I'll Just Stop Reading

I subscribe to 188 blogs in my Google Reader. Most are fashion and style related. Some no longer update (where did you go Just My Style?), but they stay on my reader list, if not my site’s blogroll.

Not all the blogs meet my personal preferences. Some twitter on and on about moods and food. Some consist of nothing but giant pictures that require me to scroll scroll scroll. Some require me to complete 47 steps to leave a comment or don’t allow comments at all. I tolerate this because, let’s face it, blogs are personal expressions and I am not going to dictate someone else’s style. I appreciate the differences, even if I don’t like them.

But one thing will cause me to leave a blog behind forever: truncating the feed into readers, like Google Reader. I do not want to click and open a new window to look at a blog. If a post shows up in my reader as a title and a few lines of text, requiring me to visit the site to see more, I will move on. Hell, I have 438 items in my reader right now. Why should I make the effort?

Why do people do this? I can only think they truncate the feed in order to drive traffic to their webpage. If you visit the page, you are counted for advertising dollars. Truncating the feed is an underhanded, lazy way to generate revenue.

If you really want me to leave the easy depths of Google Reader and visit your blog, draw me there with your fabulous content. Intrigue me with a link to a prior post. Engage me in a conversation. Ask me a question with a poll. Or just do something so incredible that I want to visit and tell you what I thought. Isn’t that what style blogs are all about? Inspiration and community?