Following on the heels of the announcement of provision of a "Calendar Feed" type, Enfeedia now announces avaiability of its "Subchannel Feed" type.
The Subchannel feed type derives its name as an extension of RSS feeds often being referred to as "Channels".
With a subchannel feed, you can group items in your feed by categories that you assign when posting items onto the feed. Using Enfeedia's "shootOnSite" feed reader and Enfeedia's "NewsPage" mini-website feed reader, the items are presented within their respective categories under caterogy tities, and presented in reverse posting order within those groupings just like a standard news feed.
Read this item on our "Tips" feed to learn more about this new feature and compare it to standard feeds and Calendar feeds.
Traditionally RSS feeds present items in the order in which they are published. That's perfect for breaking news, but is awkward when feeds are used for calendar driven events -- meetings, recreational events, seminars, entertainment events, and so on -- for which viewers of the feed would like to see the items in order of the event date, not the posting date.
Moreover, the items should be posted in chronological order, not reverse chronological order as is the case for traditional feeds, such that the "top" item is the next upcoming event, and items below that in the feed are events going off into the future.
By marking a feed as a "Calendar Feed", Enfeedia re-sequences your postings according to the event date (and optionally time) that you specify, no matter when you post an item onto the feed. The event date is separate from the posting date for items, so users can also view the feed sorted by posting date if they wish.
Additionally, you can optionally direct Enfeedia to present your Calendar feed on Enfeedia's "NewsPage" feed reader to display both "upcoming events" sorted chronologically as described above, and in another column, display "past events" in reverse chronological order so that you view the most recent past event at the top of the feed. This two-column presentation is ideal for events that include some follow-up action, such as for upcoming meeting announcements coupled with meeting minutes subsequently published. As time goes by, Enfeedia automatically moves items from the "upcoming events" column to the "past events". Click here for an example.
And as always with Enfeedia, people can register for "ping" email such that they receive automatic notification whenever you post an item on your feed.
Effectively immediately, you can elect to have a Facebook "Like" button with the thumbs-up graphic automatically inserted on your NewsPage, just above your Title. The address of your NewsPage is associated with the button such that when one clicks the button, they report to all their Facebook friends that they like your RSS feed. That can bring more traffic to your NewsPage.
If you write interesting or entertaining feeds, they may then elect to follow your feed by registering for pings, such that they get automatically generated email alerting them whenever you post new items. That email includes a link to your NewsPage.
Making Enfeedia even easier to use, now you can login directly to your feed from a browser bookmark that is specific to your account and a predetermined feed. When you click the bookmark, the login page opens for that feed. Login to open the page for adding and editing the feed. And once in your account, you can select other feeds as well.
So now, when are are surfing the 'net and come across something you'd like to mention on your feed, simply click the bookmark, click "add", and enter the information on the form Enfeedia presents to you.
It's easy to set up the bookmark; here's how. Click the "shootOnSite" link associated with the desired feed. The page that open is the login page for that feed. Bookmark it and you're done.
As a reminder, you will find that "shootOnSite" link at the bottom of your news feed when displayed on your site, and at the top of the feed's NewsPage that is presented when you click the red-and-green "E" icon associated with the desired feed.
If you want to insert a YouTube video directly into an item of your Enfeedia feed, simply copy the URL provided by YouTube and paste it into the appropriate entry form when adding or editing your item. See How to podcast your YouTube video and embed the podcast on your website on our Tips feed for details. This item includes such a video as an example. (See "where is the video" if you do not see the video below.)
Prior to this enhancement, Freelancers were not permitted to change the value in the "Category" field of the RSS feed. The feed owner could lock down the category value, giving the owner control over on-site displays using filters.
WIth this change, the Freelancer can add words to the category, with those words being appended to what the feed owner specified. This provides the feed owner to further filter the on-site feed display to select only those items that match the Freelancer's addition.
For example, if a Freelancer is assigned to a spot on a feed pertaining to real estate, the Freelancer could include the MLS number for the home being descreibed in the Category field. The feed owner could display the feed on site in a place where that home is described, and display the feed item only for that home, using the filtering feature, so only that home in the feed appears at that spot on the website.
