RSS for website updates?

[Mickeroo]

Hi all,

We're trying to improve the service we're providing to our affiliates by trying to get them the latest content update info (with the minimum of effort on our part ). I was wondering if webmasters use RSS much as a way to obtain content updates to promote on their sites/blogs/etc.

In our case, we consume an RSS feed from Pistol Media to display the latest updates to their video feeds on our website. We were thinking of providing that kind of information to our affiliates but I wanted to get some feedback as to whether this would be worth the effort and if there are some must-have's in an RSS item. I was reading some other posts that suggested updates should have a decent amount of text with them as well as one or more images- does that seem about right?

What do you all look for in an RSS feed? Or is there a better way to get content updates out to affiliates?

I'd love to hear what you all think!

Cheers,
Mike E.

[Rich]

i havent played with it yet but a lot of programs own rss feeds for affiliates

[Andyr]

My thoughts are that an RSS feed now is an essential part of the tools that should be available to your affiliates.

An option of 1 to 4 pics and an embed clip option and also a decent amount of descriptive text at least..

There is many that excel at providing this, and there is also many that fall well short, mainly in the descriptive text department... If used right it is good for building SE traffic, An affiliate today has to be a webmaster, programmer, SEO pro and a fucking writer in most cases, Leaving zero time for anything else...

Personally if your galleries do not have descriptive text or your RSS feeds suck in that department then most do not have the time to amend, correct and optimize and simply put it on full auto pilot or don't use the feeds full stop.

Look after your affiliates and they will look after you !.. make their work easier and they will be more ready and willing to promote you to the the hilt, as less time will be spent trying to make shitty affiliate tools work rather than just getting down to the promoting itself...

[Mickeroo]

There is many that excel at providing this, and there is also many that fall well short, mainly in the descriptive text department...

Thanks for the advice. Do you have any examples of affiliates that are doing this right? If you could suggest some specific affiliate programs that you feel do this well it would be helpful to me.

Thanks again,
Mike E.

[HunkyLuke]

RSS is more important to me than FHGs and banners!

[Andyr]

Thanks for the advice. Do you have any examples of affiliates that are doing this right? If you could suggest some specific affiliate programs that you feel do this well it would be helpful to me.

Thanks again,
Mike E.

Perfectgonzo : quite possibly has the best and most configurable RSS feeds I have seen so far.
Hustler : has morphing feeds that are pretty good, though they don't keep them updated, its a shame.

Morphing feeds adjust the output text to be as unique as possible per feed that is getting pulled..

Now if you could combine that with what Perfectgonzo has and I would say you have got the ultimate in RSS feeds possible!

Hope that is of some help to you.

[Andyr]

Here is an example using all of the options set on http://rss.perfectgonzo.com/prp_327.xml

It's overkill like that but just puts the rest to shame IMO

Note if you have a slow connection this feed will take a while to load !!