Archive for the ‘RSS’ Category
Tips for Publishing RSS feeds - Part 1
Over the past couple years, I’ve learned a lot about RSS feed publishing while running EvolvePoint. Since we operate on both ends of the feed spectrum (search and publishing), I’ve had the opportunity to examine many feeds and see what works and what doesn’t.
I’m starting to have enough data to have a good feel for what is working in feed publishing and what isn’t. Unfortunately, the publishing of feeds is all across the board. We have technical specifications for the proper formatting of a feed, yet there’s still no consensus on feed publisher standards and best practices. There have been attempts, but I still see the same mistakes over and over. The RSS Advisory Board is trying, but we’re still not there yet.
So, with that said, here’s my attempt at helping the community publish better feeds. Some of my comments may be controversial, but where I believe that to be the case I’ve tried to add both sides of the issue and at least mention the opposing opinion. If you have differing views on any of the tips, please let me know. Additionally, if there are some tips you’d like to suggest, please comment.
Popularity: 32% [?]
2007 SXSW Interactive Panel Proposal Picker (please vote for me)
Round two of the 2007 SXSW Interactive Panel Proposal Picker is now live and ready for your voting. The public is able to shape the panel programming for the 2007 SXSW Interactive Conference this year and I’d like to encourage readers of this blog to vote (for my panel!)
Yes, I proposed a panel this year and after attending SXSW last year, its a topic I feel will be well received. Despite the fact that RSS is truly the glue of the new Internet, there was only one panel on RSS last year (and one on XML). The last few talks I’ve given on Marketing with RSS have had great responses from the audiences, so I though it would be fun to do this topic as a panel at SXSW.
Popularity: 9% [?]
Review: Microsoft Max feed reader
I must be on some Microsoft review binge this week. Yesterday, Windows Live Writer, today Microsoft Max. The Microsoft Max application is promoted as photo viewing and sharing software, but the latest release of Max included an RSS feed reader. This feature is what has caused some interest (read reviews from Niall Kennedy and TechCrunch). My review is strictly in reference to the feed reader aspect, so take that into consideration with my comments.
As a feed reader, you just won’t be using Max anytime soon. As opposed to the other recent Microsoft releases (Live Writer), Max is just not ready for prime time with respect to RSS feeds. This puppy is so big and bloated it may have set a record for the shortest amount of time an application resided on my laptop. I installed and removed Max within the span of 45 minutes. Max starts you off with a hefty 54 meg install of the next version of .NET. The pre-requisite for Max installation is Windows .NET Framework 3.0 RC1. This isn’t all that bad as I’m sure there will be more more applications requiring this soon. The same thing happened with .NET 2.0 when it rolled out. So Max did take a while to install, but the majority of this time was for the .NET framework. Unfortunately, this was the only part of the process that was slow. Max itself felt very sluggish when adding feeds and then trying to read them.
Popularity: 5% [?]
Start to publish RSS feeds smarter
Publishers of RSS feeds: please, please, please let me read your content. Stop creating hurdles for your readers. One of the biggest mistakes I’m seeing today is the amount of content provided (or the lack thereof) in RSS feeds. I understand the argument against putting full content into feeds. I understand publishers want to drive readers to their website as that’s where the money is made. But if a publisher is going to provide just the summary content, at least give me enough to know what the post is about. It’s incredibly annoying to have to click on every single feed item just to get an idea of what the post’s subject. One of the biggest benefits for a subscriber of RSS feeds is how much time they can save. Time savings with RSS is gained by allowing the subscriber to only read what they want when they want. If I have to to skim every single webpage this defeats this purpose of feeds. Titles almost never tell enough, so I need a summary. I’m sure I’m not alone in this complaint. If you only subscribe to a few feeds, this may not seem like an issue but when you have hundreds of feeds this becomes a big nuisance.
Popularity: 16% [?]
RapidFeeds breakdown and the importance of backups
RapidFeeds, a competitor to the free version of our FeedCraft product apparently had a catastrophic breakdown last week according to their blog. On July 28, they suffered a complete crash when trying to upgrade some servers.
The fate had its beginning on July 20 when we started receiving emails from our subscribers notifying us of some connection errors. This was due to increasing traffic and so we decided to upgrade our servers as to be able to handle heavier traffic. We never knew we would lose everything in the process. Our hosting company came back saying that the entire website got deleted; even the backups. It is with a heavy heart we say to our users that we have lost the entire database and all the feeds. We know that this is a big loss to you, but unfortunately there is nothing we can do about it now.