Following on the announcement of the Ping feature, Enfeedia announces the availability of code snippets to display a +PING button on your website. When the +PING button is clicked, a screen is opened to provide the ability to register for ping email when new items are posted on the feed associated with that +PING button. The screen that opens is the same one that open when the "Set Up Pings" link at the top of the NewsPage is clicked.
For an example, see the top of the Enfeedia home page. You will find the +PING button under the Painless Tutorial link.
To get the code snippet for the +PING button, go to Stylize & Promote Feeds and follow the on-screen instructions.
Effective immediately, Enfeedia now offers its Ping method for notification of new postings on Enfeedia-hosted feeds. Here's how it works: At the top of any NewsPage, you will find the "Set Up Pings" link. Click it to begin the simple three-step process. First, you provide us your email address in a form. Second, we send you an email validation code. Third, you copy that code into a form back on Enfeedia.
That's all there is to it. There are no accounts to set up anywhere. To protect your privacy, we do not record the email address you provide us until you give us the correct validation code. Simply hold the Enfeedia window open, go to your email reader to get the email with the code, and return to the open window to enter the code. Once you submit the code, we then store your email address in our database. And we never sell or offer your email address to others under any conditions.
Once your ping for a feed is set up, you will receive notification by email of new postings between approximately 10 and 20 minutes after the posting. Try it -- select the Enfeedia news feed as an example.
UPDATE- Now the account owner for a feed can set up pings for others, simply by entering the email address and the account password. Enfeedia automatically sends email to the person informing them that the ping has been registered, plus instructions on how to unregister the pings.
Enfeedia introduces the "Dateline" feature to items posted by Freelance writers. "Dateline" is a term used within the newspaper industry to indicate the location origin of the story (e.g., Washington) but no longer actually includes date or time information. The dateline will appear at the beginning of the news item description (e.g., "WASHINGTON - The president signed into law today a bill that...").
The owner of an Enfeedia-hosted news feed can pre-set the dateline for freeelance items in that feed, i.e., the freelancer does not enter the dateline. Additionally, the owner of the feed can control whether the dateline is just plain text or is a text-link to a separate Log Feed in which the freelancer's postings accumulate. (A freelancer's Log Feed offers additional publication or promotional value to the freelancer.)
A significant value of the dateline is offering the owner of the feed containing freelance postings the ability to include a distinctive label for each freelancer's postings. For example, if the theme of a feed is travel destinations, and if freelance writers are assigned to various destinations, the dateline can be used to indicate that travel destination without imposing on the freelancer some convention on the postings to provide that indication. Similarly, if the theme is investments, the dateline could indicate "stocks", "bonds", "real estate" and so on, with a freelance writer assigned to each investment topic.
If you browse to readafeed.com, you will enter Enfeedia in "lite" mode. This mode provides a streamlined way to read a feed only knowing the account name. You will be given a list of feeds in that account if the account isn't unlisted. Or if it is unlisted, you can enter the feed name directly.
Once the NewsPage for the selected feed is displayed using this lite mode, you can edit it (add items, edit items, delete items) in a more streamlined fashion by clicking the shootOnSite link at the upper left of the NewsPage.
For lite mode, the assumption is made you already have some experience using Enfeedia, because much of the explanatory information is removed in lite mode. However, even with very little experience using Enfeedia, you will find using lite mode pretty obvious.
The streamlined format of ReadAFeed is especially convenient for cell phone access to Enfeedia for posting items and reading feeds, because of the reduced text and narrow screen format appropriate for call phone viewing.
Previously, a Gazette webpage tended to be targeted at public newsletter or bulletin board type applications. Enfeedia has now released an upgrade to the Gazette -- and renamed the feature "Snippets" -- that provides for secure (password-protected) communications among organizations of any kind wishing to benefit from RSS technology without publishing their information publicly. Consider corporate inter-department communications, project management organizations, dispersed sales forces, and family communications.
To make your Snippets page private, upgrade your membership to the Enfeediac level, then go to "About My Account" and specify a Privacy Password.
Now you can have your latest Enfeedia feed posting be automatically posted on your Twitter account. The Tweet comprises your feed title and link. Let your friends, family and associates know so they can follow your message stream. If you have an enterprise or endeavor for which timely information is critical, encourage other to open a Twitter account and follow you!
Interested in trying this out? Contact us for more information.
