question four: truncated vs full RSS feeds.

What are the benefits between full RSS feeds, and truncated feeds that link back to the original content?

Full RSS feeds indicate that you actually want people to read what you are writing. That you value the ease of your readership, and you want them to have at least some control over the information you've decided to create and share with them. Full RSS feeds lower the barrier to read content, because no clicking is necessary. Full RSS feeds are generally less of a hassle on mobile devices, because they don't require opening a new page.

Full RSS feeds are an indication that you are creating content because you want people to see it, not because you want to sell ad space on your page. And given the relatively low levels of RSS adoption, and the ability to include ads in RSS, it's not a huge sacrifice.

The benefits of truncated RSS feeds, linking back to the original site, include bringing more visitors to the original site, which may drive traffic to other content located there. The original formatting and design, as well as the framing that the page layout provides, is left intact (this is one of the reasons I was a latecomer to RSS, I like seeing different designs). This might result in more ad revenue. Maybe. Truncated RSS is great, if you see feeds as a kind of bait, and your site as a kind of trap.

My recommendations, in order: Have a full RSS feed. Failing that, offer an ad-supported full feed, or an ad-free truncated feed. Failing that, have a truncated feed, and be amazed at how little of your content actually gets read by RSS users, because you seem to have missed the point.

[This is the last in a series of my answering my own questions, which I think would help a few people when it comes to interviewing potential media hires. I am glad that this is over with, and apologize for how whiny I got at the end there.]

question five: list 5 books.

List the five books most influential to your view of communication:

1. The Rebel Sell

2. Here Comes Everybody

3. Understanding Media

4. Channel Zero

5. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

If you have read, or do read, all of the above, I probably want to be your friend. Just saying.

[This is the 5th in a 5 part series, answering questions I suggested be asked of any potential media hire. I haven't done number 4 yet, because I wanted to answer this one first. Out of order FTW.]

question three: publishing online.

What services have you used to publish online?

Diaryland, Blogger, LiveJournal, Wallop, Flickr, Blogger (this time after Google acquired it), Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter.

I am nearly certain there are others, but these are the ones I can recall at the moment.  Any obvious things I've missed?

[This is the third in a series of posts wherein I answer the questions I suggested posing to potential employees working in media.]

question two: over-hyped social media service.

What social media / social networking service do you think is the most over-hyped?

For me, the only answer is LinkedIn.  I understand it's importance, I have a profile myself, and I do my best to keep it updated.  But for me, LinkedIn fails on the 'social' element, and that keeps me from making it part of my day to day usage.  I don't have relationships on LinkedIn, (and I fully admit this is my fault) I only have information there.

LinkedIn serves a particular niche, in my eyes - People who see the power of social media, and are still unnerved it.

Twitter has conversations, which lead to being exposed.  Facebook has history and context, which lead to being exposed.  Blogs have content, which paired with context, leads to being exposed.  LinkedIn seems designed to avoid exposure at all costs, and feels like it is based on the premise that your work life, and work social ecosystem, should be kept separate from your personal one.  To me, this feels like a service designed for people who like the idea of social media, but are terrified of incorporating it into their lives, and dealing with the exposure related to that.

Again, I understand the appeal of LinkedIn.  But for me, it feels as though it was designed for a subset of the current generation of employers, the people who think an embarrassing picture on Facebook, from five years in the past, is an accurate indicator of an individual's ability to contribute to an office environment.

So, I don't think LinkedIn in the future.  I think it serves a specific missing link between the people who have no interest in using social media, and the people who will soon be the only target market that matters: those who live in social media.

[This is the second in a series of posts where I answer the questions I suggested people ask potential media hires.]

question one: why i care about APIs.

Last week, I suggested five questions that I thought were worth asking anyone you are hiring in a media related job, if you want to be sure they are fairly literate in terms of how people communicate online.  I've been asked to answer those questions myself, and will be doing so one at a time.  

Question One: What is the most interesting thing being done with an API in the services you use online?

If I'd been asked this last week, it would have been a comment about tying real time communication into a visual representation of location (Probably a Twitter / Google Maps mashup) but I had a thought today that gave me a different answer.

I recently started using Tweetdeck and TwitterFon as my Twitter tools of choice, after several months of using the desktop and iphone versions of Twitterrific.  I did this not out of preference for the interface, but because I'd hit the content wall for Twitter - I was following too many people to keep on top of any attempts to reach out to me directly.  Content was being lost in the stream, and the stream is the essence of Twitter.

The applications I'm using now go fishing in the stream, basically.  Replies directed at me, content that fits search parameters I have set up, is set aside for me to peruse at my leisure.  Instead of reading every post I can in an attempt to stay up to date, I can take advantage of asynchronous communication, and use Twitter in a slightly less obsessive manner.

This isn't a mindblowing use of the Twitter API, it's more or less exactly why the information was made available.  But, in terms of my interaction with the service, and in terms of my limitations in terms of time and attention, fishing in the stream of Twitter updates fundamentally changes the service.  Twitter is a different beast, in terms of my behaviour, using these applications.

It's expanded beyond the experience it was designed to have, and it's done so by letting control out of the hands of the creators.  This is what APIs are for, but it was astonishing for me to watch the changes in my own life, firsthand, due to these tiny changes.