Why aren't anyone building a RSS feed service?
 

Since pay-sites clearly cant handle the work, why aren't anyone building a service to take that workload of their hands?

Someone is.

who? got a link?

Thanls, hope the site will be launced and paysite owners see the real potential in this.

Actually it's already exists (I mean such a service) and many programs using it successfully: http://www.thesponsorfeeds.com/

Thanks for the reference :)

we are going to be launching www.feedpushers.com soon

somehow I don't think he was referring to your software

you don't have a "service", you have a "product"

cant wait for feedpushers jace, it will singly handedly revolutionize how we all use rss

I would never use a service with a site that looked like that. I cant take a service seriously if they cant even invest a little in a design.

It should be a serious company that made a solid deal with the paysite owner on how often they wanted the feed updated, and then they should stick to the deal. I saw a few Outsourcing companies try and launch that kind of service, but as always it fizzled out after the buzz was gone.

That way webmaster could browse the list and chose the sponsors/categories they wanted and generate a combined feed based on their specific needs

:pimp:pimp:pimp

I think he is because InsomniacCash bought our plug-in already :winkwink:

I still prefer to call it a service because we don't just sell the plugin but also install it, as well as we install the WordPress script and and do all the necessary tuning. For example, today we did 2 WordPress and plugin installations for 2 affiliate programs.

I think most programs can take the load, if they wanted to. Reverse your view for a minute.

1) Galleries cost around $20 on average, they often are not fully web ready at that price. Meaning, they need better text and maybe some other minor corrections.

2) Now Galleries require multiple thumbnails, 5 different sizes on average. This not only has to be done for all new galleries, but the 1000?s of past galleries across the other sites.

3) Hosted galleries now need 2-5 new bits of text. 1-3 is normally short, 1 is med in length and one is larger, 350-500 words. This increases the cost of the gallery by $8-$12 ? and still does not always include fresh on-gallery text, title or desc tags. This often does not include someone loading the text into the database or having someone re-check every desc for errors.

4) Errors in descriptions, like quote marks from MSWord, can break feeds, any mild ? mistake breaks rss feeds. Someone must always check every update, previous update, and future update with absolute perfection.

5) Desc also need to include some keywords, and proper anchor text links. This increases the cost and time spent on each gallery.

6) Templates to make feeds format for Wordpress. This requires many styles, sometimes custom per webmaster. Webmasters want thumbnails and text options in different locations, different type of linking options, to the tour or to the gallery (more code and more money). Some people create feed-re-creators to solve this.

7) If you end up with a popular feed (just takes 1) you will need to setup fresh servers/db?s and a caching system, increasing the cost.

8) 99% of Webmasters DO NOT use feeds correctly. Template feeds that work in Wordpress is not the proper use of a feed. If we only had to create raw feeds, it would be much easier, since we wouldn?t have to parse in codes, and deal with update cycles. I can?t go into all this now :)

9) As time goes on and duplicate content slowly works its way in, programs will need to improve on the unique-customizable options they provide for feeds, including more and better ever changing and improving text. Programs locking themselves in with WP blog feeds will take a duplicate filter hit hard as time goes on. All these changes and customizations, add to the cost.

10) XML/RSS Technology is still growing and improving. Sometimes it?s best to see where things go before we invest all this time and money.



My 10 reasons why affiliate programs aren?t on the ball with rss feeds. The gallery costs really shoot up, the profit margins on galleries are tight already. And for the 'paysite' to really be effective they need to have solid knowledge of seo. From the feed, to the gallery, to the tour. Otherwise, it's only benefit is direct sales.

It's a lot of work and money and staff.. I understand why most haven't moved forward very quickly.

Actually we don't have a time to do any design for it (may be in future). http://www.thesponsorfeeds.com/ is intended for affiliate program owners only but not for the surfers. Our clients aren't looking for a candy-like design, they're looking for a reliable and easy in use RSS solution.

The biggest problem is not to find a useful script but to find a good writer to create quality feeds and update them regularly :2 cents:

I agree completely regarding the "if they wanted to" and add "if they understood it completely"

in addition to that, I think the blogs that rely solely on the RSS feeds for content are shooting themselves in the foot by being unaware of the real potential or just to lazy to run a site.

But that is offtopic. Its just a waste of peoples time when programs announce they have RSS feeds, and they dont have the stamina to keep adding to the feed.

At the lvl its working now, I actually only use it to check what site have updates, and i then rewrite the whole thing to fit the style on my site.

The text is the easy part.. Lots of solutions can fix that.

