March 19, 2007
Seeking Alpha’s Great Leap Backwards
Why on earth did they make this change?
We’ve stopped syndicating the full text of articles by RSS, but you can still get full articles by email at http://seekingalpha.com/account/subscribe. The email system allows you to subscribe by the same categories we offer for RSS. Make sure to select “full articles on publication” as the delivery mode. By setting up a folder in your email program and a filter to direct emails from Seeking Alpha to that folder, you can view Seeking Alpha articles in their own location without flooding your inbox.
Why return to 1999 style distribution? Email is for email, you fools. I want the full-text feed delivered to my feed reader (Bloglines, Google Reader, Netvibes, etc.) or I’ll do without.
Cat: | Time: 8:02 am (utc+8)
March 19th, 2007 at 8:29 am
me too. i assume they are desperate for revenue. perhaps their benchmark vcs have realized that while the product is good it is not a scalable business, so they are trying to squeeze what they can out of it. too bad..
March 19th, 2007 at 9:51 am
I’ll bet it’s b/c of all the spam blogs out there “stealing” their feeds.
BTW, you can use Blogines to subscribe to email newsletters — http://www.bloglines.com/manage_email
March 19th, 2007 at 11:00 am
aigou: They should be able to monetize their feed without a problem, so I think Michael’s reasoning is probably right: it’s an anti-spamblog move.
Michael: Thanks for the tip on the email manager.
March 19th, 2007 at 11:58 am
Perhaps it’s because the contributing blogs lose pageviews if SeekingAlpha readers can see their entire posts via RSS. Monetizing feeds isn’t as easy, yet.
March 19th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
Kaushik: I don’t follow you since I never visited the contributing blogs in the first place … the partial content post will lead to the SA site when clicked, not the contributing blogger’s.
If you mean that SA is losing pageviews by running a full-content feed, then yes, I agree that’s true. I think readers are more important than page views, but then again I’m not in this for money.
March 19th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
As a contributing author, I get nothing from a SeekingAlpha page view. I would rather they published full feed with more generous linking back to my site.
The money they pay the editors apparently goes to changing my links to the SA repost of my article being referenced.
March 19th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
I did without as soon as that notice crossed my reader.
March 20th, 2007 at 3:56 am
That’s a real bad move. I’ve just got in to Google Reader (love it), and the sites which only offer partial feeds are a royal pain.
March 20th, 2007 at 5:41 am
CM, Michael at al …. the link below should help answer your questions as to why the RSS changes have been made. The piece was written by Michael Eisenberg of Benchmark Capital who invested in Seeking Alpha. The title of the post you need is “5 Reasons Full RSS Feeds Should Come to An End”:
http://sixkidsandafulltimejob.blogspot.com/
March 20th, 2007 at 7:23 am
I don’t think it’s about leechers, if it was that they could simply use RedAlt’s AntiLeech
March 20th, 2007 at 8:23 am
Caravaggio: Yeah, it’s a terrible move.
callmebob: Thanks for the link to the Eisenberg article.
March 20th, 2007 at 10:30 am
lame deal.no sense of style and loose plan. bulk for the sake of bulk.
Plus they make up and twist headlines.
For those that still listen to conference calls - why?
March 20th, 2007 at 11:40 am
[…] A comment from “callmebob” on my post about Seeking Alpha’s Great Leap Backwards led me to this post by Michael Eisenberg, Five Reasons Full RSS Feeds Should Come to an End. Here’s my summary and response to Eisenberg’s post: […]
March 20th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
[…] Here is what has the ‘Chairman’ peeved . Seems like his readers agree. […]
March 20th, 2007 at 11:19 pm
[…] Full feed frisson 20Mar07 The move by Seeking Alpha to restrict their RSS feeds to excerpts is gaining some notice in the investment blogosphere. Maoxian has additional post on the topic, delving deeper in the to the issue full vs. partial feeds and the value of “monetizing” readership. […]
March 23rd, 2007 at 4:42 am
[…] I guess it’s the eternal debate, full feed RSS vs partial or headline only feeds. I’ve started thinking about this now that I’m a wildly successful blogger with at least 3 or 4 regular readers. Recently Seeking Alpha, a big finance blog, decided to switch from full to partial feeds, with ensuing hubub. His post enumerates a lot of the reasons people give for switching to partial feeds. […]
July 13th, 2007 at 12:12 am
[…] For readers of Seeking Alpha this is a disappointing development. (via Maoxian) […]
June 11th, 2008 at 4:36 am
Why would they not want to get paid for page views? Thats how you keep the lights on in this business. If you have a job, I bet you expect to get paid as well right?