Other Issues


You would think that providing a feed is enough to satisfy most needs, but it goes much further. For instance, one option you'll be given by most tools that generate feeds is whether to provide an excerpt or to provide full content. When you provide full content, this usually includes any photographs or other files you have embedded in your post.

If you provide full content, chances are most people will read your material in their aggregators rather than necessarily go to your website. You have to decide for yourself if you want to give people this option, or provide an excerpt only. Another issue is that if you do embed photographs, the aggregators may access the photos from your site, and this can be costly in terms of bandwidth.

Another point on full content versus excerpts is that many people like to get unread posts in their laptop-based aggregator and then read the posts while offline. They might read the posts on the train or plane, or in some other location. In addition, some people may read content using tools such as small PDA-like devices, which can handle the unformatted feed syntax.

Also, it's easier for people to read posts in their aggregators. Some folks are so stubborn, they won't even read a weblog or other site that doesn't provide full content. Most people, though, base their decision on the material rather than the technology, so I wouldn't let this attitude impact on your decision too much.

Another possibility with full-content feeds can and should impact on your decision, and that is that some sites republish feeds, and even provide their own comment and other systems so that these republished works are a little different than the original posting. If they are reputable, these sites will also note that the material is republished, and provide links to the original site. If they are less reputable, well, you may only find out about it by doing a search.

However, if you don't provide full content, any links within your content may not get picked up by aggregator tools such as IceRocket, Feedster, and so on. This means that people may not be aware that you've linked to their writing, and your link may not get included in their link countsa sometimes important issue in environments such as weblogging.

Another option is what uses to provide feeds for. Most tools allow you to provide feeds for categories, as well as comments. In fact, it may be difficult to remove this support. Check with your tool's vendor to see what it supports.




What Are Syndication Feeds
What Are Syndication Feeds
ISBN: 321490452
EAN: N/A
Year: 2005
Pages: 19

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net