LeftyBlogs.com: News & Announcements
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"But I don't know if I have an RSS feed!"
Been getting quite a few emails from folks who don't know if they have an RSS feed on their blog - or if they do, don't know what the address is.
For starters, an important point: If you really don't have an RSS feed, you can't be part of LeftyBlogs.com. The whole point of this site is that it reads your RSS and displays the headlines here. No RSS, no headlines.
Some tips:
BLOGGER: If you have a Blogger blog, your feed is called atom.xml - and it's at the root level of your site, like this:
http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/atom.xml
http://yourblogname.com/atom.xml
You may need to turn it on, if you've turned it off. (It's on by default.) In Blogger, just click on "Change Settings", then "Site Feed", then for "Publish Site Feed", select "Yes". Republish.
TYPEPAD: If you have a Typepad blog, your feed is called index.rdf - and it's usually somewhere like this:
http://yourblogname.typepad.com/yourblogname/index.rdf
http://yourblogname.com/yourblogname/index.rdf
By default, Typepad puts a link on your blog called "Syndicate this site (XML)" that points to the right place. Click and copy/paste the URL.
WORDPRESS: If you have a WordPress blog, your feed could be in any number of places - depending on the WP version you've got. By default, though, WP likes to give you a link called "Entries (RSS)". Click and copy/paste the URL.
If you have some other system, just look around in your blogging software for the link - or even just View Source on your blog; it's almost always got "rss" or "xml" in the URL.
And if your blogging software doesn't produce RSS, well, get better blogging software. (To be fair, we've only come across one blog that fit this description so far.)
Want to know more about RSS? See this earlier post.
Posted by Kari Chisholm on August 26, 2005 09:05 AM
Comments
I use Blogger and you are not picking up my feed.
My feed is rss instead of Atom.
http://elemming2.blogspot.com/rss/elemming2.xml
Do I need to switch to atom? I have a number of people who subsribe using the rss feed.
Posted by Easter Lemming on August 26, 2005 04:34 PM
What if you use bloggers RSS option instead of Atom?
http://elemming2.blogspot.com/rss/elemming2.xml
Posted by Easter Lemming on August 26, 2005 04:40 PM
It's a bit of work but how about individual site-meter icons to gather statistics for each state page. That would be in addition to the one that measures the total for all the pages, of course. We do that at the SoapBlox network.
Posted by Jeff Wegerson on August 26, 2005 07:36 PM
Easter-- Thanks for the tip. I realized that I wasn't properly handling RSS feeds from Blogger. That's fixed now. You should now see all your posts in the Texas channel. Thanks!
Posted by Kari Chisholm on August 27, 2005 05:18 PM
Jeff -- I'm not really interested in how much traffic each state page is getting. I *am* interested in how much traffic we're generating for each of our syndicated blogs.
Right now, as you know, we've got clicktrackers. The next step is to sum those stats up and give each blog its own inbound traffic stats.
Posted by Kari Chisholm on August 27, 2005 05:20 PM
As a local blogger (actually our blog SoapBlox/Chicago is more of a group blog or discussion area for various bloggers and others) I want to know the potential audience that can come from here. I was very pleased to see the clicks addition, as that does give me some notion of how many are coming from here.
Also if I were to advertise here can I advertise at my state page only? That's another reason I would want to know the state by state audience.
Right now your total visits are about 5 to 7 times our visits. So maybe 5-30 people are visiting your Illinois page 40 times a day.
I love this concept. I want it to work. I have placed the Lefty Blogs links in our main menu at the upper right of the blog. Being in Chicago we have placed IL, WI, IN and MI Lefty Blog direct links. I asked our software developer about RSS by subject because I would love also to become listed in the other states besides IL. At the moment we only have occasional Indiana stories. He says it can be done with a bit of work, but I don't see him actually doig it anytime soon.
Ok, then since you aren't interested, just put a separate site meter for Illinois only for me. Or not.
Posted by Jeff Wegerson on August 27, 2005 07:06 PM
Maybe the state blogs list hould have both by date of addition to Lefty Blogs order and by alphabetical order so one can easily tell if their favorite blog is on the list or not.
Posted by Jeff Wegerson on August 27, 2005 07:11 PM
Do you use feedburner input? You list my blog as okayed on August 18th, but I don't see any posts. I use ATOM formatted feed from feedburner and everyone else seems to get the updates.
