Seth Godin makes the point that RSS is a great update alert mechanism for web content even if your site isn't a blog per se...So true! Think catalogues, events, links, and even document syndication (enclosures are not just for MP3s ya know!). The list goes on...
Seth mentions an RSS management product from Evolvepoint called FeedCraft. Looks good, but I wish he had mentioned FeedHoster in the same post.
Both systems offer the same basic functionality, but differ in a few ways...
- FeedCraft hosts your feeds, which FeedHoster also does. But FeedHoster provides the additional option of exporting your feed using the built in FTP client. This means you can build your feed on FeedHoster (it's all web based), and then export directly to your own server. Sweet.
- FeedCraft provide fairly comprehensive feed stats. I think this is why they host the feed for you rather than allowing you to export the feed...doing that might disable the stats tracking. I might be wrong on this, but that seems to be the case. FeedHoster doesn't provide stats, instead encouraging users to use FeedBurner (the king of feed stats).
- FeedHoster allows you to build regular feeds (like Feedcraft), but also allows you to build serialized RSS feeds, like this example. Feedcraft doesn't provide this option.
No question, that Feedcraft is a nice looking option, but FeedHoster has some coolio features to offer :)
I'll be posting more thoughts on RSS soon. I've been working on a post about personal and disposable RSS feeds.
Tell us what you think...