Would You Pay for new RSS Subscribers ?

February 28th, 2008 25 Comments »

rssxplodefake.jpgBack in july, we came across a service called Buy Blog Comments. After that, its now time for paying for your RSS Subscriber count. A new service called RSSXplosion(.com) lets you “Buy” RSS Subscribers. These “bought” subscribers just subscribe to your feed, they don’t read it. Why ? Because they don’t exist.

I read about this site on Ian Fernando’s blog. Something that caught my eye was that they have used my quote (from this post) about RSS Subscribers. Though i hate the service, i feel prestigious to have been quoted along with Mark from 45n5 and John Chow(:D).

There are some reasons why one would not use RSSXplosion :

  1. If you are so much interested in raising feedcount, you can sign up yourself with many feed readers or many accounts with a single reader and subscribe to your blog’d feed from each of them.
  2. A common way of faking the RSS Count is to use someone else Chicklet, but linking to your own feed. This is often found out. So, instead you can display someone else’s feedcount in plain text. (though i’m displaying in plain text, i’m not faking it. you can check out my chicklet here.)
  3. If you feel that the above method is difficult, you can just put some Big number in plain text and link it to their feed. Like DeafMusician(.com) which claims to have 6.24 Billion RSS subscribers. The screenshot (in case it is removed) :
    fakedeaf.jpg
  4. It hurts your reputation once people come to know that you have bought subscribers. RX isdefinitely not going to be profitable. So, if they close down, you’ll lose all your”bought” subscribers. Better to stay away.

And coming back to this quoting stuff, though the owner of RX has got the rights to use quotes with appropriate credits, what Ian Fernando says is right :

The owner of RSSXplosion is using popular authors and bloggers to associate with this pathetic service.

What do you say ? Would you buy RSS subscribers if your count is low, or you’d better be honest to your readers ?

UPDATE: Don’t ever bother to visit the two non-linked websites. RX is useless. DeafMusician does all sort of childish things like the faking feed count, using images without credits, disobeying copyrights etc…

Any Good Newsletter Software Available ?

February 26th, 2008 16 Comments »

Yesterday, i started searching for a good newletter script to use for my website Kontactr.com. First, i installed PHPList from Fantastico. It was clean and simple. I tried to import my list of users into PHPList. I tried atleast a dozen ways… No luck :(

Then, i started searching for something better. I knew about Zookoda. So, i logged into my Zookoda account. Again, i couldn’t find a way to import my users. Also, i have read this post. So, i skipped Zookoda.

Then, at last, i came across this post from Mashable. It had a big list of Newsletter Services. All of them were paid. I’m not making much money to spend on such sophisticated services, as i was looking for something simple. If i signup with any of them, i will not use atleast 70% of their features.

So, do you know any simple, yet powerful script out there ? If so let me know… Also, if i don’t find any, i will write one myself. Also, would this make a good idea for my next startup ? Theres only Zookoda in the field of “free”, “hosted” newsletter services. I think i’ll be able to better and easier… What do you think ?

API4RSS – Very nice API Service

August 30th, 2007 4 Comments »

API 4 RSSToday morning, i received a mail from Ollie, letting me know about a new service that he has created. It is called API 4 RSS. API4RSS is a tool that allows you to display an RSS Feed on any page by just including One Line of Javascript. It was primarily started with the aim of displaying an RSS feed on a Million Dollar Wiki page (read about how it began).

I was amazed by the simplicity of the site. You just have to enter the URL of the RSS feed that i want to display and some formatting options. Then, you get 2 types of code.

  1. A Line of JavaScript code
  2. 6 Lines of code for use on a Media Wiki page, eg Million Dollar Wiki.

They even allow you to use your own Stylesheet of the feed, which is very nice. Here’s an example :


Hosted Blog Platforms – Why & Why not ?

August 20th, 2007 8 Comments »

Hosted Blogging Platforms

A lot of hosted blogging platforms like Blogger, WordPress, Typepad etc.. are very popular. But, is it a good decision to go with these services ? Of course, yes. Isn’t is better to go with a self-hosted solution ? The answer is Yes again. So, we’ll see few reasons why you should go with Hosted Solutions and few reasons why you shouldn’t.

Why you should choose a Hosted Blogging Platform ?

  1. You do not need money upfront. Many services like Blogger and WordPress.com are free of cost. You need not have your own domain name nor you need to worry about hosting.
  2. These blogs are very easy to manage and also to customize them. You need not fight your way hard to install a theme or something like that.
  3. No technical knowledge required. Whatever may go wrong, may it be with the blog or the hosting etc.. they will take care of it for you. You need not spend sleepless nights trying to fix it.

Why you shouldn’t choose a Hosted Blogging Platform ?

  1. You can run your own ads. Services like WordPress.com don’t allow you to run your own ads which can be annoying for those who blog for money.
  2. You have broader options to customize your blog. You can have your own totally custom theme. You can install as many plugins you want etc…
  3. Many people consider these services are inferior. Only very few such blogs have made to the Technorati top 100. Advertisers think twice before advertising on a remotely-hosted blog.
  4. These services retain the right to take your blog down for objectionable content. So, its often dangerous.

These are just my views, though many would agree on these. If you have your own points to tell, please do add them in the comments below…

Feedrinse – Read what matters you

July 27th, 2007 1 Comment »

feedrinse.jpgA day ago, i wrote about AideRSS, a way to manage your feeds, if you are subscribed to too many of them. I also mentioned about FeedRinse, an alternate way to filter your feeds. The key different between AideRSS and FeedRinse is that AideRSS allows you to “read what matters”, while FeedRinse allows you to read what matters YOU. That is, AideRSS automatically fetches the best posts/good posts and provides them to you. But, with FeedRinse, you can supply the necessary conditions for a entry to appear on a feed. Take a look at the picture below :

rinse.gif

That is self explanatory. Right ? The options are that you can either Block the post or Allow the post after setting conditions. And there are other options available too. Check out special screenshot made by me :
splrinse.jpg

FeedRinse gives you better control over what you read. That is why i would prefer FeedRinse over AideRSS. I’m not against AideRSS. It does good what it aims to do. Just that my personal preference would be for FeedRinse.I think i needn’t explain how FeedRinse works because their Tour page explains it very well. That page is the best of its kind that i have ever seen. Too see FeedRinse in action, check out the below image :
myrinse.jpg
Those were the conditions that i set up on my own feed and the output feed is here.

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