Dancing About Architecture

Today we announced the second phase of FeedFlare, which allows you to put the FeedFlare back on your site. To see an example, I've added it to this blog ... just look right below this item. The "Add to del.icio.us" and "View CC license" are generated by FeedFlare. They showed up because I put the following code (as directed by our help guides) in my Movable Type template:

<script src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/eric?flareitem= <$MTEntryPermalink$>" type="text/javascript"></script>

Now, if you're an MT junkie, you might not be that impressed ... "you could have just added the Flare things directly to your template". That's true. But for the majority of the users, what's really cool about this is that, once you've put that single Javascript call, you configure all of the settings from the FeedBurner UI. No messing with plug-ins, no rebuilding your site, no having to move to dynamic templates. And it's universal: you use the same interface to configure an MT blog as you do for a Blogger blog as you do for a WordPress blog. Once we release the third phase of FeedFlare, where we open up the API so anyone can create these FeedFlare, we'll really see the flexibility of this universal plug-in framework.

There's one other very powerful thing about FeedFlare on the site: we are using all of the metadata and expressive power of the feed to inform the FeedFlare on the site. Since FeedBurner is processing your feed, all of the structured information is available to help generate the FeedFlare on the site. No having to scrape an HTML page like other scripts are forced to do -- we can use the upstream information that simply isn't available in the final, rendered page.

I'm really excited about this new development with FeedFlare, but I'm really really excited about what's coming next. The API is going to be a lot of fun, and I can't wait to see the kinds of FeedFlares that will be created. So, back to work for me!

Posted by Eric at 09:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (1)

I'm going to have to side with Mark on this one ... there are just too many examples of Apple not getting it. It's time they got it.

I sure miss Mark's blog, but his mailing list posts almost make up for it!

Source: Sam Ruby: Photocasting Hyperbole

Posted by Eric at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Myers-Briggs in the casino ... I'm sure you all can suggest extending this:

• INTP: Blackjack
• ENTP: Craps

Posted by Eric at 03:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've really enjoyed what ian c rogers has been doing behind the locked doors of his 360 blog, including posting some fantastic XSPF playlists that have found their way onto my Zen Micro. Now I see that there's a Yahoo! Music Blog that he just posted to announcing the Webjay acquisition. I'm going to subscribe (no FeedBurner feed?) and hope that it's updated frequently.

Just as an update, I'm still very much enjoying my Yahoo! Music Unlimited subscription and still listening to a couple of new albums every night. I'm liking the Zen Micro, and I got the Roku Soundbridge for Christmas (but I haven't had time to hook it up yet). So, yes, I'm fully in the PlaysForSure DRM camp.

There are still lots of things that I'm frustrated about with Y!MU, though. Off the top of my head:

1. Things that aren't "albums" listed as "albums". It's a real pain to find the latest album by a band if you don't know its name. Suggestion: on the album listing page, put the number of songs on the "album" in parens so I know what's an album and what's just a remixed single.
2. Release notes for the client? Sometimes, a new version of YME is downloaded, but I have no idea what has changed.
3. Are you telling me there haven't been any new plug-ins for the past three months?
4. Playlists are really lame. This is where I'm hoping Lucas will help out. It's such a huge pain to try to share a playlist ... it should be effortless. Help us Lucas!

Posted by Eric at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)