The Secret Behind Why Blog Readers Unsubscribe

RSS is a way of subscribing to news/blog feeds that keeps track of new updates and what you have already read. It’s like having your very own little paperboy trapped inside the computer scouring the Internet for the things you like to read (except not nearly as creepy and possibly illegal). RSS is the best way to keep track of several sites with the minimal amount of hassle. It’s also one of the few reliable ways to find out how many people are regularly read your blog.

//engtech RSS feed

Darren at ProBlogger leveraged his 20,000 RSS readers and polled them to find out why people unsubscribe from blog RSS feeds. They came up with a list of 34 reasons. The top three reasons people unsubscribe from RSS feeds is because there are too many posts, there are too few posts or because the blog uses partial feeds. Partial feeds are when the RSS feed only shows a snippet of post and you have to click through to the blog to read the entire thing.

That’s an interesting contradiction! Obviously, the solution is to have a consistent posting rhythm, but why is there such a schism between people unsubscribing because of too few or too many posts?

The answer is in which RSS application they use.

Which RSS reader people use greatly affects how they interact with and view RSS feeds. Different RSS readers will have different features and limitations that will change the user’s behaviour. I’ve tried out Firefox Sage, Netvibes, Google Personal Homepage, Bloglines and Google Reader (in that order) and these are the conclusions I’ve drawn.

RSS Readers I’ve Known and Loved

• Sage is an extension that comes shipped with the Firefox web-browser. It is a very light weight feed reader.
• Netvibes is a web-based personal homepage with widgets. You can use widgets for reading RSS feeds. A 1280×1024 screen resolution can display around 9 RSS feeds per screen.
• Google Personalized Homepage is a web-based personal homepage with widgets. You can use widgets for reading RSS feeds (and even use a widget for Google Reader).
• Bloglines is a web-based RSS that can organize feeds by categories (one category per feed). Feeds can be read one site at a time, or by category.
• Google Reader is a web-based RSS reader that can organize feeds by tags (one feed can have many tags). Feeds can be read one site at a time, by tag, or all at once.

There are lots of other great RSS feed readers out there, but those are the ones I’ve tried.

RSS Reader Features

The features and limitations of an RSS reader will greatly shape the decisions a user makes about how many feeds they subscribe to and and how many posts those feeds have.

There are four major ways of categorizing RSS reader features: Type of Application, How Feeds are Downloaded, How Feeds are Displayed and Interacting with RSS Feeds.

Legend

• No picture means the feature is neutral.
• Feature leads to subscribing to less feeds.
  (One feed can contain many posts)
  
• Feature leads to subscribing to more feeds.
  (One feed can contain many posts)
  
• Feature leads to reading more posts.
  (One feed can contain many blog posts)
  
• Feature leads to reading less posts.
  (One feed can contain many blog posts)
  

Type of Application

RSS feed readers come in two basic flavours: web-based application or desktop application.

Web-based

(Google Reader, Bloglines, Netvibes, Google Homepage)

Your list of read feeds is stored on the Internet so you can read from any computer.

Desktop

(Sage)

Your list of read feeds is stored on your computer, so it is the only computer you can read feeds from.

Dedicated to Reading RSS

(Google Reader, Bloglines)

The application has one purpose only and that is reading RSS feeds.

RSS Reading is a Feature in a bigger Application

(Sage, Google Homepage, Netvibes)

Reading RSS feeds is just a small part of a bigger picture.

How Feeds are Downloaded

Another major factor is how RSS feeds are collected. Does the program have to collect the feeds by itself or is it part of a larger server that is able to share the feed amongst all users?

Server Collects Feeds in Background

(Google Reader, Bloglines, Google Homepage)

Feeds are download in the background so you never have to wait to check your feeds (although there may be a lag before the post shows up in your reader).

Have to Download Feed when you want to Read It

(Netvibes, Sage)

This is quite possibly the most annoying limitation ever. You’re guaranteed the latest feeds but at the cost of your own time waiting for them to download. It also wastes a lot of bandwidth on the site you’re trying to read.

Offline Reading

(Sage)

The feed reader has to connect to the Internet to download feeds, but feeds can be read offline without an Internet connection.

How Posts are Displayed

Another major feature that affects the users is how the posts from the feed are displayed.

Read Full Post

(Google Reader, Bloglines, Sage, Google Homepage)

The full post can be read without having to leave the feed reader and visit the website (unless they are using partial feeds).

Show Short Summary of Post (no option for full post)

(Netvibes, Google Reader)

Only a short summary of the post is displayed. You have to click to visit the website to read more.

All Posts at Once / River of News

(Google Reader)

The RSS reader can show many posts with just a small summary of just the title.

Organized by Tags

(Google Reader)

You can create arbitrary grouping of tags based on your mood. Reading a feed with multiple tags clears it from all tags it belongs to.

Organized by Categories

(Bloglines)

You can group common feeds together, but it isn’t as flexible as tags.

One Feed at a Time

(Netvibes, Google Homepage, Sage)

It requires many clicks to move from one story to another.

Empty Feeds are Hidden

(Google Reader, Bloglines)

Only the subscribed feeds with new posts are shown.

Empty Feeds are Shown

(Sage, Netvibes, Google Homepage)

All subscribed feeds are shown all of the time.

Interacting with RSS Feeds

The last major factor in how the RSS feed will affect users is the features it offers for interacting with feeds.

Keyboard Hot Keys

(Google Reader)

It is easy to skip rapidly through feeds using keyboard commands instead of having to click on each article with the mouse. This is a killer feature.

Search

(Bloglines)

Feeds can be searched for specific information instead of having to manually browse through them.

Clipping, Sharing or Saving Posts for Later

(Google Reader, Bloglines)

Some features come bundled with extra features like the ability to save feeds for later reading or to republish feeds or sections of feeds like a blog. Feed reading becomes a supplement to blogging.

Can Store Unlimited Unread Posts

(Google Reader, not tested on others)

Some feed readers aren’t able to store more than a certain number of unread posts.

View All Previously Read Items

(Google Reader, not tested on others)

Some feed readers delete the information from read feeds while others keep it forever.

Which RSS Application Do You Use?

(actually, I just asked that question :) )

As you may have guessed, out of my limited sampling size of 5 applications, Google Reader has won me over. I currently subscribe to 160 blogs in Google Reader. I got up to around 70 in Bloglines before I switched to Reader. My Sage usage maxed out at around 15 and I found Netvibes and Google Homepage became unmanageable after adding around 10 feeds.

Different applications will shape their users in different way because of the applications’ own features and limitations. If the user has to wait for the RSS feed to connect to the blog and it always displays empty feeds then they will unsubscribe because of too few posts. If the user subscribes to a lot of feeds and one prolific feed is overwhelming their attention from other feeds then they will unsubscribe because of too many posts. So worry more about the other 32 reasons that you can control like writing great content, avoiding the blogging echo-chamber of reporting other people’s news and not devoting too many posts to self-promotion.

Of course, reading more and more feeds isn’t necessarily a good thing as you start paying less attention to individual feeds and start ignoring quality information for quantity of information. But that’s a post for another day.

Related Posts

• //engtech RSS feed
• Reader Survey – Finding Out Who’s Reading My Blog
• Website Speed Optimization Tips
• RSS Feed Scrapers Stealing Content

External Links

• ModernLifeIsRubbish: How to Get RSS Right
• ModernLifeIsRubbish: Who’s Using What for RSS?