Now you can post your items faster and easier with the "shootOnsite" link to a special Enfeedia log-in screen. Feeds displayed on-site and in the NewsPage format include a shootOnSite text link that when clicked, opens a simple login window for adding items to your feed. All you need to remember is your password. So when you are viewing your website, you are just a few clicks away from adding a news item.
Beginning to day, a list of featured feeds is presented on the Enfeedia home page. Inclusion in the list is based on a combination of criteria including posting frequency. Benefits to the feed publishers include additional exposure for their enterprises as well as improved search engine page ranking.
With the new category filter feature, items in a feed can be selectively displayed. The feed publisher can enter target words into the feed category field (a standard field on all RSS feeds) when adding or editing a feed item. Using Enfeedia's shootOnSite script for displaying the feed on a website, filters can be specified which are compared to the target words in the category field. Only items having a target word matching the filter are displayed.
Two filters are available. If both are specified, both must match target words for an item to be displayed.
As an example, consider a feed which presents news for cities in various states. The category for each item can contain the city and state names (using underscores to connect multi-word names). By specify a state name filter with the shootOnSite script, only items pertaining to that state will be displayed. If the second filter specifies a city name, then only items pertaining that city in that state will be displayed.
Try the FREE Communicator membership. Then graduate to one of the highly featured membership levels that make Enfeedia the most powerful RSS ONLINE PUBLISHING SYSTEM (tm) available.
Build ecommerce sites.
Publish photo galleries using categories for ease in locating items.
Add site search tools to your feed items.
Exploit collaborative posting with Editor and Reporter modes, including moderation.
Embed PayPal purchase buttons to your items.
Publish a "Headline" feed that captures and aggregates your postings made to other feeds in your account.
Implement an automated "item rental" business to advertisers for profit.
Add Google ads (Adsense) to your dedicated NewsPage, that pay to your Google account.
Password protect selected items for members-only applications -- great for publishing an online for-fee newsletter when combined with the PayPal tools.
Publish a multi-feed "gazette" with ease.
Display your feed items directly on your site for site visitors and search engines.
So get started now with this powerful promotional tool, and let us know what creative applications you've found for Enfeedia!
With the Publisher-Pro membership, you can now add a PayPal "Add-To-Cart" purchase button to any items in your RSS feed. Go to PayPal to create the button -- specifying your merchandise, purchase price, etc -- then get your button code from PayPal. Simply copy the "value" number associated with the "hosted button id" within that code and enter it with your item posting.
The button will appear in your feed offering your audience a method to purchase the item, using their PayPal account or a credit card without even having a PayPal account.
WIth the latest update of Enfeedia, feed publishers can now specify that a "Contact Feed Owner" button be posted on the NewsPage, just below the feed title. Upon clicking it, a form opens for the site visitor to write an email message and have it sent to the Account Owner's email address. The email address is kept out of view of spammers who harvest email addresses from websites. Check out our feed as an example.
Enfeedia offers multiple ways people can collaborate to write items for feeds. The Account Owner can of course post items. And the Account Owner can provide for an Editor or Reporters to post items onto a feed using special passwords.
Enfeedia now supports optional moderation of Reporter postings onto feeds. If moderation is selected for a feed, any item posted to that feed by the Reporter is captured but not inserted into the feed until approved. This editorial oversight feature provides the ability for the Account Owner to review the Reporter's posting prior to it going online, either directly or by delegating that oversight authority to an Editor.
If you've been caught between wanting a large image embedded in your feed item description and the impact of load time of the page showing that image, you now have a solution. With the Image OnSite Display Suppression feature, you can include a large image with your description but cause a camera icon to be substituted into the OnSite display of your feed (using the ShootOnSite feature). When one clicks the camera icon, the image is opened. But because the small camera icon is presented in place of your image, the load time of your web page is not affected.
This feature only affects display of the image when the feed is displayed on your web page.Your image is not suppressed in the NewsPage display and is included in your feed, at thumbnail size. And when that thumbnail image is clicked, either a full size version of the image is displayed, or a web page that you chose instead is opened.
Go to Stylize & Promote Feeds to get your code snippet to control how your feed is displayed on your web page, i.e., "OnSite".
