James Williams - at the intersection of communication and technology

Modifying RSS feeds using Yahoo Pipes

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 02:35:16 +0000

If you’ve ever wanted to change the contents of an RSS feed, then Yahoo Pipes gives you an easy way to do it.

The problem I am solving is one where I need to update a podcast feed to add the name of the show. On the Lifestyle PodNetwork when we display a list of shows we start with the name of the show, followed by an episode. Some hosts forget or can’t add the name of the show, so this is a way we can do it for them.

So here’s a picture of what I started with (fig 1.1), followed by the result after I used Yahoo Pipes (fig 1.2).

fig. 1.1

fig. 1.2

This is what you do:

Firstly, setup an account in Yahoo Pipes at http://pipes.yahoo.com, and start a new pipe.

Next from the Sources menu select Fetch feed and drag it to the workspace. Once you have done this enter the RSS feed you want to modify

Next from the Operators menu choose Sort. Configure the sort operator by publication date item.pubDate and then descending. This will ensure that the most recent items are on top.

Then choose Regex from the Operators menu. Configure item.title and leave the text field blank. This will append your string of text ahead of any content already in the item title. In the With field, type the text you wish to add. In my case I added “Create Your LifeStory ”

Do remember to add a space to the end of your string so that your new text does not run up directly against the string of text in the item title.

Once you have your feed working the way you want it to, then you can experiment with other great options like Truncate which limits the number of records it returns from your RSS feed in the output.

Your final pipe should look something like fig 1.3

fig 1.3 - Yahoo! Pipes example

Social Media: A handy guide for where to post

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 23:09:09 +0000

http://www.breakingcopy.com/social-media-flowchart-status

Clever thoughts bubble up constantly, but what’s the right venue for all of them? Now Breaking Copy gives you this handy graphic to help make those hard choices easier.

What Steve Jobs meant to me

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 11:57:22 +0000

When I heard that Steve Jobs passed this week, I went numb. As much as we all knew it was inevitable, I wanted to believe it was not true. I was at our company’s leadership conference when I received the message on my iPhone. At the time my CEO was speaking about Steve – and talking about his role in leading Apple to all the great success it has achieved through visionary leadership, collaboration and insanely-great innovation. Sometime during our CEO’s speech, the world lost Steve Jobs. This was the man who created the Apple IIe, the first computer I ever used. Steve brought the world WYSIWYG publishing with the Lisa – the precursor to the Macintosh – an idea sparked when he dropped-out to take a calligraphy class in college. He revolutionised animated film and built a PDA in the 80′s that was decades ahead of it’s time – the Apple Newton. The Newton’s younger cousin, the iPad is now turning the publishing industry upside down with ebooks and digital newspapers all at the swipe of a finger. Steve Jobs took a $1 salary from Apple, and should have taken a trademark out on the black skivvy. He transformed mobile phone ownership with the iPhone, and of course I am writing this post on my lightweight MacBook Air. But above all of this – and perhaps most importantly for me as a podcaster – is the fine work Steve did to open podcasting to everyone. Apple under his leadership created the awesome tools for podcasting that are used every day to create great original content. And in the process he allowed everyone to experience the joy of having an audience, as well as being a fan! I witnessed Steve Jobs change my world, while I was watching. Steve Jobs… you have been shaping my experience of life for nearly as long as I can remember. I will miss you, the world will miss you.

Creativity-blocking assumptions

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 00:54:36 +0000

At the Brisbane listener meetup last weekend I had a conversation with hosts from the Lifestyle Podnetwork. Coach Jeff prompted me about Twitter - he needed to know how to make twitter work for him. As our conversation continued it became evident just how much Jeff really needed to know. Coach Jeff told me about his need for a primer on Twitter – he’d signed up, he used it occasionally, but he knew he didn’t get the best out of it. Even the easier concepts like replies and direct messages were a challenge. My assumptions were blown out of the water, and we’re working to create some content specifically around how to get started with Twitter. I needed to ask myself : How close am I am to Twitter? It’s really important to be able to answer that question because the more familiar you are with your content matter, the less sharp you get at asking the right questions and driving out assumptions. By knowing this you’ll be able to free up your creativity and unblock your thinking. I discovered that I was very close to Twitter. Twitter was a tool that I grew up with, and that I’ve watched evolve. It’s second nature to me, and even though I don’t tweet that often, I could explain some great ways to get community participation and drive engagement using it. For me the basics of twitter need no explanation – they’re intuitive right? Wrong! Ian Kath from the Your Story podcast had a similar experience. He outlined on previous episodes of Podcasters’ Emporium how when he started podcasting he only just knew the basics of finding his way around a computer. He had a similar experience where what most would consider easy tasks, needed to be broken down into even smaller pieces of information. He needed instructions that are broken down into smaller steps that are clearer to follow. But the whole exercise got me wondering how much else I just assume people know. How much content do I rule out of shows like Podcasters’ Emporium because I think it’s too basic, or people will already know that? How much great content gets buried because of my assumptions? I’m working hard to drop assumptions about what people do and don’t know, so that I can release my creativity, and start reaching outside the box for fresh new content. I thought I’d share this journey with you because I figure I’m not the only one inside the box. The boxes might be different, but the outcome is the same. Consider the assumptions you make now… how are they affecting your creativity?

