Reader changed?
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I’m still frustrated that there is no one-click way to go from the reader to the original blog post. The look and feel of the blog is a huge contributor for me to the text of the post so I always go to the original. It’s frustrating to have to click so many times to read posts. I apologize for not reading through this whole thread to see if my question has been answered, but is there any talk about putting in a direct link to the original post from the blog?
Thanks.
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You can click the timestamp instead of the title. It’s just a matter of making a new habit, really.
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I’m still frustrated that there is no one-click way to go from the reader to the original blog post.
Click the timestamp/clock in the bottom right hand corner. It’s not intuitive but it works.
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but is there any talk about putting in a direct link to the original post from the blog?
No there isn’t because the trend is towards mobile blogging rather than desktop blogging. That means that the themes that have post formats are designed primarily for mobile use but can be used by desktop users too and guess what? When you use some post formats like asides, images, quotes gallery, etc. the posts don’t display titles.
http://en.support.wordpress.com/themes/post-formats/ -
Please point us to the evidence that there is a trend towards mobile blogging. I would be interested in reading more and understanding this trend. Thank you.
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Much of our internal goal setting and direction is based on our internal numbers, which has been showing a rise in page views (by percentage) from the mobile app and mobile devices (browsers on phones, etc visiting wp.com sites outside of our native apps).
The best report I’ve seen recently is from the Pew Research Foundation. There’s a fair number of news articles about the report online, but there’s a ton to dig through in the original report regarding mobile internet usage.
I’ll ask around here and see what other external reports we’ve seen.
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The debate rages over and over, explain it as you will. I still say you broke more than you fixed. Too many complaints to ignore but that’s what you’ve chosen to do.
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The Pew report refers in a general manner to the internet and specifically to readership usage in the USA. I am not convinced this overall trend is global. It seems to refer more to general browsing and not personal blogs.
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I don’t see that your stats about page views from mobile users have any relevence to the reader changes though? Many of my blogs visitors come from mobile devices (my statcounter stats show as much as 40% on some days) however those visitors are the general public coming in from google searches. They are not wordpress bloggers and are not using the reader. I assume therefore that you’ve applied a filter to your stats to ONLY include mobile users that are logged in worpress bloggers before making the reader changes?
Also, even if there was an increase in mobile blogging and these people wanted the new reader format I find two serious flaws in WordPress’s actions:
1) It is surely very simple to give us an option within our profile as to which format of reader we would prefer to use and then only apply the new changes to those that wanted them.
2) My wife and I both use our mobiles to use the reader and we prefer it how it was, our phones are more than capable of displaying the blog post from within the original blog form as they, like many new devices coming onto the market, have such high resolution and immediate zooming and panning with simple gestures that there is no need to strip out the text and show it in the sanitised popup.
In fact I would go as far as saying that we both detest the new popup. So even though we use our mobile devices to read blogs we would still prefer the reader as it was and given the option to choose we’d revert to the old form as it was more mobile friendly on our smartphones.
I’m therefore very confused as to what market you are trying to satisfy? It surely suggests that you are catering to very old, poor quality phones that had lousy resolution – a market that is dying and within a year or so will no longer exist as all new smartphones are more than capable of handling the full blog experience.
I think the problem here may be that many of the themes and blogs are not setup correctly and
- WP’s mobile settings are actually mobile unfriendly
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I have disabled the mobile friendly option on my blog as it made the blog unusable for my readers (99% of whom are not WP users) as it places the categories at the bottom of the posts and not clearly visible. Instead I have forced my readers to use the full blog site and since doing this my mobile visitor numbers have massively increased and I’ve received numerous personal emails telling me how those mobile users much prefer the site as it is now even though they need to pan and zoom to view tha right hand side panels and read posts etc.
Regards,
Ian
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@Ian I was answering more toward the trend in mobile usage specifically, than relating it to the Reader changes per se.
With the third-party statcounter on your site, since that is in a widget on the sidebar, that isn’t displayed on the Reader, so it wouldn’t track viewing from within the Reader.
Regarding the option—it isn’t trivial to have both running at the same time. Without looking at any technical issues with running both (how each view tied into the larger WordPress.com system and if both methods could run side-by-side), that introduces two different code bases that need to be maintained, which would become harder and harder to maintain as time went on. That’s the biggest reason virtually all platforms (thinking Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, etc), even if they offer a temporary option to keep the old way, the option eventually disappears. Between maintaining the code, keeping up with technology changes, supporting multiple platforms, etc, it’s a tall order.
We have a solid commitment to providing the best service possible, almost completely without cost to bloggers.
Technically, yes, mobile phones are virtually as capable as desktop browsers. With the mobile experience on the Reader (and the apps), we aren’t displaying the content in that format to cater to older phones, but rather, our data and research indicates that a consistent experience for users between all platforms (desktop, mobile browser, mobile app) helps to increase engagement (comments, likes, etc). I think Facebook and Twitter are great examples of how their website (both mobile and desktop) and apps are darn close to complete parity. In short, the market isn’t older phones, but trying to serve a consistent experience for those who are consuming blog content through WordPress.com (in addition to enhancing the experience of content creation via mobile).
