Wednesday, June 24, 2009

I have set the site feed to "Short" which means to read longer posts, you actually have to go to the blog, rather than the site feed. Basically I want to see how this affects my numbers, since I don't think there's a way to tell how many people are reading the site in their readers. I will probably restore regular full feeds after a week or so.

Thank you for understanding.

Labels: blog

6:51 PM

13 Comments:

As of right now you have 1,381 people that google knows are reading via your feed.

You can see this in google reader by clicking the details button at the top of the screen.

The other way to get stats is to use Feedburner, which was bought by google recently.

Set up a feed using feedburner, and then in blogger's feed settings, you can set the "Post Feed Redirect URL" to the feedburner feed, and you will be able to get stats on your feed readership.

By  RodeoClown, at 7:20 PM  

I think that number above is purely people reading via google reader. Use feedburner and you can get a much better picture of who is reading.

By  RodeoClown, at 7:21 PM  

When I go to Google Reader and subscribe to myself, it says only 129 people are reading via my feed. Where does it say 1381? I'd rather have 1,381 than 129!

By  Alex Epstein, at 7:47 PM  

I was looking at this feed URL: http://complicationsensue.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Although - I see on the side of your page you have a feedburner feed as well.

If you set it up in blogger, it should redirect the blogspot feeds to feedburner, and then you should get a grand unified readership count.

By  RodeoClown, at 7:57 PM  

Blah...I come to the site via an RSS feed. I don't want to miss updates, because I generally don't scroll past each new post.

By  Anonymous, at 8:05 PM  

I know you said you'd "probably" restore full feeds in a week or so, but I just wanted to add my vote for definitely restoring them after this test run. I too am a Google Reader reader, and I prefer to catch up on your blog from there (I'll sometimes visit the actual blog to catch up on readers' comments within each post).

Thanks for keeping us in the loop about this test run, and many thanks for your always-helpful blog.

By  Brian, at 12:47 AM  

+1 for restoring full feeds as soon as possible. I don't generally click through. And as people say, if you want to get stats from web-based feedreaders, you can use Feedburner (which knows numbers because Google et al. report how many people they're fetching the feed for in the headers of their request to Feedburner).

By  Michael Williams, at 1:02 AM  

I too totally recommend FeedBurner fro tracking your blog/reader traffic. I would of course like full posts in my reader but I don't think you're under any obligation to us. Content is king and if your great posts draw us into your page, well we'll be here.

By  Unknown, at 8:48 AM  

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

By  Anonymous, at 8:37 PM  

Wow, way to help out, anonymized person. So considerate of you to sabotage my efforts. How about I just kill the feed entirely?

By  Alex Epstein, at 9:24 PM  

I'm not out to sabotage you, dear Alex. You are running an experiment: What will people do if you "shorten" your feeds?

Well, I'm part of the answer: Some people will just make themselves a full feed in order to continue reading you.

So, from my PPV your character specific want is me to stop reading you. You will do whatever it takes to stop me. You already have restricted your feeds. You see me as a saboteur, as if I was out there to get you. The stakes get higher, you might even kill your feeds. Will you stop writing in order to stop me?

But then your global want is to write and be read. You can't stop writing, and your life is based on other people reading and enjoying what you write. So your character is self-contradictory, your specific want is working now against your global want.

And therefore, ladies and gentlemen, complications ensue.

By  Anonymous, at 10:59 AM  

No, I'm not running an experiment to see what people will do if I shorten my feeds. I am trying to find out how many people are reading my blog. By running an alt feed, you are sabotaging my effort.

Try to have a little respect for the guy who's putting the content up for free. If you want to read your own full feed, fine, but if you want full feeds restored, put your head towards helping me solve my problem.

By  Alex Epstein, at 11:27 AM  

Yes, I want to help you. I'm not your nemesis.

You want to know how many people are reading your blog?

Feedburner is all you need. I didn't mention that earlier as everyone else said that before me.

And I really respect you. As you can see from my previous response, I really try paying attention to everything you say. You should be proud.

By  Anonymous, at 11:37 AM  

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