News and notes from around the interweb:
- Triple points April – June from Club Carlson plus 1000 points for booking through their mobile app. (HT: Head for Points)
- The TSA’s SPOT (Behavior Detection) Program targets undocumented immigrants rather than terrorists. (HT: Reid F.)
- Passengers left over $600,000 in coins at security checkpoints last year.
- Senegal introducing visa-free tourism starting May 1 and will also cut airline ticket taxes in half. Because they actually want people to visit.
- An Air India co-pilot beat up the flight’s captain but they decided to take off and fly to their destination anyway.
Hi Gary, just wanted to say that I’m disappointed you’ve disabled full article view through RSS readers with the new site design, and now force your readers using Feedly or other services to click through to the site. I understand that you want to maximize page views and ad revenue (there are 5 banner ads on this page!), but it’s really inconvenient for long-time readers and a real disincentive to subscribe. Thanks.
I understand the decision if Gary needs the page views to continue providing the blog… I just wish he’d respond with a straight answer on whether this change is intended to be permanent. He’s usually reliably forthcoming. Maybe he responded to the question in an earlier post and I missed it. Gary?
the RSS issue is particularly acute for these digest link posts. I’m supposed to click out to look at 5 links?
I’m very close to unsubscribing sadly.
same here.
reading blog posts on newsblur is totally messed up. Its the only way that I can read it vs opening the website. My boss is seeing my screen and newsblur is definitely seen as a work tool, vs opening the actual blog which is definitely not work item. Gary pls fix your damn blog
I’m not quite savvy enough to know the details of RSS Feeds but I do know that the new appearance (and function) of the website is clearly less appealing and less enjoyable than the prior appearance. VFTW has long been the ONE blog I follow closely, visiting every day or reviewing all prior entries if I was unable to visit for any reason. With the new appearance I’m not certain that will continue. Please Gary, yours is the most informative FF blog, go back to the old View (From the Wing).
@Barry I responded in comments on a few different posts. This wasn’t intentional as a change initially. I think I’ve fixed part of the problem of gibberish in feeds. As for truncating while not intended I’m letting it run a few days so I can see what the data looks like, what engagement on the site looks like (full disclosure: while clicks to the blog mean more ad revenue, truncated posts mean less credit card referral revenue since card links are excluded from posts).
As a (somewhat) long-time reader (~2009) I have to agree with the other commenters that the truncated RSS posts are frustrating, especially for those times when I’m reading from a mobile device app (Feedly) as it forces me to drop all other reading and head out to the browser (which I guess is the whole intent). However, the ultimate effect is simply that I end up reading less of Gary’s writing (and seeing less of the ads/CC links) cause I figure odds are someone else’s blog will either state the same info in their RSS-friendly feed, or will at least give a link-back to VFTW if its really that important. I understand Gary wants to monetize the site to its fullest extent, but this change coupled with the move to more “clickbait” type of headlines just leaves real sour taste in my mouth, along with obviously some other people too.
@Gary, thanks! Sorry I missed your earlier response.
As you’re watching traffic, please consider that subscriber numbers may stay high as folks like me watch the situation to see if the change will stick. I bet you’re getting a surge of traffic now, that will fall if you stick with the truncated feed.
It’s a tough call, and I know I shouldn’t act like I’m entitled to free content. If you need the ad revenue, offering the full feed becomes a free ride, which isn’t fair to you. But the click through annoyance factor really is a Big Deal. And I do often click through to read comments when a post is compelling.
Good luck with whatever path you take, I’ll stay subscribed for another few days to see how it turns out.
I visit via your website but I am afraid I am going to add my criticism of the new look, mainly because it’s no longer even easy to spot the articles amongst the adverts, the headers are not sufficiently distinguished from the body of the text. And get rid of the “featured articles” section under the first article please; it looks like an ad even though it isn’t (sort of) which must be counterproductive.