Regarding the mobile theme, I think all of us here would agree it isn’t the best mobile experience by current standards. The primary target for the mobile theme is an older generation of both themes and phones. I haven’t reviewed all of our most recent themes, but the vast majority (if not all) are “responsive” meaning that the theme will display the content in the best way possible based on the size of the device being used. That type of experience trumps a completely separate mobile theme. We do want you to have the option, though, to display it, especially on older themes. The mobile theme is a bit off-topic, but you’re not going to get argument from me trying to defend it :-)
@Victor
Fair enough. I’m asking around if we have any public reports specific to personal blogging. One of the more comprehensive reports I’ve seen regarding global cellular usage is at http://mobithinking.com/mobile-marketing-tools/latest-mobile-stats/b . Their mobile vs desktop stats are out-of-date (almost 2 years old now) and due for a refresh.@All
Thank for the thoughtful and respectful dialogue. We’re listening, even if we don’t act on each point of criticism. -
Karftbj,
A significant number of bloggers are photographers and Wp has tailored some of their themes and options to photographers. One thing is that photographs are best seen against a black background on the web (see the recent change in Adobe Photoshop etc.). The reader may be responsive but it does not take into account the time and effort many bloggers go to craft their sites. They have the choice show their full blog against a plain background and have their material more easily used by others or force readers to click more than once to get to the original site (okay those in the know click on the time stamp, but that is not obvious).
Put another way regardless of the statistics why offer custom features for sale if this bland reader is what the majority of WP blog readers see. I can appreciate a mobile and a desktop approach may be hard to manage, but surely a clearly labelled button in the reader to go directly to the original is not too much to ask?
Its not clear to my what that button is not an option.
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What makes me laugh is looking at countries with deep mobile penetration. Places I visited not so long ago. At the time they had no telephone communications worth mentioning, why then when the opportunity arises would they invest in land lines. Mobile infrastructure took over. Moreover while penetration is deep it maybe more for mobile banking than reading WP. If you have limited resources a phone makes more sense than a desktop. Neither report speaks to the heavy costs of phone usage in my country, now a political issue. Interesting to see how these polls are influencing WP; and not the equally important and increasing impact of wealthy aging populations. Interesting discussion. Will be very interested in how this pans out. Thanks for sending the material along!
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Thanks for that speedy and comprehensive reply :-)
Yes, agreed on the statcounter widget but then I have disabled full post in feed so to read the posts people will have to visit the page and thus hit the widget.
I personally disagree with the likes and comments options being available on the reader anyway and in my opinion they should be removed so that the person claiming to like the blog post or make comment on it is more likely to read some or all of it first.
Where they are currently allows the spammers (by which I mean people liking stuff simply to gain retrospective views on their own blogs en masse) to have far quicker and less tedious facility to spam.
With regards to mobile themes, this is a curious one. My blog is a very old theme (misty look) and is the old fashioned narrow form. While on a PC it means there is a lot of wasted screen real estate, on a mobile the theme works great – almost made for mobile! :-)
So in my case forcing the users to view the full site rather than using the mobile friendly version is no real hardship as it works great on most devices. The problem comes with people who use wide form blogs such as my wife.
Now if you choose to use that form you are immediately putting off a large potential readership of your blog as they are simply not and never will be mobile friendly and hence why I fully understand the need for the sanitised popup. However as those bloggers including my wife have deliberately chosen to have wide form and alienate the mobile users I don’t see why we all have to suffer the changes to enable their blogs to be readable on mobiles.
I wonder, if running two different reader code bases is not feasible, how about the reader being changed to detect a flag on the blog itself so that the main title/link will go directly into a blog where the blogger chooses that setting on their blog (or possibly at post level) and in any other case shows the popup as is the case now. Agreed that for people with wide format blogs the reader experience will be awful on a mobile device, especially a phone, if the user chooses the direct link option.
I’ve visited many blogs of people that have posted in this thread and a large proportion of them have not got mobile friendly blogs, they either have wide formats or they have not set their blog so the full site is viewable (they’ve left the mobile ‘friendly’ option enabled) so many of them will be losing potential mobile views as their sites are difficult to navigate on mobiles or the layouts are messy when viewed on mobiles. I suspect many are non mobile users and thus have not noticed this issue as they haven’t tested their blogs on various mobile devices. For this reason I can partially understand why WP took the decision to change the reader as WP itself will also be losing potential views/hits and thus revenue, after all if a mobile reader visits a site that is easy to read/navigate they will stay and look around. :-)
I just feel that some of us are being penalised for the ‘sledgehammer to crack a nut’ approach. If at all possible these should be user configurable options so that those of us that have already taken the time and had the foresight to tailor our blogs to suit mobile users are not affected by changes we don’t like or need.
Regards,
Ian
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@kraftbj – do I understand that the goal is actually to make all blogs look the same? I like the different themes that personalise the blogging space, not just my own, but in blogs I read (except ones with white text on black which hurt my eyes). Also, that is hardly fair, not just to those of us who take time and effort to customise the free themes, but even worse to people who have paid for them. If that is the intention, it ought to be owned up to and refunds given to people who stumped up for premium themes!