How to ping Feedburner automatically

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 05:09:38 +0000

I am using Yahoo Pipes to create a grouping of feeds and a single output to RSS. To keep things tidy, I send the output to Feedburner. The challenge I’ve had is that Feedburner doesn’t appear to have an updating frequency – it waits for the feed output to change. What this means is that sometimes my feed wasn’t updating for days, even though the feeds had updated. I needed a solution to the problem, a solution that would force feedburner to check the Pipes output for any new feed items. I decided to solve this problem by setting up a CRON job on my server. Immediately I hear some of you asking “What is a CRON job?” The best definition is probably Wikipedia [link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cron] “CRON is a time-based job schedule in Unix-like operating systems. CRON allows users to schedule commands to run periodically at certain times or dates. It is commonly used to automate system maintenance or administrate, though it’s general purpose nature means that it can be used for other purposes.” Essentially, by setting up a CRON job, my server will take-on the task of pinging Feedburner on my behalf, and doing it at the interval I set. So how to do it… The first thing you’ll need is the output URL from a Feedburner Ping. It’s the URL of the Ping Successful notice after you have pinged your address in feedburner. It’s important to recognise that you should not ping your feed any more often than every 30 minutes. I’d recommend a frequency of every two hours should be sufficient and allows for manual pings in the intervening period. Next you need to login to your hosting – in Dreamhost the CRON function is found under Goodies > CRON jobs. You can read into the working of CRON or just use my example as a guide. This will run the CRON job every two hours, every day of the year. 0 */2 * * * -wget [URL] (dont’ forget to substitute [URL] with your feedburner output) When done your CRON job will look something like this: 0 */2 * * * -wget http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/pingSubmit?bloglink=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%YourFeeedName

