Atom/RSS Feed for Workouts Page (Read 1005 times)

I would second this suggestion.

Unfortunately, i do not think this is in the plan currently http://runningahead.com/forums/post/d0ed50893c6a48a689b2c6bb62ed846b#focus

Getting rid of most of the white-space, the Atom file ends up being about 4kb, and the RSS file is 2kb. This is the first time I've messed with Atom, and it seems like overkill and a waste of bandwidth -- I'd have to go with RSS if it were me.

If this is implemented, I'd say only offer RSS. If somebody wants an atom feed, let them burn it through feedburner and create one that way. As for what I think on actually implementing, I wouldn't mind seeing it but I am pretty ambivalent. I would burn it through feedburner (for the bandwidth reasons) if I wanted to subscribe to my own feed, and I'd likely only do that if I was going to use it on my website somehow. I might subscribe to other people's feeds, though. Another way to save on bandwidth would be to require people to set up a feedburner feed for themselves if they want it, and only allow access through feedburner. Google has plenty of bandwidth, after all. Just make sure that people can provide the feedburner URL so that it could be available to others if they want to share it.

moorereason, Thanks for the feedbacks. My main concern is bandwidth, since the RSS clients will be pounding my server. This problem maybe resolved when I move to a different hosting company. I might go with RSS since that seems to be a little more popular. It doesn't seem too hard. What kind of info should I include in the feed? As for paying for the site, quite a few members have stepped up and donated money. While that is still not enough to pay for the hosting, it reduced my out of pocket expense and I am very grateful for the generosity. There are basically two ways to generate money: fee and ad based. I don't like to impose a fee because I want it to be accessible to everyone and not just the ones that can afford it. You may argue that I can offer a free basic service and paid members get more features but how do you decide what is free and what is not? I've given this much thought and one way to draw the line is anything that requires extra resources (whether more computing time such as additional statistics or more bandwidth such as RSS) warrants a fee. I want to keep all users on the site as peers. Ads offer a good alternative solution to paid membership. My issue with it is that they can be distracting. Still, I need a way to let the site pay for itself, especially with new members joining every hour, there will be a time when it becomes too expensive to run the site without consistent revenue. I am considering some ads next year. eric

Eric, I appreciate your concern for all users and share the same concerns. I mention it only because I've been astounded at how well the LibraryThing guys have handled themselves. Their scheme is basically this: - All users get all the same bells and whistles; no features are reserved be paid accounts - Free accounts get to catalog up to 200 books - Paid accounts just get to catalog as many books as they want (several people have over 10,000 books!) What I found most interesting about LibraryThing is that their upgrade page acts like a donation page. You can get a yearly account for as little at $6 on up to $20. Ultimately, however, it's the features of the site that make it profitable. The site is so dang useful that bibliophiles don't even blink about paying $25 for a lifetime membership. Anyway, I suppose you could setup a system were you can log up to 500(?) runs for free and after that you have to upgrade to a paid account.

There are ways to generate revenue to reduce my out of pocket expenses. As I told some of the users via email, I'm more interested in creating new features than to scheme up ways to get money from you. I created the site so other runners can use it. If I place unreasonable restrictions on it, then it'll have the opposite effect. Jason: it is my policy not to disclose any operational details because I have no idea what would happen if that information is made public.