Today, Vacation Rentals In the News begins operation, offering vacationers a selection of act-now special vacation homes. The service is based on a single feed, "InTheNews", that providers of vacation homes can post onto, as Freelancers. Spots on the feed are consigned to those providers. And when they post, their item is automatically "autologged" to their own news feed.
During its introductory phase, membership in the service will be limited, to ensure an orderly start-up.
With Enfeedia's Freelance Logging feature, when a freelance writer publishes an item onto a hosted feed, that item is automatically and simultaneously posted on a feed owned by the freelance writer. Whereas the freelance writer publishes only to the one (or several) item spot(s) designated by the feed owner, all those items accumulate over time on the freelance writer's feed, building a powerful tool for the freelance writer to use for his/her own benefit. Consider these applications...
A real estate advertising organization hosts a feed to which (s)he designates real estate agents as freelance writers for a fee. The advertiser places that feed on important websites reaching the real estate buying public. Agents publish onto that feed to promote their business with news pertaining to their market. And when they do, those items also accumulate in their own feed that they can use on their website, or other websites, for additional impact.
Similarly, an advertiser of vacation rentals providers can contract with those providers to display their postings on the advertisers site, as freelance writers. Their postings accumulate in their own feeds for use on their site, giving them a marketing engine to further their businesses.
And so on, for promoting other businesses like restaurants, financial advisors, and event planners. Sign up today for the "Publisher" membership to prosper from these features.
Enfeedia introduces automatic "Headline" posting onto a news feed you specify as your Headline feed in your account. If you have multiple news feeds in your account, you will find this feature useful for your viewers in that they can subscribe to, or set up alerts for, the Headline feed and be notified whenever an item is posted to any feed in the account. The automatically posted item in the Headline feed comprises just the item title which links over to the feed where you posted this item.
To pick a feed to serve as the Headline feed, go to Set Up Feeds, select the Advanced Data Entry Mode, and select "Make this feed a Headline feed". You can make the selection when adding a feed or when editing an existing feed.
Whenever you post an item on any other feed in your account, using Advanced Data Entry Mode, you can specify that it also be added to your Headline feed. You will find the check box towards the bottom of the data entry form.
Implementation of NewsOnSite using the ShootOnSite news reader script has been improved, adding clarity to the instructions and improved navigation. Enfeedia's NewsOnSite feature provides you the ability to display your feed directly on your website, if your webserver supports PHP. A full explanation of support requirements are spelled out. (Most webservers provide the required support).
The feed is displayed by an Enfeedia-developed "news reader" script called ShootOnSite. You can elect to use the script that's located on the Enfeedia server or you can upload a copy onto your own server. Either way, by placing a small Enfeedia-supplied code "snippet" on one of your web site pages, the feed will be displayed right at that spot on that page. The code snippet executes the ShootOnSite script to perform that function.
Not only will visitors to your site appreciate such quick and easy access to your most current information, rather than have to search your site for what's new, but also search engines will reward your site with higher search results page placement because of the value they place on fresh content.
NewsOnSite comes with your free "Communicator" membership. Sign up now and get the benefits of on-site feed presentation!
Enfeedia is now offering two ways to display your Enfeedia-generated and hosted news feed on your own website. Choose either "NewsOnSite" or "ShootOnSite".
To use NewsOnSite, simply insert a code snippet that Enfeedia provides to you that will execute the NewsOnSite script on the Enfeedia site. Go to the "Promote News" tab at enfeedia.com to get that code.
To use ShootOnSite,
(1) download our ShootOnSite script and upload it to the directory that holds the web page upon which you want to display your feed, and
(2) install a code snippet that Enfeedia provides (that executes that local script) onto your webpage where you want that feed displayed.
Both cases require that your host support PHP. But whereas your host must also support "PHP external includes" for NewsOnSite, not so for ShootOnSite. So if your host us unwilling to support those "external includes", ShootOnSite is just the thing for you.
Download the ShootOnSite script here. We are in the process of adding the code snippet generator for ShootOnSite, but in the meantime, here is a simple version you can try:
Available immediately, Enfeedia's "FreeLancer" feature.
With this feature, the owner of an RSS news feed can assign writing privileges to a freelance writer for any feed item or items. Privilege is granted by providing a Freelance Password, done so on an item-by-item basis. The same Freelance Password can be assigned to multiple items across multiple feeds owned by one owner to give the freelance writer access to all those items, conveniently offering those items to the writer once signed in. A freelancer signs in using the account name and the special Freelance Password -- that's it.
