your content. I’m sure they would be grateful for that, just as they’re grateful for the traffic the web based version gives them. The only person who loses out there is you. The rest of the RSS-using net loses out if you don’t offer an RSS feed.
- I choose not to loose out.
“Post counters”: The links you provide as part of the feed could easily call a script on your site to update the counters and redirect to the new URL. This point is not a valid consideration IMO.
-> But you wouldn’t see the click totals in the rss feed. If you live in the feedreader you’d never know who is reading what… boooo.
“Bring back to the main page” : I didn’t get this. Why not just send the RSS link directly to the story and bypass Planetlotus altogether?
-> Again, my vanity prevents this.
“Drudgereport”: That’s your preferred way of accessing this site. I would hazard a guess (since you yourself say that RSS feeds represent the No 1 FAQ) that most people do not work the way you do.
-> Thank god. If everyone were the same life would be boooring.
“All RSS feeds are listed” : This is a fair point and if you really don’t plan to offer an aggregated feed I guess this is what those of us who would like one will need to do. Either that or hack together a script to rip the links from the site. Seems a bit backwards though. There is added value in Planetlotus that those individual RSS feeds do not provide, however, and it’s that additional functionality that we would like to harness in a superfeed.
-> If you write the hack, I will post it. But I would need info on how people could contact you for support. And make sure your output doesn’t make dup entries when running incremental updates when new feeds are added to the site.
“Ads”: This is perhaps the oddest reason, albeit a fair one if yours is a commercial enterprise. But…why not just put your ads in the RSS feed?
- If by commercial enterprise you mean putting ads on the site; guilty, and thank you for giving me more ideas that you can be further critical of down the road.
“No reason to visit the site”: Which site? Yours or the person who provided the content? If yours, then yes you’re right. Put ads in the feed and your only legitimate concern has been adressed and nullified. If the content providers, then link to the full article. I don’t see how this can be an issue either way?
-> I think you already went over this. I get it, it’s not my site.
“Loss of community”: No, I’ve never noticed that. Again, I think that’s you expressing a projection bias as with your ‘Drudgereport’ and ‘guilt’ reasons above.
-> Guilty, I’m different and love to projection. I sense the start of a trend here, people projecting on their blogs.
“Future of the site”: Now we get in to an area where you could answer your own concerns. Give people a reason to come back to the site. The forum is one such reason, your ‘other concepts’ will also add additional value in the future. If you build it they will come, RSS Superfeed or no RSS Superfeed!
-> Duly noted. I will answer my own concern later.
Personally I would like to see a normal RSS feed, ad supported if necessary, with summary descriptions that link through a script on Planetlotus to record clickthroughs and then auto forward on to the link in question.
-> Thank you for repeating.
If you want to start to add value to the content you use from other people then send the links to a discussion topic for each link in your forum. It works perfectly well for sites like Digg and Slashdot. Why not make Planetlotus the Digg of the Lotus world?
-> To recap, you’re ok with me funneling feeds then sending them out tagged with my ads and adding to a click count that you will never look at because there would be no reason to actually go to the site. You’re also ok with me siphoning off comments from bloggers blogs… I’m starting to get it. In your world there are not bloggers with egos, bloggers that don’t project and don’t mind if they never get a single comment left on their web site. Now you’ve officially lost me. Please consider not visiting this or any of my other sites again, not because of the “constructive” criticism in this comment, for the first one where you called me a liar.
January 30th, 2008 - 21:39
@Devin, Greg, Mick… Thank you.
January 31st, 2008 - 14:52
I don’t want a super feed…I want things just like they are!
Actually, the incredible value that Planet Lotus has for me is that I can selectively choose the posts of interest. If we had everything in a big feed, this would create even more of a mess than trying to cull the good stuff from my ever-growing feed list. I like being able to pick out the signal in all the noise, so please keep things as they are, Yancy. You rock!
February 1st, 2008 - 14:29
@Chris Blatnick: Where is the difference in picking “interesting” posts off the website and picking them off a feed? Both ways, you see the headline, maybe a teaser and the link to the original content.
Yancy, it’s your website, so you can can of course do as you please, but I am one of those people that really miss the “big feed”.
The website has one big disadvantage for me: I always have to concentrate on what I have already seen and what not. In a feedreader, I have a clear indicator on what I have seen and what not. And I do not feel guilty if there are lots of unread posts. But maybe that’s just me.
In regards to “If put in place why would anyone come back to the site?”
- That is something you have to think about. What additional benefits could you offer so that people still visit your webpage?
I have ambivalent feelings in regards to the topic of ads on the site and in the feed. One one hand, I would say that no one expects you to invest in this site just for fun. On the other hand, you are – please forgive me the rather harsh and maybe brutal wording – converting the content other people created (for free, maybe even under a non-commercial-usage Creative Commons Licence) into cash for yourself (and/or your kids).
Please don’t see this a personal attack on you. I am merely raising the topic of using maybe CC licensed content in a commercial offering (which PlanetLotus.org is, once you put adds on it). How to solve this (maybe by letting people state during registration, that they are OK with that), will be left to the blogosphere and you as an exercise.
Regarding click-through counting in RSS-Feeds: Feedburner offers a feature to count how many people clicked on a link in a feed. So there is a way to fuel your “vanity” (as you put it) and still offer a feed, if I understood your concerns correctly.
Let me close by stating that I really appreciate your effort and everything and I hope you are not offended by my choice of words (especially, as English is not my first language).
February 1st, 2008 - 16:33
@Martain – You raise some great points on the advertising. I’ve had about 70 people request to have their blogs to posted since the ads went up. This includes news publications and noted analysts in the industry. Of the 130ish blogs what were up before hand, zero have complained. I’m guessing people just feel that ads are part of free services. One comforting factor was that openntf.org had ads. We’re identical in our services offing, we take the hard work of others and give them a greater audience; however this isn’t always the case on my end; Ed’s blog would do just fine with out planetlotus
. If you take this same approach sourceforge.net and for that matter yahoo.com do the same. They consume your web data and slap adds on it. I don’t see how what im doing is different.
As for the super feed. I had a great conversation yesterday with someone who is very knowledgeable of web technologies, to summarize what he said, and we weren’t talking about planetlotus, he feels sites like Linked-in are very popular because they do one thing very well. It’s when they start being all things to all people when they start to loose their luster.
Yes, I want to add things to the site but at its core it will always showcase blog posts in an easy to digest fashion. Actually that’s all I want the site to be known for. I don’t want it to be thought of as an illusive blog feed funnel that takes many feeds and turns into one. I will leave that for Lee to concur.
And, Thanks @Chris!
February 1st, 2008 - 18:22
@Lee – I’m sorry if I sounded as though I disliked you or was angry with you, that was not my intention. I simply disagree (very strongly) with your position.
-Devin.
February 8th, 2008 - 09:27
Yancy, your site is my rss feed. I am not a huge rss feed reader, on occasion I have some I check but it’s not in my face so I have to search it out. But since PL.Org is 95% of the blogs I read related topics I am happy to go to your site or link to it and go from there.
It’s your game, play anyway you like, the rest of us appreciate it because it already has made a huge change in our lives and in my case that of some customers.