I appreciate what you're doing and would like to be in the cycle.
Thanks.
Posted by Mass Marrier on August 28, 2005 01:16 PM
Hi Kari --
I administer a blog called The Xoff Files in Wisconsin. We use blogger but host it on our site.
The site has been added to your WI blogroll but still doesn't show any headlines.
Here's the RSS feed: http://www.wisopinion.com/blogs/xofffiles.xml
Please let me know if there's something more I need to do to get the headlines to work.
Thanks
Posted by Mike Schramm on August 29, 2005 04:27 PM
The blog I write for is administered by a regional newspaper in the area. I contacted tech support about the rss and they tell me it is not yet available on our blog. The blog is at http://www.areavoices.com/commonsense/. Please help!
I'd really like to link up with this blog. Is there any way to do so? Thanks
Posted by Josh Swanson on September 26, 2005 10:16 AM
One more time... For starters, an important point: If you really don't have an RSS feed, you can't be part of LeftyBlogs.com. The whole point of this site is that it reads your RSS and displays the headlines here. No RSS, no headlines.
Posted by Kari Chisholm on September 26, 2005 11:19 PM
Heh, I suggest you remove the 'For Starters...' from that last comment, Kari. I worked for a firm that consolidated local/county records into a single database. Boss (naively) agreed to accept *everything* she was handed. So, we learned to read cd's, DAT tapes, 9-track reel tapes, fat-nasty cartridges from the 80's. And the data came in everything from comma-separated to EBCDIC to sql dumps (a la a mysql backup). Fsckin' nightmare and a fulltime job for the techie involved, plus about 2 weeks a year of fulltime developer attention.
Xml, rss, or other standardized mechanisms of newsfeed output are your mantra unless you wanna get dragged feetfirst into a tarpit.
Josh, try googling 'php rss writer' for some sample code for generating a true RSS feed. If you're not working on php, swap 'php' for 'cold-fusion' or 'java' or whatever your site uses. And for the love of meta-jesus, ask hard questions of management and your tech staff. I know of two papers that are custom writing 100% of the newspaper's content-management code in an era when a dozen content-management or blog platforms are available for much less than custom code costs (Drupal, php-nuke, and moveabletype are frontrunners). More features, better maintenance, and less cost! If your tech staff can't/won't do RSS, that isn't a good sign...
Posted by d2 at 43rdstateblues on October 30, 2005 10:04 AM
Aha yes... I don't mean to imply that at some future point we're going accept something other than RSS.
That's all there is. The world has standardized around one way of syndicating content (admittedly, in multiple formats).
No RSS, no LeftyBlogs.
Posted by Kari Chisholm on October 30, 2005 12:26 PM
Hi, I just recently joined and I've noticed that my feed is not being picked up. It's a Feedburner RSS, I don't use blogspot's atom... any recommendations in how to get my feedburner RSS picked up by you?
Happy Thanksgiving!
Posted by Elderta on November 24, 2005 07:43 AM
All of a sudden my blog is missing from leftyblogs.
Possibly my fault!
I added a plugin to use Feedburner feeds. Is this the problem?
Please let me know how and I'll fix it.
Thanks.
Posted by jimsolt on October 26, 2006 11:06 PM
HELP! HELP! From the boy who cried "Wolf" too often.
The sky is not falling.
Blog is back . . . or never left and I just missed the post.
I don't even drink or do drugs. Maybe I should sleep more:).
At any rate, ignore my worries about this.
Thanks.
Posted by jimsolt on October 26, 2006 11:21 PM
Ever since I switched to beta blogger, lefty is not getting my feed!
Help!
Posted by Mimi Schaeffer on November 30, 2006 09:01 AM
Everybody is so picky about linking blogs. You have to have this and you have to have that and you have to do this and you have to do that. Pretty soon, the Blogs will be the same as the established media, and another new generation will have to emerge and rebel.
Posted by Ben Matheny on January 7, 2007 09:47 AM
I tried to add my blog but it never went on the list.......I have followed all the instructions for site feed regarding blogger.
I have not recieved anything that indicates my blog was rejected and nothing that states there was a problem with the feed. Is there anything else I can do aside from posting this here?
Posted by kay on February 2, 2007 11:53 AM
