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Partial feed vs. full feed: When technology is an obstacle

By khalid on August 3, 2007 12:14 pm
Comments (18)
Posted in (Blogging)

The response to our $400 give away in RSS contest has been great. I am happy to see that many bloggers linked to the contest over the last few days. However, the biggest complaint that I keep hearing about is the issue with our partial RSS feed. People hate partial RSS feeds. I even noticed that some will subscribe to our feed but when they discover the feed is partial, they unsubscribe.

Truth be told, I hate our partial feed myself! I wish I can find a way to provide a full feed. See, our site is built using Joomla CMS. And while Joomla is great for content management, it was not built with blogging in mind. So, here are the main limitations of Joomla when it comes to blogging:

  1. The core RSS functionality in Joomla is strictly provided for the front page of the site. Since our blog is not on the front page, there is no built in syndication for the blog. This stinks!
  2. No track back functionality: There are no modules that I know of that provide that functionality.
  3. No pinging functionality: There are modules that claim to provide ping functionality but I am yet to see one that works well.
  4. No core comment functionality: There are modules that provide this functionality. But because these modules are not core to Joomla, you can not display the number of comments per item on the main blog. A reader must click on the item to view the number of comments on it.
  5. No tagging functionality: I guess you can always tag blogs by hand. But if you use a WYSIWYG editor inside Joomla, the editor will strip out the “rel tag.â€

Of course the biggest pain point is the first one where there is no way to syndicate content that is not on the main page. There are two modules that provide a solution to this particular problem. The one we are using for our site will only provide partial feed functionality. I am yet to be able to get the other module that claims to syndicate non-front page content to work.

So, here I am stuck with a partial feed and trying to figure a way out of this whole mess. I am leaning towards using Wordpress for our blog. Of course that in itself will be a headache because we will have to integrate two different platforms (Joomla & WP). The biggest problem is making the blog look like the rest of the site. Sounds like I have a long weekend ahead of me! So tell me:

  • How do you feel if the blog looked different than the rest of the site?
  • Do you recommend a place where we can purchase our word press theme?
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18 Responses to “ Partial feed vs. full feed: When technology is an obstacle”

 
Ayat Says -- August 6th, 2007 at 12:09 am

If it turning people away, I think it is obvious that something needs to be done about it. Were you aware of these problem prior to choosing Joomla?

 
David Novakovic Says -- August 6th, 2007 at 12:11 am

Seems like the easiest thing would be to manually stick a php script that creates the rss feed directly out of your joomla database. Shouldn’t be too hard. Then you don’t have to worry about integration issues.

 
Chris Lodge Says -- August 6th, 2007 at 12:11 am

If you’re going to buy a theme design, why should it look different? But FWIW I don’t mind blogs having a different appearance, as long as there’s some common elements.

With regard to your second questions, this site may be of interest:

http://themeplayground.com/

I have found them literally only today, so can’t vouch for them, but they may have what you need.

Good luck!

 
Khalid Says -- August 6th, 2007 at 12:12 am

David, I am more of a Java guy and PHP is not my area of expertise. I was looking at the two Joomla modules already available to generate xml feed. I am wondering why they are not successful. I am afraid that going down the path of creating the feed via php will create more headaches.

 
Shawn Says -- August 6th, 2007 at 12:12 am

I noticed that in your RSS feed that instead of creating links to anchor text, it actual writes out the link address.
Example:
The response to our $400 give away in RSS contest has been great (blog/marketing-sales/subscribe-to-invesp-and-win-400.html).

 
Khalid Says -- August 6th, 2007 at 12:13 am

Shawn,

I just noticed that too. More reasons to consider the move.

 
Khalid Says -- August 6th, 2007 at 12:13 am

Chris,

I guess it is difficult to match the current site design since most of it is my own customization. So, I have to buy a WP theme and then customize it to match what we have. I will definitely check out themeplayground, thanks for the recommendation.

 
Steven Bradley Says -- August 6th, 2007 at 12:14 am

Khalid, WordPress is very easy to use and I’m sure within a few days you’ll be glad you’ve made the switch. I used to publish partial feeds myself, but after some research realized that full feed was the way to go.

I do customize WordPress themes. Feel free to send an email my way. My blog is WordPress and you can see I created a theme to match the rest of the site.

I prefer to see blogs match the rest of the site. At the very least it should be immediately obvious that both are the same, though I think it’s fine if there’s a little difference.

You might be able to customize the theme yourself. Knowing how to read PHP helps, but you don’t need to be a PHP expert to edit WP. It will take a little time to understand how everything is put together.

 
Matthew Says -- August 6th, 2007 at 12:14 am

i noticed there was no trackbacks, lol I tried to leave several

 
David Novakovic Says -- August 6th, 2007 at 12:15 am

Khalid: Sorry, i’m not a php fan either. I just prematurely assumed Joomla was php based. my bad. In that case s/php/Java :)

 
Khalid Says -- August 6th, 2007 at 12:17 am

@Steven, I might just take you up on that. I spent this weekend playing with wp. And I think I am almost there.

@Matthew, I will fix that when I move to wp

@David: Joomla is actually in PHP. I meant to say that my software experience is in Java so I would not know how to create a feed using PHP :)

 
The move is on! | The Invesp Blog Says -- August 6th, 2007 at 10:10 am

[...] Partial feed vs. full feed: When technology is an obstacle Subscribe to INVESP and win $400 Can I trust you? 13 quick tips to increase online conversion rate via building trust [...]

 
Richard Dows Says -- August 6th, 2007 at 3:04 pm

Hello,

I’d like to offer my services for your WordPress theme thoughts. I have been designing WP themes for several years now, and blending them in with currently existing sites is not a problem (see http://www.grssigns.co.uk/ and associated blog as an example).

As for new designs, or special bespoke designs, take a look at http://www.balancednewsblog.com/ – this is four columns off the bat, WP didn’t have this before I created it. Something similar can easily be done, brand new, or tailored from an existing design.

Thank you for your time,
Richard Dows, The English Guy
http://www.theenglishguy.co.uk/

 
Richard Dows Says -- August 6th, 2007 at 3:06 pm

I don’t understand why people don’t like partial feeds. Personally, I use the reader only to see what’s new, but I like reading the posts in their original layout, so it doesn’t matter if the feed is only partial.

However, taking into consideration that I’m sort of a dinosaur, and most readers want full feeds, I suppose you could do better if you did so.

I don’t mind to see blogs with different layout than the main site.

 
Apparently, Partial Feeds Are a Reason Not to Read Your Blog | Create Business Growth Offers... Says -- August 7th, 2007 at 9:33 am

[...] who is willing giving away $400 to a random RSS subscriber, is receiving a consistent complaint about the fact that their blog is a partial [...]

 
broadband comparison Says -- March 21st, 2008 at 11:26 am

You name me a blogger that’s not in it for the money. I’m not talking about 14 year old kids that heard that a blog makes you cool. I’m referring to the veteran bloggers that realized they can make good easy money out of this.

 
ari syarifudin Says -- May 20th, 2008 at 6:00 pm

I want to clear this problem about CMS Joomla. First, You have to know that Joomla and Wordpress are very different Engine.

Wordpress is focused for blogging system. Joomla is focused as framework bussines. Joomla, I think is not blog machine.

So we can separate this problem and focusing what kind of application do you need and do you want.

Thanks

 
152 Dos & Don’ts of Business Blogging | The Invesp Blog: E-commerce and Landing page Optimization Says -- May 21st, 2009 at 2:57 pm

[...] Do use a full RSS feed [...]

 

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