Creation of xml/rss feeds, that template out, full error check, cache, ect.. Takes time, takes research, and takes lots of different types of error testing. Inputing gallery posts into wp then using that feed for Webmasters isn't creating xml/rss feeds, it is creating a duplicate content issue though.

I disagree. I ran pay-sites for several years, but I stopped in 2006 because its to big a risk these days, compared to what you can earn. I would never use a service that didn't invest enough time in their own site, to make it look professional. If this is how their website looks, I will hate to look at the code or how they handle customer care.

I wasn't, but I do use his product and am completely satisfied. :thumbsup

That's what the morphing feeds are intended for - to make the sponsored content look different for every particular webmaster depending on his/her affiliate id.

So basically it's not making enough money to invest in? Come on, you can do better than that.

That's silly if you ask me. I'm more concerned with working code that does what it says and service/support I can count on. In CyberXXX's case, he's got what is important covered.

Thanks candyflip :) BTW, please be sure to hit me on ICQ today - there is a free update for your plugin.

Yep.............

It's not even close to keep you from being hit by the Google penalizing hammer. I know you wont agree with me on that, since its your strongest sales pitch - but time will tell.

Come on man, it's a Wordpress plug in, not some time machine technology. Like I said above, the price is right...the code works...and support rocks.

Do people really avoid products and services because the "face" isn't up to the hottest, newest design standards?

I still disagree, but that is a question of opinion and how I do business, not if right or wrong. I'm just saying what I think would work best.

Excellent answer Doc!

I wasn't requesting a "hot" or "flashy" design. But if you want me to take the service serious you need to show me that there is some thought and time invested in it, and that you can present it to me in a way that I can see what the hell is going on on the site. I don't expect to see the default Wordpress Blog theme if you want me to spend money on your service.

Just like I want my hosting provider to have a site that I am able to navigate without having to use the "back" button every other click.

Course we can, especially because we have our own Web design studio :) So it's not a money-related thing. We just haven't planned to do any design for it. The site made as a blog just to demonstrate the plugin in action (originally it was located on fhgstore.com). Do you really think that the design is so necessary?

They had it on a page of their main site when I purchased it. This new setup to me, just looks like a demo set up to show what's going on. Maybe they'd win a few more people over with the other store...but I doubt there's much worry. I didn't need to be sold. I spent a few hours struggling on my own before finding the page and having it installed and working on my server before I even had the time to send over the payment.

Product and service are what I look for when I spend my money. My favorite spot to eat is a shit hole and serves food that looks like this with the best service in town:

http://nyonic.com/plate.jpg

Just because it looks like shit doesn't mean it can't taste good :winkwink:

Food looks good to me. I'm a simple man and I like stuff like that :pimp


- but I still disagree on the other part :winkwink:

Thanks for the Feed Pushers mentions. Now that the patent headaches have finally been resolved, we're ready to open the doors. Look for an announcement in the near future from both us and the companies using it.

Anyone using "knock off" products or services (and are in the U.S.), we will have a "grace period" as well. Look for more information shortly.

thought I would put a little emphasis on some things edge said above just in case they didn't sink in....

Yep, I have a different opinion on that and NOT because it's "my strongest sales pitch". Here is that I think:

1) The morphing feeds are still much better than non-morphing ones. The % of content difference totally depends on blog writers and the size of global replacement table (in case of my plugin). As we say here: "it's better to have a tomtit in hands than a crane in the sky".

2) I run many splogs (the blogs that import the sponsored feeds only) myself and about a year ago I found that some of them have lost the Goorl PR (it's just dropped to zero). After that I have created morphing modification of popular feedwordpress plugin. The modified version of feedwordpress was intended to morph the sponsored feeds in a similar way as it's done in the RSS solution I sell to the affiliate programs. And... after a couple of months I got my PR back on those splogs! That case has pushed me to start working on sponsored version of morphing plugin which is even more powerful than the morphing feedwordpress modification I used to improve SEO of my splogs :2 cents:

I definitely don't want it to be confrontational, but I offered the olive branch when some of the rip-off services came out. Especially the ones that were DIRECT rips of the original Feed Pushers announcement and request for beta testers.

Most of the major U.S.-based sponsors have already contacted us, joined the beta, or signed up for the "live" launch, so it's pretty much over before it's even begun in any event.

We'll be more than fair to the program owners, as we always have been with every product.

:thumbsup

Totally agree with above. The patent-related laws in the USA are much deferent to ours. Here in Russia the author of any product/solution gets a right on it since a day of it's first official publication. But in the States you could face some serious problems if you haven't cared of your product _before_ to bring it on public.

Who's attmepting this "knocking off"?