Until the account owner revokes the password, the freelancer can maintain the item as consistent with the assignment. Then at some point, the assignment can be discontinued simply by deleting the password.
Consider these examples of applications:
-- The owner of a stock-tracking news feed can assign writing responsibilities to specialists on those individual stocks.
-- A department manager can assign writing responsibilities to direct reports using the feed as a real-time no-email auto-alerting status reporting system.
-- A real estate broker can assign writing responsibilities to individual agents in the office to produce a comprehensive brokerage information feed for clients.
-- An entrepreneurial account owner can offer an advertising feed, for restaurants for example, where each restaurant can provide a freelance writer to post promotional information, including posting seasonal specials, menu changes, holiday events, and so on.
The Freelancer feature is available at the "Publisher" membership level and higher.
Enfeedia announces release of the "Gazette" feature and is making it available for a limited time with the "Publisher" membership.
The Gazette is a multi-feed group-published online "newspaper". One builds the custom Gazette for their account simply by filling out a form. Entries include title, subtitle, title link, additional links, and up to 16 feeds. For each feed, the user can specify how many stories to display, and how much of each story to display (with the full story presented by click a "read the feed" link).
Furthermore, for each feed, the user can specify one of three styles: "Standard" (users with a password can read any story and post to any feed), "For Members Eyes Only" (users need a special password to read the story, but can see the title), and "Owner Posting Only" (only the owner of that feed can post to that feed).
You can think of the Gazette as a multi-user blog. For each feed, a visitor to the Gazette is given the opportunity to subscribe to the feed or receive email alerts upon new postings, and to share content on popular social networking sites.
Consider the possibilities: community bulletin boards (e.g. for members of home owners associations), clubs, family shared newsletters (with each family member having his/her own feed), real estate agents, and more.
Check it out at Enfeedia.com. Sign up for the Publisher membership. Once you are enrolled, click "Publish Gazette" and get going.
Do you find RSS feeds to be somewhat difficult to understand? Like anything else, when you first encounter something new, it can be confusing. Wouldn't it be nice to have a simple explanation about RSS from a good teacher? Then this video is for you.
All feeds generated by Enfeedia are compatible with both RSS and Atom standards. So you don't have to worry about that arcane detail when selecting a news reader. See for yourself, go to Feed Validator, plug in the address of the news feed you wish to check, and get the results. You can get the address of the feed by clicking on the RSS icon for the feed and copying it from your browser address bar. (If your browser substitutes "feed" for "html", you will need to reverse it back to "html" when you enter it into Feed Validator.)
Enfeedia announces the immediate availability of the "Publisher" membership level.
New features:
- Advertisements omitted from your NewsPage. (By the way, ads are never inserted, at any level membership, into a news feed.)
- Flexible "Editor / Reporter" feature for group collaboration. Others can post items into your feed, given a password you provide, without accessing each other's submittals. Editors have the priviege of approval of reporter news items before they appear on-line. Learn more!
- More of your custom news feeds with more news items per feed. Consider creating "feed arrays" where items in a "master" feed link to "subordinate" feeds. One news feed address leads to all connected feeds. Imagine a real estate master feed with each item linking to a dedicated feed for a specific property that displays an annotated picture gallery. Check out this example NewsPage.
- Ability to insert a Google site and web search tool directly into any news item of your feed. Use your news feeds to lure readers of your feed to your website.
Simply by specifying the address of a website to be searched and a nickname for that website, Enfeedia will automatically insert a Google search box into your news item. (We also override, for news items with Google search boxes, any item length restrictions you may have specified to be sure the Google tool is fully and properly displayed.)
Readers of your news feed can easily search your website using their search terms ... and can also search the Web using the same tool. Imagine how well-written news items can be used to pull visitors into your site, giving them the ability to explore the topic using search terms of their choosing.
This news item includes the search box, with the RunAway GetAway Alliance website used as an example. Thinking about a ski vacation? Give "ski" a try. Enjoy!
Here's how. Improve your site's Search Engine Results Placement using RSS News Feeds in three ways.
