Wow, World "gets" it for RSS
The local newspaper, the Lawrence Journal-World, prides itself in being ahead of the technology curve. If I had broadband at home [wink wink-lay cable north, sunflower!] , I suspect their podcasts would completely displace (or at least supplement) KPR for local news.
Recently, they added RSS feeds for both their lawrence.com and the ljworld.com main site. Each one of their main sections has an RSS feed associated with it. This really is an important change in the way news is delivered. It's also very nice for watching their blogs. [cup-o-joel is the only one worth reading btw, the others are sporadic nonsensical mishmashes]
When lots of sites are thinking about making it harder to get information, this is a refreshing change.
What's most interesting though, is the content of the RSS feeds is just what you want to read. The headline and a meaty excerpt. Someone there gets it. RSS by section is the way it should be. Any single page/section and the changes/updates. Yowza.
Sadly, it doesn't work for classifieds, which is the worst part of their site (a quagmire of popup menus where text search should rule).
I'll take what I can get, and glad someone there took the time to do it right.
[update 6-17-05: Now they don't appear to be working at all. My RSS reader can't get the section titles for several pages. Sigh.]
[update 7-20-05 here is the error that I get on several sections.
Recently, they added RSS feeds for both their lawrence.com and the ljworld.com main site. Each one of their main sections has an RSS feed associated with it. This really is an important change in the way news is delivered. It's also very nice for watching their blogs. [cup-o-joel is the only one worth reading btw, the others are sporadic nonsensical mishmashes]
When lots of sites are thinking about making it harder to get information, this is a refreshing change.
What's most interesting though, is the content of the RSS feeds is just what you want to read. The headline and a meaty excerpt. Someone there gets it. RSS by section is the way it should be. Any single page/section and the changes/updates. Yowza.
Sadly, it doesn't work for classifieds, which is the worst part of their site (a quagmire of popup menus where text search should rule).
I'll take what I can get, and glad someone there took the time to do it right.
[update 6-17-05: Now they don't appear to be working at all. My RSS reader can't get the section titles for several pages. Sigh.]
[update 7-20-05 here is the error that I get on several sections.
I am using RSS Bandit on windows, but I ran this through several XML validators and none of them succeed.]
Request of URL http://www2.ljworld.com/news/crime_fire_courts/ failed: This XML document does not look like an RSS feed
posted by Rob at 7:57 PM
5 Comments:
Hey, I'm lead developer at World Online. Thanks for the super-nice comments!
You're right about the classifieds. We're running a legacy classifieds system that we're working on rewriting completely from scratch, with RSS feeds galore and a whole bunch of other stuff.
Which news RSS feeds didn't work for you? I just verified a bunch of 'em, and they all worked for me. Please send me more information, and I'll fix it ASAP if there is indeed a problem. Use aholovaty@ljworld.com or http://www.holovaty.com/contact/ . Thanks again for the comments.
Adrian, I will review what doesn't work, but I am certain several main sections simply didn't respond for a day or so.
It's great that someone takes this seriously, and it makes me feel all the better knowing feedback is being read.
I've sent positive feedback to the web contact address regarding this as well.
Hey Rob --
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/crime_fire_courts/ isn't an RSS feed. That's a normal section page.
The LJWorld RSS page says:
"Every section of stories throughout our site has an available RSS feed. Just copy-and-paste the section's URL into your RSS software, and it should pick up the feed"
Am I misunderstanding what a "section" is?
In any case, shouldn't crime and fire reports HAVE an RSS feed? It's treated the same as Local News on the main page, which has a feed.
Give that crime/fire page another shot -- that page is a special-case in our system and I neglected to add the RSS link to that page. Thanks for the heads-up!
Post a Comment
<< Home