RSSPECT - The Official RSS Feed

Improved engine

Thu, 13 Jul 2006 04:52:00 -0700

We've improved our RSS engine today, making it more powerful than ever. Now you can nest span tags as deeply as you want, and include markup on your post titles.

They're little things, but they make the service more useful, and if you had encountered these limitations before - well, they're gone now!

A new feature: Premium accounts!

Tue, 02 May 2006 11:40:32 -0700

We've added a new feature today (beyond Web Syndication, which you can read about in the previous post): premium accounts.

You can always use RSSPECT for free. But if you'd like, you can easily upgrade to a Premium Account for less than $2 a month! With a premium account, you help support the site, and you get the following benefits, unavailable to regular account holders:

Unlimited feeds: Regular account holders have a maximum of 5 feeds per account; with a premium account you can have as many as you'd like.

Faster updates: All your feeds are checked and updated every 30 minutes, no matter what. The feeds of regular account holders are checked at most once an hour, and are checked progressively less frequently if they haven't had a recent update.

Updates on demand: We'll provide specific URLs on your My Feeds page, which, when visited, update each your feeds remotely. No more logging in and clicking "Refresh" for every one of your feeds! You can even have your own backend fetch this page when you update your site, so your RSS feeds will always have fresh, up-to-the-second content.

Customized Web Syndication settings: Our RSS 2 HTML web syndication feature lets you place your RSS content on any website, as HTML, Javascript or both. Your readers can place your content right on their site, in a way you can control! Regular users can change some aspects of the appearance; with premium account, you can change literally every aspect - colours, images, headers, footers, content - anything. Our template system is so powerful, you could build an entire website around your RSS feed.

Customized AnySite settings: Unlike our other feeds, all you need is a URL to create an AnySite feed. However, the title, description, and image for these feeds are set. With a premium account, you can change change the title, description, and image associated with any AnySite feed. (Of course, if you create a regular RSS feed, you have full control over every aspect of the feed, whether premium or not.)

No advertising: Except for any ads you place on your feeds yourself, of course. There's actually no advertising anywhere on our site or in any of our feeds, but it's such a nice feature we thought we'd mention it here, too.

To upgrade to a Premium Account, simply log into your account and click the "Upgrade!" tab. Then you can choose the billing cycle you'd like and order. We accept payment using Paypal, so you can use any major credit card and know that your information (and money) is secure.

Web Syndication: Turn your RSS feeds into websites

Tue, 02 May 2006 11:37:31 -0700

Another new feature has been added today: web syndication. Now you can put any RSSPECT feed on any website - it's as easy as adding one line of Javascript, or, if you prefer, one line of HTML.

There's a lot of advantages to having an HTML version of your RSS feed. Now you can:

Allow your readers to syndicate your content on their websites or blogs: more exposure means more readers for you!
Collect feeds for your different projects all on one site, so readers can visit one page and see what's new.
Make it even easier for search engines to index your RSS content.

And the best part is you can set up more than one template for each feed - so have a template for the most recent update, or one for the top 10, or one that's just plain text - you can change its appearance easily, and we walk you through every step. Look for the "RSS 2 HTML" button on your My Feeds page.

A whole new way of using RSS

Mon, 24 Apr 2006 06:21:43 -0700

We've added a new kind of feed today to RSSPECT, called AnySite feeds. These feeds allow you to add RSS to any website on the internet.

We're excited.

Now you can use RSSPECT to keep track of when any site - even any document, like a PDF file, is updated. Even if you don't control the site! Like all our feeds, AnySite feeds are free.

We'll check the URL you supply and update your RSS feed when the site is updated. It's as easy as that. Give it a try, and let us know what you think!

A new feature: support for podcast RSS feeds

Tue, 18 Apr 2006 11:51:13 -0700

Another new feature has been added today - special iTunes-ready RSS feeds for podcasts. Many people make podcasts, but getting an RSS feed ready for iTunes can be a pain - they have a special format, and it can be twitchy getting everything up and going. Not anymore!

You'll see a new tab when you log in, beside "Create a feed". This "Create a podcast feed" gives you everything you need to get started, and we'll even help you submit your feed to Apple.

We hope you like this new feature! Let us know if there's anything else you'd like to see.

A new feature: Web Alerts

Wed, 05 Apr 2006 14:45:25 -0700

We've added a new feature today, called "Web Alerts". What this does is allow you to turn your RSS feed into a mailing list.

Some people prefer to keep up-to-date on websites via email. Maybe they don't have an RSS reader installed, or they just have their email open all the time. Now, your readers can get your RSS feed in their inbox, automatically. All you have to do is add a bit of HTML to your page which allows them to sign up, and the rest is taken care of.

You can turn on this feature by clicking the "web alerts" button next to each feed on your feed homepage:

http://www.rsspect.com/myfeeds.php

Thanks for using RSSPECT.com, by the way! It's flattering to see it getting so much attention. Drop me a line if you have any questions or comments.

Site Launch!

Fri, 31 Mar 2006 12:59:21 -0800

RSSPECT launched today. Well, actually, it launched earlier this week, but only a few people were told about it, as we scaled up and tested the infrastructure we'd built. Thursday was the first public announcement!

The site is stable, it's being used, and there's a lot of excitment about it, which is great. They'll be more features added in the next few weeks to make the service even better. Thanks for trying us out!

Here are some rejected names for RSSPECT.com:

OhNoRSS.com
OMGRSS.com
ZOMGRSS.com
WTFRSS.com
LOLLERSKATESRSS.com

RSSPECT.com was clearly the best choice!