Fedafi - Wordpress Plugin for RSS

Today we have released v1.0.4 of Fedafi, which contains some new additions and a few bug fixes.

Bug Fixes:

On a few server environments (mainly Windows) problems with installs were caused at install due to an array configuration. This is now fixed.

Additions:

Version 1.0.4 now includes an inline Ajax media manager. When creating a new RSS post you can upload images to the ‘upload’ folder. The media manager also shows all images previously uploaded. Any images uploaded to the ‘upload’ folder by FTP will also appear here.

In both Firefox and IE images can be dragged from the media manager directly into the post text area.

A similar system has also been added to the add podcast item page so users can upload podcast media to the ‘upload_media’ folder and use this media in posts. Using Firefox the link can be dragged from the manager into the ‘URL of File’ input box. In IE users must right click on the link and select ‘copy shortcut’ then paste this into the ‘URL of File’ input box.

Large media files may not upload due to your servers configuration, check your php.ini file for max file size on uploads, usually 2mb. In this case use FTP to upload to the ‘upload_media’ folder and the media will then be available within the media manager, or change your max file size in php.ini.

The system uses Ajax so uploading an image/media file is inline and will not affect any content already inputted.

Upgrade Procedure:

To upgrade grab the upgrade package and upload the contents to your install, set both the ‘upload’ and ‘upload_media’ folders to chmod 777 so they can be written to by your web server.

Later this week we will be releasing the latest version of Fedafi complete with an inline ajax media uploader.

Built inline with the new post page the uploader allows you to upload image and media files then just drag them into the input box to use. All inline, no page refresh no loss of data already inputted on the page.
More soon.

Today Sam Sethi, Techcrunch UK, wrote about the death of RSS having made the statement at a meeting the previous evening. I understand why Sam made the statement, but I’m not sure he’s either covered all of the angles or understood the channel.

Yes RSS 2.0 is frozen, for us a good thing, changing tech specs can be troublesome. But, if RSS is used as a channel for communication then maybe a further understanding of it in context would better serve the arguement.

Measuring RSS is as simple and effective as measuring email, certainly with Fedafi it is.

Let’s look at how marketers measure email:

• Open Rate - measures the amount of readers who ‘open’ the email - to date this is a vague statistic - in fact usually tracking an image in an email and relies upon the user downloading this image, in outlook double paine mode it can register an ‘open’ even though the user didn’t read it.
• Click Throughs - this simply tracks the number who clicked a link in the email
• Actions - of those who clicked how many did something

With RSS you can do exactly the same, everytime a reader of any type hits a Fedafi feed it gets registered, both as a hit and if unique as a unique hit, Fedafi also registers hits per user.

Every outbound link in Fedafi is tracked, if a user clicks on a link it registers the click and can tell you excatly which link and which article the link is in, again it can also tell you how many times each user clicked on a link.

Actions are really up to the site end, add a refer variable to your links, track these and you can calculate actions, the same applies to email.

There you have it, tracking equal to email.

What neither email or RSS can do is tell you how many ‘passionate’ users you have, neither can track ‘reads’ of an article, they can tell if the user accessed and displayed the article, but not if it was read. On this point Sam is right, for instance Techcrunch is in my feed reader, yet I have only read two articles in the last two weeks from it, I read all of the headlines but not all of the articles. But that makes RSS good for the reader and challenging for the marketer, the marketer has to address this when writing articles.

In fact Sam was nice enough to mention Fedafi on Techcrunch however the 1,000 readers didn’t produce anywhere near the click throughs that Veille Perso’s 300 readers did, which is an interesting point.

We have just launched a video blog at http://vlog.fedafi.com

The vlog will cover news about Fedafi, input from Fedafi users and general news and events happening in the RSS and Podcasting world.

You can subscribe through iTunes here

At present you can watch me talking about the birth of Fedafi and a short vidoe from a Fedafi user.

Topshop, UK high street fashion outlet have just launched their first podcast - cool stuff!

This is a ‘down the line’ marketing use and great to see their extension into podcasting, issue 1 is very TV advertising influenced but getting some good reviews over at iTunes:

Great idea…fab idea…these podcast things are fab

However it seems their approach isn’t perfect yet, biggest complaints seem to be:

• Too fast
• No prices

The too fast complaint is however qualified with ‘I had to watch it a few times’ - I guess Topshop won’t complain about that too much

Go straight to the itunes feed here.

You guessed it Fedafi feeds work just perfect on mobile RSS readers, so on mobile phones, PDA’s and smartphones.

Here’s a screenshot from a Treo 600 using Quick News

There’s a bunch of RSS readers for mobile devices over at Handango.

Okay so you’ve got a podcast feed, now you need to tell the world and iTunes is a good place to start.

First thing to get on with is getting a .mac account, without it you can’t add a podcast to iTunes. However, you can do this during the add process, be aware you’ll need a credit card handy as iTunes requires one to create an account.

Let’s get started. First thing to do is fire up iTunes and hit the ‘Music Store’ link in the left panel, you’ll now see a menu like this:

Click the ‘Podcasts’ link and you’ll now see this:

Hit the ‘Submit Podcast’ link. Now you’ll see this screen which asks for the URL of your podcast feed.

Add in your URL and hit ‘Continue’

NOTE: At this point you’ll be asked for your .mac account details and given the chance to create one if you don’t have one.

You’ll be given the chance to view your podcast details and then you are done. Apple will send you a few emails, review your podcast feed and as long as the content meets their specification you’ll be added and then you’ll see your feed in iTunes, like this:

You can check out our documentation podcast feed in itunes by clicking here.