Apologies if I have misunderstood what you said.
I do think there is a problem with the new reader as even my little blog which I sadly neglect has been affected. Usually when I make a new post I get some likes and comments pretty fast, but the last two I have done since this new reader have hardly attracted any attention and seem to have not been noticed even by my regular readers, which makes me sad :(
If you can only maintain one version and so many of us hate the new version why not switch back to the old version? Try it for a month and see if it gets as many complaints, or if most of the responses are of relief! If you try this experiment and evidence shows more people prefer this horrible new version, we will stop complaining and just accept it :)
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@knotrune: The goal isn’t to make all blogs look the same. We are looking to make consistent the experience when using a WordPress.com Reader (mobile app, mobile browser, desktop browser).
We want to make it as easy as possible for your readers to consume your content in a way that makes sense to them. RSS feeds have been on blogs since nearly the beginning of blogging—they’re designed to help readers read content using the form that works best for them (using a desktop program (like Thunderbird, Outlook, some of the older standalone programs), an online program (like the retired Google Reader, Feedly), or through whatever else they come up.
In our case, we made, in effect, our own version of Google Reader or Feedly. It’s catered toward WordPress.com with built-in ability to Like, comment, etc, but it is basically a RSS reader (you can add non-WordPress RSS feeds through it too).
For Readers, we’re giving them this option. My wife uses Feedly to read everything. Typically, now, I use the Reader for a lot of consumption (we have ~200 internal blogs we use for communications; virtually no e-mail), though use Instapaper for long-form posts/articles I’d like to read (which purposely strips out everything but the text, then I import it to my old-school Kindle for some time away from a bright screen). My sister has the sites she likes to follow saved as bookmarks on her address bar and clicks through to each blog’s home page.
My point is we want to provide tools for readers to be able to consume content in the form that works best for them while giving you the tools to create content that works best for you.
I’d agree with Victor that photography sites aren’t the best suited for feed readers (of any kind).
As far as the recent engagement numbers on your site, I don’t have anything besides guesses on what could cause that. We’re looking at overall numbers, which we want to see increase, and are tweaking/testing things to find what apparently helps the most.
While we take great feedback (like this thread) into consideration, frankly, we can’t make a decision based only on user feedback. For the folks who like the Reader changes, they’re likely not going to seek out a thread on the changes and comment about it. I don’t contact support/a company to tell them something is great, and typically we don’t expect folks to contact us with positive notes either :-) (Though, I should do that!)
Since these changes were launched, we’ve ran 8 different versions of the Reader, I believe (85% of folks saw the timestamp in this location, while 15% saw the timestamp in that location, etc, then compared the results on which group had better “performance” on likes, comments, views, etc… little things like that). We tend to do this type of A/B testing quite a bit, which is another reason simply reverting to a previous edition is difficult—before the most apparent changes, there were a number of different test versions going on previously, so there’s not a single version to point to (in addition to the technical changes we’ve made in that time that likely makes the older code non-functional, based on the different iterations).
In short, we’re looking at what folks are doing with each change, and going with the version that are improving how folks are engaging with your content.
@Victor – That’s a very solid point about photography sites. My gears are turning on something that might help. I don’t want to speculate, but thanks for that feedback. It sunk in the right way into my thick head this time :-)
@Ian – Those are some interesting ideas. I’m not sure personally if all of the points you mentioned have been specifically investigated, so I’ll outline them for the team.
Thanks again everyone. I might be quiet the rest of the day (want to make sure I can help as many folks as possible before taking the weekend). Cheers!
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@kraftbj – thanks for your detailed response :) I do sometimes contact companies to say I like something they did, but more often when the change (or change back) was something I had already commented on (recently ebay did actually change something I casked them to! Whether it was because I asked them or not I don’t know, but I thanked them anyway :) )
On those lines, I have noticed one improvement with the reader! I used to have a problem where sometimes the whole blog would open, not just the single post, and that has not happened recently, so thanks for that :)
I still think it makes better sense for clicking the title to take one to the actual blog in its own theme than the pop-up. Why not make clicking on the time stamp open the pop-up instead? Or have a button for open in blog and one for open in pop-up so people can make an informed choice?
I know about RSS feeds, the recent changes forced me to partly switch to Bloglovin’ :)
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Krafbj
Thanks. Just noticed the 2013 WordPress year n review, those stats are very impressive and what is more impressive is how much is driven by photography.
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@knotrune – Let me circle back with the team on if there’s a way we can do both. One thing we’ve seen in software engineering in general is, at times, the more options given to users, sometimes they just choose to do nothing rather than figure out which they want, so given too many buttons, the theory says we should see a decrease across the board.
That said, that’s a very fair point of feedback, so we’ll look at it anew.
@victor – There are a lot of photography blogs on WordPress.com. I think part of it is that, while we charge for space over 3 GB, we don’t have a bandwidth cap, compared to the vast majority of web hosting services. I’m following up with the team on photography blogs too.
In both cases, likely not to have a quick answer back, but I’m still with y’all :-)
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