Little Orange Icons

When it comes to syndication, there is no shortage of opinions as to what the best approach/format/syntax is. One of the most consistent debates that occurs focuses on the amount of content to be published via the available feeds.

One camp believes that RSS and related syndication formats should provide a full context of the post in the feed itself. This provides the primary benefit of removing external dependencies for news aggregators. In this scenario, the entire text of the post is part of the feed and readers can download and read posts in their entirety without visiting the originating site.

On the other hand, there is a large camp that believes that digest entries are more than enough. This approach has many motivations, from bandwidth to advertising. The more interesting one, in my opinion, is the need to keep readers involved with the actual site. The goal of this behavior is to ensure that site sponsors are given exposure to the readership. For many, and many more going forward, the need to generate revenue from site sponsorship and advertising.

Recently, Robert Scoble has posted some thoughts on RSS and it's cuased quite a bit of feedback. John Dowdell has even spoken out to get others to read the entry, as he is strictly opposed.

The jury is still out, though there's little reason that the two can't potentially exist side-by-side.