Running your podcast like a business

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 07:36:53 +0000

Lots of people have opinions about what makes podcasting successful. Giving the topic some honest reflection I can’t talk about it all in a single article. Being a successful podcaster, requires a lot of listening, reading, doing and being. In this article I recap a recent article and start to fill it out providing some links to the Podcasters’ Emporium podcast that will help you become a truly successful podcaster. I recently read an article by Angela Bray on propodder.com that suggested podcasting success came through running it like a business. The article pointed to the highly successful Keith and the Girl podcast and suggested ways that they have been successful. I agree with the idea that a podcast can be run like a business, but felt that I could build on this article to help you get a better handle on the steps to success. I have to confess, I was puzzled by the opening lines of the article: “Podcasting is fun because the truth comes out. According to Keith and Chemda… No boss = nobody tells you what to do = freedom to say whatever you want to say It is empowering to say what’s on your mind. If you put a mic in somebody’s face for long enough, they will eventually be completely honest.” The first thing that really smacks me in the face is the statement about podcasting is fun. No boss, equals nobody telling you what to do and the freedom to say what you want to say. In the business world saying what’s on your mind without any filtering can lead to a cease and desist order or worse according to Social Media lawyer Gordon Firemark who recently wrote a book on how to keep podcasters out of jail. I’m not sure about whether putting a microphone in someone’s face for long enough will cause someone to become completely honest. It will probably succeed in making them mightily crapped-off!  Developing a passionate audience is much more than talking at people via social media channels, and getting them to promote your show. A passionate audience are those people who actively involve themselves in your show, and share your show because they love what you do. That is more about the techniques you use to engage your audience, more than what features you give them access to on your website. Taking a personal interest in your listeners and making them an active part of your show – wherever you can – is a great way to engender the type of passion that will really make or break your show. I certainly wouldn’t be worth arguing the point that podcasters need to have a social media presence and a way to stay in touch with your audience, but building a passionate community around your show is an entirely different matter altogether. Treating your podcast like a business is important and building a listener community around great content is key. Like any business, your podcast will have a bell-curve life-cycle to it. As you begin and you have a few listeners you will be able to personally interact with each of your listeners. It would be impossible to have a personal connection when your listener numbers reach 10,000. So too, the services and the way you monetize your show will change over that time as well. With the smaller number of dedicated fans, you may choose to use donation tools to draw in some regular income. If you have quality content that is niche enough then people may be willing to pay you a regular small amount to keep producing it. The key to donations is audience involvement. If you can involve your community in the vision and what you want to do, then they will happily donate if they can share your vision. A great example of someone who has done this very successfully is Cliff Ravenscraft of Generally Speaking Podcast Network – he has a whole raft of fans who share his vision and directly give towards his income. The key to Cliff’s success is sharing his vision of becoming a ‘full time’ podcaster, explaining what was required monetarily to support his family and be able to podcast full-time. He then asked people who felt called to contribute regularly. Sure, he had the tools to accept the donations, but the way he approaches his audience is key to the success he has had in building a serious income from the network of shows he produces. If your show is reaching into the thousands of listeners, then you have a potential opportunity to offer your audience to advertisers. Now there are pros-and-cons to this activity, primarily because your audience may think that you’ve sold them out. You need to be careful about the way you introduce advertising or in-show promotion and make sure that your audience understand why you are doing it, so that you keep them engaged and on-board with your change of direction. If you are offering advertising on your website, then make it easy for people to buy. Using Paypal means that they can pay on your site, and by using form submission software or plugins, you could even take the advertisers banner directly after a successful sale. With your first steps into advertising, it’s better to start small than overshoot the mark. Make your show a bargain to advertisers first, and then as demand grows you will be able to adjust your advertising prices to match. Google Adsense creates a way for you to place advertising on your site. Joining Adsense is free, but recent studies show that the effectiveness of online advertising has dropped by as much as 25% from 2010 to 2011. This direct drop means less revenue in your pocket. Online stores can be a useful way of generating more revenue, but you need to have a really clear brand to make that happen. Often – and in my experience – online stores selling merchandise that requires shipping don’t do as well as you might think. With a significant audience, selling digital content like ebooks and audiobooks – like internet astrologer Jessica Adams – will see you drive a healthy revenue through your site. But before you launch into producing your first digital content – think about what you’re working with. You will need to have an established reputation and a significant audience before digital downloads are going to reap benefits for you. They key is to create content that does not expire, that you create once, and deliver many times. That way you can keep selling that content for years, as web visitors discover it. And finally let me leave you with this thought which I was reminded about by a fantastic Brisbane based podcaster called Ian Kath from the Create Your LifeStory podcast… to be a successful podcaster, you need to put significant effort into your podcast blog. Blogging creates the words that search engines ‘read’ and rank your site by. If you are just publishing the audio content, then you will not be successful in drawing large numbers of people to your site through search engines like Google. When you blog, describe in detail what’s in your show using phrases and keywords that people might use search for the content you’re putting on your site. It’s simple Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) but according to Ian it brings you a whole lot more website traffic courtesy of search. So yes, use these tips and run your podcast like a business and you’re bound to go a long way.

Rethinking Statpress

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 00:25:48 +0000

Statpress is a statistics plugin for WordPress There are many other similar products available as plugins for WordPress, but I’m going to talk a little about why these plugins are bad for your site’s performance and could cause you problems. I’m also going to offer you a great alternative.

Statpress

Over the last few days I had a problem with a popular site I look after for a client. I had installed Statpress and in recent months the site performance had slowed considerably. The site is hosted on a shared server (one of those cheap ones with several other hundred hosting accounts), and so I thought the performance could have easily been caused by overcrowding or the performance of another site. I was surprised to find that the hosting account was suddenly suspended due to a terms of service violation, and digging a little deeper discovered that the performance hit I was experiencing, was also affecting several hundred other customers hosted on the same box with me. The source of the problem – according to the hosting company who had investigated the problem – was Statpress. The solution was to remove the offending plugin, and they dutifully removed the suspension of the site. The site performance improved immediately. The issue did get me thinking about the way these plugins work, and how it impacts performance of sites. Software like Statpress records a lot of information each time a page is hit, and this information needs to be written to the database. It figures that as a site becomes more popular, not only does the CPU and database get an increased hit from the traffic, that hit is multiplied by the effort of recording all that statistical information. Effectively popular sites are being punished by the plugin for being popular. Where I landed is that third party reporting like Google Analytics is far better, because the load of recording statistics is not borne by the site serving the content. So then, how could I get the same convenience of dashboard statistics for my client? I did a little bit of research and found a great plugin called Google Analytics Dashboard that gave me quite similar stats on the front page of the dash. The detail remains in Google Analytics.

