Salmon writes:

In theory, I understand where Nick is coming from here. If people click through from RSS to the website, that generates more revenue for the company, especially since no one ever got rich selling ads in RSS feeds. But in practice, there’s no evidence at all that truncating your RSS feeds results in higher traffic, and indeed there’s quite a strong case to be made that it works the other way around, and that switching from truncated feeds to full feeds is the thing whichresults in higher traffic.

Not all the arguments I made back in 2007 are quite as strong today: back then, RSS was used largely by people who had their own sites and could drive traffic, while now, in the age of Google Reader, it’s moved a tiny bit downmarket, even as the key people you want linking to you use RSS less and Twitter more.

But the fact is that pretty much the only time I read Gawker blog entries is when they turn up in a search of my RSS feeds, and they’re much more likely to do that if the full blog entry is there than if there’s only an excerpt.

A spot check of the most-trafficked blogs for all three of our custom search engines indicates that financial bloggers heavily favor full RSS feeds (as I do in my own blog).  However, I’m not sure how much of that is data-driven, and how much reflects the blogger’s personal preferences. 

Do you use a full or truncated RSS feed?  Have you done any split or sequential testing to determine which better drives traffic?  Please share your thoughts.

Coverage: personal finance, trading, options, savings

Platform: wordpress / thesis

Reach: Alexa: 32,438, feedreaders: 5375

Updates available: RSS, twitter, facebook

Premium services: none

Frequency of posting: about once daily

Monetization: adsense, display ads (affiliate?)

Most of the blogs we cover fit squarely into a defined category: economic/trading blogs, personal finance blogs, or make money blogs.  The Digerati Life does not.  It is both a trading blog and a personal finance blog.  And surprisingly for a blog that straddles two worlds, it covers both fairly well (especially personal finance).

A typical trading post is this recent description of an options trading strategy:

Regular readers of The Digerati Life may already have read about using options to buy stocks at the prices you want. But it’s the combination of both techniques, buying at a discount and selling at a premium, that really makes the difference.

(In a nutshell the strategy involves selling puts to buy at a discount, then selling out-of-the-money covered calls to sell at a premium).

Personal finance posts cover savings, credit and consumer advocacy. This post, for example, shows how to file a consumer complaint with the FTC:

Have you ever felt scammed or ripped off? There were a couple of times in my life when I’ve realized that somebody had indeed gotten the better of me and my money. The unfortunate thing is that many scams are conducted by nameless, faceless individuals who are hard to pin down. But the good news is that you don’t have to take this sitting down, because the FTC offers you some recourse (and course of action). For instance, if you have enough information to identify someone or something that you’ve got an issue with, you may be able to bring this up to the Federal Trade Commission (or FTC). So if you feel that someone has scammed you or ripped you off, then here’s how to file a consumer complaint.

Coverage: personal finance, frugal living, saving money, credit cards

Platform: wordpress

Reach: Alexa: 58,812, feedreaders: 11,310

Updates available: RSS, email, twitter, facebook

Premium services:

Frequency of posting: 1-5 times daily

Monetization: display ads, affiliate ads, adsense

Five Cent Nickel is another popular money and personal finance blog.  Nickel is a long-timer, blogging since 2005.  Most of the recent coverage has focused on credit cards, which could partially be a result of the recent regulatory changes governing the credit card industry.  For example, this recent post warns consumers of new credit card fees that banks are trying to impose:

Three of the big fees changes that they highlighted were:

• Fees because you’re not spending enough. Some Citibank cardholders are apparently being hit by annual fee of $30-$90 if they spend less than $2400 per year on their card.
• Fees because you’re not swiping enough. Some FigthThird cardholders are being hit with a $19 fee if they don’t use their card for a year.
• Fees… Just because. Bank of America has introduced annual fees of $29-$99 on a variety of new and existing cards.

There have been a number of other charges, as well, including new or increased fees on balance transfer credit cards, fees for participating in credit card reward programs, and so on. In other words… Fees, fees, fees!

The lesson here is to keep a close eye on your credit cards, and be sure to read any mailing from your card issuer. What you don’t know can hurt you (or at least your pocketbook).

Coverage: trading, quantitative analysis, technical analysis, fundamental analysis

Platform: wordpress

Reach: Newsflashr: #11, Alexa: 137065, feedreaders: unknown

Updates available: RSS, twitter, facebook, podcasts

Premium services: sales of book “The Disciplined Investor”, promotion of managed investment service

Frequency of posting: several times daily

Monetization: primarily through promotion of book and managed investment service, plus display ads that appear to be for affiliate programs

This is Andrew Horowitz’s site, and not surprisingly it focuses on the strategy outlined in his book, The Disciplined Investor.  The strategy – Horowitz calls it “QuantaFundaTechna” – begins with quantitative stock screens that filter stocks for size, sector, earnings growth, rating, corporate structure and price momentum. Next, fundamental overlays are added to refine the list.  Finally, technical analysis is considered for entry and exit points. 

The best way to get a sense of how Horowitz synthesizes these different approaches is to look at his review of an actual stock, such as this review of Newmont Mining (NYSE:NEM).

Are these kind of details off limits?   I cannot imagine that a reader anticipates that his or her IP address or URL will be published.  Financial bloggers, weigh in: do you think its fair game to write posts about the identity of readers who do nothing more than visit your blog?