First, search engines know from which search term a site was reached, and for how long a site visitor stayed on that page once there. It's widely believed that with this knowledge, search engines will improve the SERP for a search term the longer one views the site using that search term. By including well-written news feeds on your site, you can retain the visitor's attention and keep them around for awhile longer, thereby improving your SERP.
Second, when you include news feeds on your site and add a news item from time to time, you keep your website "fresh". Search engines reward sites with fresh content, compared to relatively static sites, with higher SERP. Yes, you could just change your website HTML code from time to time, but hohw much easier it is using a news feed for this purpose: no coding, no file uploading, no web designer fees.
Finally, the content of your news items is "crawled" be search engines. If you write news with thoughtfully selected keywords organically intertwined with your text, your web page will be seen increasingly more relevant to search terms appearing in your news items as well as across your site, again improving your SERP.
Don't miss out on the news feed opportunity. They're easy, powerful ... and free.
For images, you specify the address for the image and we do the rest. A thumbnail version appears in the news item, and if one clicks the image, the full-size version of the image is presented. Or you can choose to have the image link go to any online document / webpage you want.
For text-links, you simply specify the text to be made into a link, and enter the link for that text. We generate the code to make that text a text-link. Make as many links as you want. Consider the search-results benefit to your website by including links to your site in various news items that you publish.
Available immediately ... Second-level membership features have been merged into the free feed publishing "Communicator" membership. Enjoy the benefits of multiple feeds and double the number of news items. Existing members have been automatically upgraded.
For Enfeedia-hosted news feeds, it's only necessary to know the "account name" for the account in which that news feed is published in order to read the feed. No need to enter or copy-and-paste cryptic news feed addresses. Just enter the account name in the provided field. You will then be given the opportunity to select any news feed in that account to be displayed.
If you publish a news feed with Enfeedia, you can easily direct others to your news feed by simply telling them to visit Enfeedia.com and enter your account name ... so make sure your account name is memorable!
... if the item is longer than you permit, Enfeedia automatically links it to the full item. No upload of documents required, no cryptic links to provide. With this feature, you can choose to include lengthy articles right in your news feed without taking excessive space on your website. And still enjoy the benefits of on-site news for both your visitors and search engines.
ENFEEDIA announces the commencement of unique news publishing services designed not only for the benefit of your audience but also for improved visibility of your website in search engines results placement. During our introduction stage, we will be selecting a limited number of Charter Members who intend to be active news publishers and who would like to help shape the future of ENFEEDIA with their suggestions. Absolutely no prior knowledge of news feeds required, just the desire to communicate. Check us out!
With Enfeedia's three feed types, you now have options to present your items in a way best suited to the nature of your feed. Plue you can suppress the display of item dates for subject matter that is ... read feed item.
Here's a relevant tip from SmallBusinessNewz. Notice the last comment below about the importance of embedding video. WIth Enfeedia, you can embed your video directly in your news feed just by insertin ... read feed item.
Here's a great video about the impact of social networking. The numbers are amazing. Notice how much more powerful the message is presented as a video with hard-driving music versus a simple text mess ... read feed item.
Podcasting is a method for distributing media using RSS feeds deriving benefits of RSS such as automatic notification to subscribers when items are posted. If you plan on publishing jus ... read feed item.
When posting an item on your feed, don't assume that only those who visit your site will see your feed. Your feed could appear just about anywhere. Remember, RSS is about Really Simple Syndication, wh ... read feed item.
If you use craigslist, you will appreciate the benefit of publishing your own Enfeedia news feed to create a more lasting "connection" between your audience and your messages. When you post your ad, p ... read feed item.
When the number of items in a feed can become numerous, you can use Enfeedia's filter feature to help the viewer find items of interest. Each news item includes a filter field into which you can enter ... read feed item.
Inserting text-links in your news item description is valuable because you can direct viewers to one or more websites of your choosing. Furthermore, the link is "followed" by search engines crawlers i ... read feed item.
If you upload the shootOnSite script to your server, rather than remotely including the script located on the Enfeedia server, be sure to check this feed from time to time to see if there are updates ... read feed item.
Enfeedia offers two ways to log into your account to post new items, modify existing items, and to remove exiting items ("editing"). The industry-conventional is to go to Enfeedia.com, click the "LOG ... read feed item.
