What post? 
Wrapped up and overloaded…
I see blogs like this, smothered by the social media around it, I see tweet mentions, friendfeed comments and the like drowning out the blogs comments on post, do I bother scrolling down past that lot to read the real comments?
How many people think that way when they see the same thing?
We all as bloggers know that the most important thing is getting people reading what we do, doing our best to please them, give them something to think about, and hopefully comment…
Do bloggers want people reading their blog and comments or the syndicated version somewhere, so the readers don’t even need to ever see your blog, missing all the comments too?
We all know you can subscribe to the blog, and if they use full feed, as opposed to a short one, it also means you can read the whole of every post and never go to the actual blog, an important reason to add links to the actual content, advertsiers should take note of this fact, your link in a post has far more use, weight, for you than on the sidebar.
For me…
I almost never go to a few blogs now, because they have full feeds and closed comments, no need to go to them if I can’t add to it by way of a comment.
The times I do check some out I am swamped by twitter this, facebook that, etc, I mean these icons are big, the blog looks messy when the post is drowned out, they have little icons on links in the content, which makes a stupid pop up appear… some of them won’t shrink again! GGRRRR!! Annoying!
Less is more. 
Non of that crap here, the share buttons under each post do just the job.
Some may say, “well why not have short feeds so people then have to click through to the blog to read it all?” which is a fair point but then how many won’t click through?
Pro’s and cons to everything and it’s a case of weighting it up for yourself, what works best… for you and your readers.
I know what a time-saver using a Feed Reader can be so I’m happy to use full feeds for those who read alot, I don’t want them having to click out of their reader to read this.
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Hey Rob,
I like your article because you detailed everything in a manner someone will understand. I believe i will follow your advice to make some changes on my own blog.
My blog is new and will be a month old on the 19th of July but all the same, am learning everyday from people like you to improve my own.
I just subscribed to your feeds now and keep up the good work..
Twitter: robsellen
says:
Hi,
Glad you understand it, the reasons behind it and such.
Your blog is nice and keep posting from the heart like you do, it will grow steady.
Thanks for subscribing to this one.
I think I do a pretty good job of focusing on content, and the feed my blog produces is actually pretty elegant. I’m cool with people subscribing and reading on the feed reader or clicking through – whatever their preference.
I don’t think social media “smothers” blogs necessarily. I do think it smothers them in this sense: people use social media for self-promotion, and thus make their blog part of a cacophony they’re producing. They also drown out others’ voices.
Twitter: robsellen
says:
Hiya,
I do like the way feedburner looks ON the feed page, but sometimes the feed in the reader doesn’t format quite right, sometimes the image won’t show, adsense missing… pretty daft at times, but thankfully it’s not often.
Yeah, that’s sort of what I mean with the smothering, almost like everything is fragmented so much, you wonder where you should be reading… some are overdoing it with the icons, they can be on the side of the screen and actualy cover some of the content, stupid that is…
Ah well, my blog is ok
Twitter: melindaSimple Home Organization
says:
I agree with too many icons cluttering up the post. If you are having a hard time finding the comments, it is hard to leave one.
I used to send partial feeds out on my RSS until I read people prefer full, so I switched. Funny thing is I like to get partials in mine because some that I follow post so much, I like to quickly see which ones I want to read and not have to scroll forever. Too bad the reader doesn’t have the option to pick..seems like that wouldn’t be hard to do. Maybe that will be a nice option down the line.
Twitter: robsellen
says:
I think some of the blogs are so cluttered, shame really.
I don’t think partial feeds are worth it to be honest, you lose readers, as so many won’t bother clicking through.
Good to test it, for me, I am better off with full feeds.