Coverage: personal finance, frugal living, saving money

Platform: unknown

Reach: Alexa: 11805, feedreaders: unknown

Updates available: RSS, email, twitter

Premium services:

Frequency of posting: 1-5 times daily

Monetization: display ads, affiliate ads, “deal” style posts, newsletters with affiliate advertisements

Wise Bread may be the most popular personal finance site out there, and its a well-deserved reputation.  The scope is very broad and the posts frequent.  If there is a money-saving tip, you can probably find it on Wise Bread.  Post topics run the gamut from helping your teenagers to become money smart to getting a better job and more money.  The approach is broader than I Will Teach You To Be Rich, but both are worth reading.

Wise Bread’s breadth is largely a result of its writers.  Wise Bread is a group blog, meaning it has several contributors who each write posts for the blog. Top recent contributors include Linsey Knerl, Lynn Truong, Marla Walters, Myscha Theriault, Nora Dunn, Paul Michael, Philip Brewer, Sasha A. Rae, Sierra Black, Sonja Stewart and Stacy Johnson.

Wise Bread uses several monetization techniques that other financial bloggers could learn from.  First, it does an excellent job mixing various ad types.  Like many other top tier blogs, Wise Bread foregoes AdSense entirely.  Wisebread uses several display and affiliate ads of differing sizes in its right sidebar, and 468×60 advertisements between some (but not all) posts.  By varying both the size andplacement of the ads, Wisebread helps counter ad blindness.  Wisebread also includes “best deals of the day” type posts with links to affiliate programs, and opportunities to sign up for newsletters containing these daily deals.

Given my background as a business journalist, one of my primary goals for footnoted has always been that by exposing some of this, um, buried treasure, publicly traded companies might actually start to change their behavior. It’s one of the reasons we highlight “gold star” candidates on a regular basis. For example, we’ve recently seen a number of companies get rid of one of the grossest perks out there: the tax gross up. I’d like to think footnoted played at least a small part in this by highlighting so many examples.

From our very first conversation last spring, it was clear to me that the Morningstar folks not only shared this goal of greater transparency, but also practiced it in their own public filings. The investor Q&As in Morningstar’s monthly 8Ks — you can see the latest one here — are enough to make an SEC filings geek like me swoon.

But perhaps even more important is that Morningstar’s global reach and the resources that they’ve committed to growing footnoted will mean that more people will be exposed to footnoted’s unique content. Soon, I plan to hire additional staff, which will enable me to continue growing both the free and subscription-based businesses.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Leder hinted that it was tilted towards long-term, incentive-based compensation.

Platform: WordPress?

Reach: Alexa: 27930, feedreaders: 9795

Updates available: RSS, email, twitter

Premium services: workshops, book

Monetization: sales of premium services

With a name like “I Will Teach You To Be Rich,” this blog had better be good.  It is.  Hands down – I Will Teach You To Be Rich is my favorite personal finance blog. 

The reason is simple.  While dozens of personal finance blogs deliver money-saving tips, Ramit Sethi’s blog puts these tips in focus.  He doesn’t encourage you to spend hours to save a small amount of money.  Instead, Sethi begins and ends with the simple premise that your efforts should be centered where their impact is greatest.  He does not preach the religion of frugality; instead, he encourages readers to match their expenditures with their priorities.  Don’t waste a lot of money on something that means little to you.

The post “Conscious Spending” describes this approach well.  In it, Sethi writes:

There are plenty of blogs on frugality. This is not one of them. I think you can have lots of fun ">debating the minutiae about which grain of rice is cheaper, but it doesn’t really get you much further towards your goals. Also, most Americans are not brought up with the idea of frugality. I’ve been in a car with friends who were so hungry that they had to pull over and get food even though we were only 5 minutes from home.

For me, writing a blog on frugality would be like trying to convince an ankylosaurus to dance a god damn jig. As a result, I don’t believe that frugality is very sustainable for a lot of people. Yes, maybe we’ll stop buying those lattes (or whatever), but something else will take its place. In my opinion, unless there’s a fundamental mindset from a young age, it’s hard to change the I-want-it-now habits. Whether you agree with me or not, that’s why I don’t write a blog based on where to find the cheapest laundry detergent.

Finally, and this is the most important, frugality alone doesn’t get you to your goals. It’s a helpful but not sufficient condition. So I take another approach of trying to write about money holistically, while urging you to make your own decisions about what’s important enough to spend a lot on, and what’s not.

Platform: WordPress?

Reach: Newsflashr #17, Alexa: 191978, feedreaders: 9795

Updates available: RSS, email, twitter

Premium services:  none

Monetization: Google AdSense, affiliate marketing including Ino.com and Commission Junction

Prieur du Plessis’ Investment Postcards is usually updated several times per week and includes a weekly link list.  A typical post combines both Prieur’s original analysis, and links to interesting content found elsewhere.  For example, his recent analysis “US still burdened by financial woes” draws from Bloomberg articles and Youtube videos of Geithner, but du Plessis’ spin is what separates this site from other “linkfests.”

Platform: Blogger / blogspot hosted

Reach: Newsflashr #6, Alexa: 63893, feedreaders: unknown

Updates available: RSS, email, twitter

Premium services:  author serves as a trading coach but site is not used to sell any premium services

Monetization: none

Brett Steenbarger’s TraderFeed covers the gamut of trading psychology, from mental outlook and preparation of trading to interpreting indicators that reflect crowd psychology.  Steenbarger also covers the world of proprietary trading, with insights from his role as a trainer/consultant to the SMB prop firm that publishes the SMB Training Blog.

There’s a lot of blogs that address some of these topics in isolation, but few synthesize them as well as Brett Steenbarger.  For example, take a look at his recent post describing the role of relative volume in a trending market.