Scripting News - Latest Comments in FriendFeed and level playing fields (Scripting News)

Re: FriendFeed and level playing fields (Scripting News)

jorgeblanco — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 00:14:01 -0000

I haven't fiddled with the FF API yet, but I would like to know if there is a way, knowing what the API does, to replicate the result only with a custom RSS feed. If you could do that, maybe you could design your own RSS feed that pushes the right content to FF. Also, does anyone knows if FF would support a generic video / photo feed?

Re: FriendFeed and level playing fields (Scripting News)

brlewis — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 23:36:41 -0000

Dave, you've got FriendFeed all wrong. You make it sound like it works better for Flickr than it does for an off-the-list photo-sharing site like mine, OurDoings. The opposite is true. People complain of long delays before their Flickr photos show up, and of entries/comments sometimes disappearing when new photos come in.

OurDoings entries don't disappear, and I've never experienced a delay. Consistently they show up on FriendFeed in less than two minutes. FriendFeed works smoothly with OurDoings because the Media RSS OurDoings provides makes it easy for FriendFeed to do the right thing. Flickr gets only the cosmetic advantage of having its own icon and verb.

Re: FriendFeed and level playing fields (Scripting News)

directeur — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 17:39:35 -0000

Working über fine here: http://friendfeed.com/e/8b3... :)

Re: FriendFeed and level playing fields (Scripting News)

paulbuchheit — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 16:41:32 -0000

I'll look into the <description> element and should have a good ping solution soon. As for MediaRSS, if you include multiple media groups containing thumbnails with width and height small enough to fit multiple images, then they should display horizontally just like Flickr.

Re: FriendFeed and level playing fields (Scripting News)

genieyclo — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 16:38:40 -0000

You have a good model to follow there, but I still agree with Dave that there should be blanket support for all "special" RSS feeds with diff content, FF should do that auto instead of having to order it that way.

Re: FriendFeed and level playing fields (Scripting News)

dave — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 16:29:56 -0000

It shouldn't ignore <enclosure>s and <description>s.

Re: FriendFeed and level playing fields (Scripting News)

dave — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 16:29:01 -0000

Paul, not ignoring <description>s is my #1 feature request, I've been submitting it and working around it since May. Being able to ping FF saying "load this feed now, it's changed" is another biggie, would obviate needing to use the API and save a lot of time debugging. And from Scoble, he wants my FlickrFan feed to display its MediaRSS thumbs horizontally like Flickr does, and I agree. Most important though is a request that you engage like this through simple posts to the feedback room. I don't want to use Scripting News for bug reports.

Re: FriendFeed and level playing fields (Scripting News)

paulbuchheit — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 16:09:46 -0000

Dave, we're actually trying to include as much "generic" support as possible in the "blog" feed. We already support MediaRSS thumbnails, videos, and audio plus GeoRSS to trigger maps. If there are other RSS attributes that we should be pulling in, please let me know and we'll try to get them added (you mentioned the 'description' -- I'll look into that). The purpose of the "special" services is to be a little more user-friendly by asking for username instead of feed url (the feeds are sometimes buried, or people don't know that they exist), and to deal with bugs in popular services (such as Facebook using the same GUID on every status update!).

Our preference is to do as little custom development as possible, and to give all services equal access. I agree completely with the principle of creating a level playing field and not forcing people to use the API. Feel free to let me know which features you see missing from our feed support.

thanks

Re: FriendFeed and level playing fields (Scripting News)

directeur — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 15:36:58 -0000

Rahsheen, what lacks here is the description. And I think that it's what Dave's talking about.

Re: FriendFeed and level playing fields (Scripting News)

Rahsheen — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 15:32:15 -0000

I'm confused here, I was under the impression that if the RSS feeds you provide via the Blog service have the proper media enclosures, FriendFeed pulls the images/audio in just fine. Am I missing something here? It seems that, as long as you provide the correct input, FriendFeed gives you the proper output.

Re: FriendFeed and level playing fields (Scripting News)

tonysteward — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 15:28:54 -0000

FriendFeed automatically recognizes podcasts in Blog feeds correct? And it gives the enclosed file a flash player to listen to it right there on FriendFeed.

So, is what you are asking for just better recognition of the enclosed items in the feed, and then giving a rich media interaction with those items on FriendFeed?

Re: FriendFeed and level playing fields (Scripting News)

hiero — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 15:16:05 -0000

http://friendfeed.com/e/cb3...

Re: FriendFeed and level playing fields (Scripting News)

Phil Glockner — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 15:03:43 -0000

I agree with you here. It seems silly to have to use the API to do things that RSS already has support for, but for some reason FriendFeed has weirdly limited or omitted if you use the basic blog profile.

So in essence, FF is tilting the playing field *twice* in this regard, once by giving preferential profiles to feeds for particular sites, and again with the API.

It would be nice if they re-vamped their service profile page to have a more powerful RSS feed entry that either allows more flexibility in configuration at the front-end (for example being able to specify the service name and RSS elements to be enabled instead of divining that from the feed) or supporting the RSS and Atom specifications more fully.

Re: FriendFeed and level playing fields (Scripting News)

directeur — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 14:59:45 -0000

Dave, look: http://jazz.appspot.com (one of my blogs), pushes music AND pictures to friendfeed via RSS. The "description" is actually not handled by FriendFeed, since it's designed to be threads of discussion about "links"? Here's an example: http://friendfeed.com/e/3f8...