Will 2012 be the end of ?-trailing articles (and other pet-peeves)

Credit

One of the more disgusting trends I noticed (it was probably always there), was the common blog post with a trialing "?". Most of these blogs offer a big question and tend tease some sort of substance, but when you get into the blog - your offered nothing more than an expansion on the initial question. The trouble with this is that you're offered nothing in the way of new or useful information, and in more cases, the actual question was never answered. So, let me take you down a dark tunnel of questionable blogs and other pet-peves of 2011.

With this in mind - It's really not hard to find a topic that hasn't been vacuously covered (and ended) with a question mark. I'll pick the all-too-common Apple rumors and product predictions. This type of blog is replete with headline-ending question marks combined with a serious lack of substance. One common thread in most cases is basing the article on thin reports or a some sort of rumor - and even better, not linking to the actual report. Another common sign is the over-use of advertisements. One such dubious blog post even said at the end "Only Apple knows what is truth.". Really. Do yourself a favor, if you see a blog post in your stream with a trailing question mark - seriously reconsider opening it (with the exception of this one article, of course).

Not so mobile support
Another painful pet-peve I encountered all-too-often was the link to an article on a mobile-supported site only to be forced to the main mobile page and not to the actual article itself. This sort of practice shouldn't exist in this age of rather ubiquitous mobile devices and sites that should support direct links to content. I recently came across this with an article link to Cineplex on my Android phone. I was interested and clicked and was forced to "view full site", return to the original link and then open it again as a full site.

Folks that don't do this (thank you, by the way): Globe Technology

Limited RSS Feeds
This one is another annoyance that really started to bug me this year. RSS feeds (if you're new to them) are a way to read news faster and more efficiently by way of a "News Reader". The biggest among them is Google Reader. The sites that support this technology benefit greatly by being in my stream and visible (when they might not otherwise be seen). You'll find that when you subscribe to this blog's feed - you get the full article right inside the feed. You can come to the page if you want - or you can read this right where you are.

Blogging Calwell in Google Reader

But, some sites seem to have declared war against the lowly RSS reader. The tactics being used are becoming increasingly annoying. Here are some examples:

1. Providing only a sentence - please let us know what we're about to open:

2. Over Advertising - I generally question the wisdom of placing an ad image in a feed, but even sharing links at the bottom are also pushing things.

2. Saying so little, I almost don't even know what the post is about

I have unsubscribed to some pages because of this and generally discourage these kinds of annoying tactics. I do hope the new year brings a loosening of all things RSS. Please, let us see more of what you're posting!

That's my list for 2011 - if you have one, please do share. I'm seriously hoping this new year will end some of these annoying trends. Let's hope!

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