If you have been paying attention you might have noticed we added rss & atom feeds to beyondjazz. Now this may or may not sound japanese to you, but do read on, 'cause this isn't just interesting for techies & developers, but for everyone. Wondering how this is all different from the web you're already used to?
What's it all about?
RSS & Atom are both standards to syndicate content. A "feed" automatically generates a machine-readable representation of the content from a website that can be picked up and displayed on other web sites and "information aggregation tools" (see further on). These make reviewing a large number of sites in a very short time possible.
Who's doing it?
Many of the biggest names on the internet now offer their content as rss or atom feeds. Coming from a blog background it's obvious that many blogs syndicate their content, but its use isn't restricted to that world. From Amazon, BBC News and Yahoo to local papers like De Standaard (BE), lots of sites are smart enough to add feed options. A good overview of feeds can be found on
syndic8. And now, Beyondjazz jumps on the same wagon.
How do I use it?
You can use a newsreader / aggregator to scan feeds and automatically letting you know when sites have updated. Examples are
FeedDemon (Windows),
Bloglines (web-based),
Sage (Firefox Extension),
Live Bookmarks (Firefox Feature) and
NetNewsWire and
Shrook (Mac OS X). A simple google search for eg. 'rss reader' should come up with more info ...
Rss or Atom?
As said rss and atom are both syndication standards. Does it matter which one you use? Hmmm, probably. Do you have to care? Hmmm, maybe. Let's just say most feed-aggregators can handle both.
Let's get it on!
Let's give an example of an interesting use of a beyondjazz feed. Let's say you have the excellent firefox browser installed. This browser can automatically recognise if a site has feeds and has the option of making 'Live Bookmarks' of those. You're on beyondjazz'
upcoming releases page. In the bottom right corner of your browser window you'll see this icon
. If you click on it you'll see a few options (overview of the available feeds), one of them being "Subscribe to Bj.net RSS (Upcoming Releases)". If you choose this option you'll be asked where you want the 'Live Bookmark' to appear. Choose a folder, for instance the Bookmarks Toolbar Folder, so you can access it directly. What you just did was adding a site to your bookmarks, nothing special? Wait! Firefox scans the rss-feed of the upcoming releases and will show the bookmark as a folder containing all the items from the added rss-feed, that is - in this case - a list of the last upcoming releases we added to beyondjazz. This list will be updated whenever you start your browser. Now you're always on spot by just clicking your live bookmark, checking out the list and eventually browsing to a topic from the list. Try it!
So which feeds does Beyondjazz provide?
Below you see a list of different feeds beyondjazz provides. You can also find the links to these feeds by going to a forum overview page where you'll see a rss & atom button. Every public forum (the same counts for all playlist forums, not listed below) provides a valid feed.
All Bj.net Topics
Eyes:
Site News
Radio News
Articles
Feet:
Party Reviews
Cityguides
Bj.net Calendar (Worldwide)
Ears:
New Releases
Upcoming Releases
Reviews
Demo Reviews
Charts
Beyondjazz Radio Show Playlists
Live Radio Tracker
Mouth:
Public Discussions
Problems & Suggestions
Party Talk
City Talk
Music Discussions
Producer's Board
Sample Spotting
Crate Diggers
Feeds from friends
4 Hero Message Board (scraped by oemebamo)
Offtrack Podcast
Clubbity.com News (with a little help from their friends)
Ifmusic.co.uk New Arrivals
Where do I read more?
Of course there's much more to find out, check out the following links: 1 2 3
So, that's it for this edition. I hope it'll improve your beyondjazz experience and that it'll save you some time so you keep more left for some crate diggin', sample spottin' or baby makin'. Hope you found it interesting ... If not, don't care and know that you can still browse Beyondjazz exactly like you did before.
(Article based on articles from blogger & feedburner, as linked in the 'read more' section)
