I subscribe to a few blogs (56 in all neatly separated into categories). I typically have some rules around what I subscribe to. These rules aren’t necessarily about content, it’s about presentation and delivery. Here are just a few things that I will not deal with for a subscription.
Pre-page interrupting ads
If I subscribe to your newsfeed and you insist on not showing me the whole article in your feed in turn requiring me to click to go to your site, at least have the common decency to not force me to sit through a 10 second flash presentation that may or may not contain a “Click here to skip” link clearly visible. Why?
This is annoying. Not only am I forced to read your tiny one-sentence vague description of your story, but now I have to sit through an advertisement that most likely has nothing to offer me. Let’s face it, you’re writing is probably better than mine, and there’s a reason I signed up originally to view your feed, but it’s not that good, and I’ll find your same opinion at another site.
Unoriginality
I have to admit, I subscribe to quite a few social networking, internet technology, and science and technology blogs. They are all separated into those categories as well, but I commonly notice that I have x number of repeat stories created by the same source material. Yes, I understand that your readers come from different areas and that you need to keep a spin on things, but if all you do is parrot the source, I’m just going to subscribe to said source. I have unsubbed from multiple blogs because of this, and found a great deal of my own sources as well. Why?
I don’t mind reading about the same news bite from 3 different sources, as long as there are three different personalities behind the final product. This is akin to the procedure that I go through before each election. I read as many opinions as I can about each candidate. Let’s face it, I’m enough of a fanboy as it is, this keeps me regulated in my thoughts.
Quality vs. Quantity
If you are a major news source reporting on a variety of areas and hiring journalists to write about events, you can ignore this section. But the rest of you, I don’t need a twitter feed inside my rss reader. Maybe a max of 4 a day, give or take 1 or 2. It’s really up to the quality of your post. Are you sticking with your typical spin on specific events? great! Is something going on in the world that is of great interest of you and you want to write about it a lot while it’s going on, Awesome! (try to give a little warning though for regular readers). Are you incapable of limiting your thoughts and actions to 140 characters and therefore must blog about it? <insert bad buzzer sound here> Why?
I have chosen to give your area of the interwebs my time. Which I normally don’t have much of. I subscribe to your feed because I at some point have found it worthwhile to read what you have to say.
Excerpts vs. Full-Text with or without ads
I don’t mind having advertisments in my rss feed stories. Why? because I understand that if I was completely against advertising, then a lot of the feeds that I enjoy reading would cease to exist. That would be bad. On those terms you need to decide. Are you going to provide me with advertising-free excerpts of the story that you want me to read, or are you going to offer me full-text with ads? You get one or the other. If you’re a personal blog, you have no good reason not to suppy your rss feed with full-text. Trying to make money on your personal blog. That’s great, if you’re some awesome motivational speaker that lives in a van down by the river, but if you have a day job (that pays your rent) and your monthly blog-cost is $0.00 to $10.00 (mine is $2.50) then no ads should be necessary. Why?
Advertising is a good thing in most cases, but it should be limited to the necessary places that can be monetized adequetly. If you’re using Google Adsense with less than 100 impressions per day, just take off the ads. If you are popular, congrats, that’s probably why I’m reading you. Other people have found you’re writing worthwhile, and therefore I should as well (told you, I’m a fanboy). And besides, you probably sell off your ad space separately (I really hope you do). And if you are one of those big-time bloggers that don’t have a need for advertisements, please tell me who you are. I don’t care what you write about, I’ll subscribe 
.
I guess it comes down to reading content that doesn’t annoy you in the margins.
Happy writing,
–dez