As I travel more, and take your feeds with me, I'm constantly annoyed at the posts where I just get to the good part and...

Also, buy Rok's book. Learn about the true power of RSS, and oh yeah, make your feeds full...

OK, I understand that this needs a bit more explanation - so here goes:

There are a few advantages of providing full-text content items:
Users don't need to click-through to your web site to read the entire article, ergo less work involved for getting the content they want, which translates in to better odds that they'll read your content. By providing full-text content items you are turning the RSS aggregator into a "one-stop content consumption point".

Many bloggers blog from RSS - If you don't put full text in your feeds, I can't get your point unless I go to the blog site, and with the current 300 feeds that I browse, that's unlikely. Scoble reads more like 1000.

Full text or summary depends on your goals:
* If you goal is to connect with 'other bloggers', especially "A and B+ List Bloggers" and have them link to you via trackbacks & permalinks, then it is wise to provide full feed for these people to read in their medium of choice - their RSS reader.
* If you goal is to generate drive-to for your site, or for the advertisers on your site, then certainly using excerpted feeds are to your advantage and meet the mission of your site.
* If you goal is to generate 'interactivity' on your site via comments, full or excerpted posts are not a relevant issue. If a reader wants to comment, they'll click through and comment. You're not losing any of the community aspects of your site by doing a full text feed.

In my opinion, "Why do you want readers to visit you site?" is a fundamental question that needs asking before you decide.

There are also other options where you can offer multiple feeds and let readers choose, if it meets your objectives.

When you consider reading RSS through the frame of reference of a NewsGator (via the Outlook plugin) reader, we read your feed in the same way we read email. Literally. As I'm going through my unread email, it includes both posts from the 270 feeds I subscribe to, and new email. To me, reading exerpted posts is like getting email from a friend that makes me go somewhere else to finish reading what that person has to say.

You haven't convinced me. There is much more to my blog than the post...if I feed you everything in the RSS feed...you may ignore my blog entirely. Then...what I'm doing is merely writing content for Bloglines. Not my intent. I desire your presence on my blog. However, I am willing to be swayed to your way of thinking. I, too, often enjoy the blogs who have full posts. Still, it's helpful to me to have just the intro in my RSS feed, so I can determine whether or not to click into the blog for the rest. Rok's book looks worthwhile...will he explain why I should put my full post in the RSS feed, in a convincing way? Seriously...
if you get my post in your RSS feed, don't I lose the effect of my blog design and development?

I've wondered the same thing. Scoble has made the same statement, except saying "If you don't publish the full article, I won't subscribe". From a gister point of view I like full articles because there are more potential keywords for my searches to hit and I get a better sense of the article before I go to the site (I need the link for the post).

What I'm hoping is that people like the stuff they read enough to visit to read some of the archives. Or if my article is found in a search (PubSub, Feedster) they'll visit to get my RSS feed.

I think as we can more easily put ads into our feeds, having people visit your site will become less and less important. It's all about the content, right?

Now thats an intersting statement Dana! However I couldnt disagree more with this one :) I want you at my Blog NOT just in my Feed. If I put all my ramblings in my feed then there is no point me having a Blog is there!

My feed is to entice you to my site so you can see the wonders of our products and services :) It serves it's purpose if you clickthrough.

Being in the blog skinnin business (amongst others) I want people at my Blog so they can peruse our range. I want them there so they can say (hopefully) hey what a cool skin this guys blog has! Oh look they can skin my Blog for me. I dont want to advertise my products in my feed that's what my site is for.

Personally speaking I am NEVER going to have feeds in my lists that are just full of ads! The feeds I subscribe to are of the sites that I like to visit.

Mark...

Don't get me wrong folks, I love visiting your sites too, but to me it's all about productivity, productivity, productivity. Kidding, sort of, I've updated the post with some thoughts for y'all.

Productivity and creativity

Excellent response, Dana. And all valid points. However, you have to take the reader into account. It would be helpful to us if we could get a sense of how important this issue is to our readers-- you are one (we hope) but there are hundreds of others, and...I need to understand them in order to change the way I populate my RSS feed. I'm leaning your way... it can't hurt...but, from my point of view, of the over 150 feeds I subscribe to, very few put the entire post in. Doesn't bother me a bit...and no one is more time pressed than I. If the post has a good lead in, I'm clicking in to the blog regardless of how much of the post is in the feed. Occasionally, I will admit to reading an entire post in the feed, and NOT clicking in to the blog...but, chances are, I'll click in later on because I want to see if anyone has commented. I think folks who do not allow comments, or who make comments difficult to add, are in more jeopardy of losing readers, than those of us who only supply a portion of our post in our feeds. I seldom read through a post on a blog that asks me to register to comment, or just doesn't have comments open. Defeats the idea of the blog to begin with. Perhaps this is apples and oranges. Anyway, who can we get to do a study on this? Is the reader's personality the driving force, or the time issue the driving force? Or, is it something else entirely? Curiouser and curiouser...