On one hand, I feel sorry for these guys even though we probably competed for some of the same customers. From the limited information I have to go on though, it looks like they broke one of the cardinal rules of running a public web application - keep backups of your critical customer data. Replacing the application code is usually pretty easy. Even if you’re not using some type of source control, between all the developers you’ll be able to piece together an updated copy of the application. Same thing with the database schema. But the customer data, now that’s another story. Trust me, I understand what it’s like when you start to build an application and scale it as you go. This is a popular strategy these days and one I generally support. Data just can’t be treated this way though. A web application needs to have daily, off-site or off-server backups for just this type of occurrence.
With our FeedCraft service, we do this. Every day we store away off-site backups of our databases that include feed information, feed items, enclosures, preferences and settings, and all the feed tracking metrics.
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Popularity: 3% [?]
Using RSS for Marketing at the eduWeb Conference
I’ll be speaking this Tuesday morning in Baltimore on “Using RSS for Marketing” at the 2006 eduWeb Conference. If you’re attending, drop me a line or leave a comment. Here’s a brief description of the conference:
The 2006 eduWeb Conference is being held in the beautiful Sheraton Inner Harbor, Baltimore, MD. The eduWeb Conference is unique to higher education! It’s the only conference that offers attendees a combination of Web development and Web marketing topics presented by some of the top speakers in the country. This year’s conference is expecting web, marketing, communications and admissions professionals from around the country and the world!
My focus in the presentation will be using RSS feeds for marketing, specifically in the context of the education industry. Up to this point, I think this has been an area under served by many of the new implementations of RSS feeds so I think it will be a great opportunity for discussion. If anyone has any interesting applications of using feeds in education, leave a comment as I’m interested in hearing of developments in this area.
Popularity: 6% [?]
Branding the RSS feed
John Heilemann of Business 2.0 / CNNMoney.com has an interview with FeedBurner CEO Dick Costolo today. In addition to the interview, the article has a nice overview of RSS, its recent history, and thoughts on what’s to come in the industry. I particularly agree with Dick’s opinion on the state of RSS:
Like the Web 10 years ago, he argued, feeds had reached a tipping point. “You can’t stop this train,” he told them. “Content is going to be syndicated and consumed all over the place. Your job is to figure out how to turn that into an opportunity.”
Popularity: 7% [?]
Alternative ways to use RSS
Steve Rubel posted a list of 35 different uses for RSS feeds. I like this kind of post on RSS as it really illustrates how pervasive RSS is across the Internet. For those first using RSS feeds, the common perception is that they’re just web feeds or news feeds. This is very limited thinking. When you look at the structure of RSS, the technology simply marks up data in a standard way. Thus, RSS can be used for much more than just distributing web articles or blog posts.
On almost every sales call I’m on for our RSS products, I’m asked about some of the different uses of RSS our clients are employing. It’s an encouraging sign that the RSS thought paradigm is shifting from a pure web page distribution mindset.
If anyone has any more unique examples of how they’re using RSS feeds, please leave a comment.
Popularity: 5% [?]
RSS feed publishing updates
I’ve had a slight pause in posting to my blog, but this was due to good circumstances. We’ve been incredibly busy with new releases to our products. EvolvePoint is currently finishing up a series of updates to our RSS feed creation service, FeedCraft. We’ve rolled out improvements in login management, enhanced support for enclosures (including podcasts), and a role-based management system for our varying users.
Over the next few weeks, users will see updates in RSS feed exporting and reporting. In addition, we’re rolling out the ability for customers to do some limited branding to the RSS feed landing page visitors see when the feed is viewed in a web browser. Finally, we’re in the process of finishing up our enterprise RSS solution. I’ll be posting more on this over the next few weeks. Read the rest of this entry »
Popularity: 3% [?]
Pay to email, my take
With AOL and Yahoo potentially charging to guarantee email delivery, I suspect RSS will get more serious consideration from marketers. And how can it not? If this email deal holds up (from what I’ve read it’s not finalized), costs will skyrocket for many publishers ($2.5-$10 per thousand emails sent). My overall take on this is the arrangement sounds more little a way to squeeze out revenue as opposed to helping their customers. Regardless, it takes events like these to spur adoption of alternatives. In this case, RSS will be the big beneficiary.
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Popularity: 9% [?]
