Syndication Subscription Service
I’ve gone back and forth a bit about having images of coffee cups and pills that are linked to localhost URLs to allow browser/webserver based RSS aggregators like Radio Userland or AmphetaDesk to subscribe to my RSS feeds with one click, but now I’ve got what looks like the final solution: thanks to Morten Frederiksen’s Syndication Subscription Service, just one link will take you to a page where you have the choice of one-click subscription through any aggregator that the service knows about, or one more click to get to the actual feed URL. Once the service adds cookie support, so that you only have to choose your aggregator once, it should be nearly invisible to users of any known, URL-subscription supporting aggregator, while only adding one more click for everyone else. Since I really like subscription via URL, I’m willing to make things a bit harder for people who aren’t using it.
One more thing that just occured to me while typing, though: the target page for a specific feed really ought to support RSS Autodiscovery for that feed, so that people who right-click, Copy link location, will stand a chance of getting the feed added when they paste it into their aggregator. Off to RFE…
Hi Phil,
The cookie system should now work, the auto-discovery is added, subscription lists (OPML/OCS) are now also supported, there is now a permalink on the selection page (for easier HTML construction), and there is a wider selection of icons (more are always welcome).
Also, feeds with rich (FOAF) metadata are now linked to the FOAF Explorer, which in turn links back to the subscription service for any RSS 1.0 channels mentioned in their FOAF.
Examples:
– Mark Pilgrims’s FOAF
– Ben Hammersley’s RSS feed
Hey you beat me to the diea, no fair! Just kidding…nice to see someone else also thinking along these lines..
Okay going to add the icon and link right now in my weblog..
Psst.
Copying Phil
Face it, a lot of the web is all about copying. Copy somebody’s images, some page’s styles or look, copy somebody else’s music. No worries, that’s the way it’s done.