The Online Photographer has switched to partial text feeds. This is a shame, and is likely to silently hurt the site’s feed-consuming readership, and thus its ad-revenue.

Using a feed reader helps to manage a lot of content with limited time resource. Short entries, like curated links, can often be dealt with there and then in the feed reader. Longer pieces will get a click through so they can be enjoyed in context. However, unless an entry can be seen in its entirety it can’t ever be considered worth my time. No excerpt or teaser can substitute for the actual content when making this assessment.

The feed reader is my triage station. With limited resources I need to assess an article’s fitness quickly and decisively. Casualties ceaselessly flood in, presenting themselves with a variety of crippling conditions seeking my attention. A partial entry feed is like having a patient stuck down a mine shaft with their guts hanging out; hard to get access to and probably not worth the effort.