Google Analytics Dashboard widget

As for setup it’s very simple with OAuth – simply log the site in and select the profile you wish to track. Some additional features include the ability to determine who can see the stats dashboard widget. It can be offered at every level from Subscriber (not recommended) through to just Admins. So if you’re using a plugin like Statpress and you’re suffering performance problems, perhaps it’s time to rethink the way you record and display your stats.

WordPress 3.2 Upgrade and MU problems

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 00:38:03 +0000

The most recent upgrade to WordPress 3.2 has caused significant issues with Multiuser installations, and they are still working through the problems. The most apparent WordPress issue appears to be with the way widgets are performing under current browsers. Widgets for new sites appear unaffected, but any widgets set under the previous version 3.1.4 do not respond to the regular drag and drop feature. In fact, it seems impossible – at this point – to edit or even remove widgets installed under the old version, and the problem persists with current versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari. The second concerning issue with WordPress 3.2 is with permalinks under a multiuser installation, with a number of issues being raised in the WordPress forums and the issues still appearing to be in a diagnostic phase. Some users have reported deactivating and reactivating plugins as working, however working out which plugins is going to be the big issue in a multiuser environment. This problem has manifested itself by users not being able to click through to the second page of posts on our sites. The fix seems to be related to changing WordPress back to the default settings for permalinks, at least until this problem is properly diagnosed and fixed. In my opinion these are showstoppers for most installations because the process of adjusting permalinks for all sites in a multiuser installation – and then reinstating them seems to be a major concern. I suspect that the WordPress crew will be working overtime on all presented issues at the moment, and I imagine the first 3.2 patch will be released soon.

Google+ offers a new podcasting hangout

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 12:32:16 +0000

I got my first look at Google+ today. I got about an hour to take a look at Google+ with my fellow co-host Dave Gray and I’m very excited about the potential for podcasting, in particular the integration of Google Voice, Chat and Youtube into the Google Hangout. At first glance, Google Hangout looks a bit like a simpler version of UStream, with the ability to add multiple callers (voice only or video) to a call, with controls to mute users and even display video from Youtube in a call. Quite powerful when you start to imagine how you could use it to podcast. The use that Dave and I landed – almost immediately – was for a live talk-back show edition of Two Schooners, where we often call people on Skype. It seems that with Google Hangout – and recording the show directly from there – our callers would be able to listen in to the show and they could be a part of the show in real-time. The big advantage will be had with those using Digital mixers like the Alesis Multimix 8, who can take inbound and outbound sound directly into their mixer via USB, and not having to use cables. For my co-host and I the first results were spectacular. The video and audio are superb. Together, we noticed that the software appears to divide more bandwidth to video, resulting in crisper images settling more quickly than Skype. The audio was crystal clear – at one point I could hear myself talking and I thought it was a feedback loop (not common with my setup), when I tracked it down, it was because my co-host Dave had his headphones turned-up and it was coming back clearly through his microphone. The chat functions would enable any podcast to queue listeners and allow a back conversation to happen in The Hangout to get feedback during a show. The way I see it, the most flexible part about the Hangout is who can be invited. You can invite just one person, a group of people (in your circle) or create a Hangout that is public, so you could invite your whole audience. The YouTube player also has smarts built-in. When you play a video, the Hangout mutes all callers microphones. You can talk over the top of the video by pressing the push-to-talk button, and it will automatically drop the volume of the video to allowing listeners to hear your voice. A very nice touch. I’m looking forward to the next time we can get together to record – in Google Hangout – to give it a solid workout. Do we have our Two Schooners’ Esky Reporters’ standing by? And thanks to @the_rooster @kdmurray and @unrealshots who all sent me an invite to Google+ this week.

Creating a custom Facebook URL

Thu, 07 Jul 2011 01:56:58 +0000

Facebook URL’s can be customised for individual profiles and facebook pages, here’s the quick steps you can take to get yours. Facebook allows you to change your URL from something complicated to something simple to print, and easy to remember. So you can have something as simple as http://facebook.com/jameswilliams90 or http://facebook.com/lifestylepodnetwork So, why would you bother? Well here’s two reasons off the bat… it’s easy and it’s FREE! That’s the good news. The downside of being free is that anyone has the power to claim a name. So if you want to reserve your name, then you’ll want to get in early – you don’t want somebody else taking your name, or worse, a competitor getting it to take your traffic away from you. Here’s what you need to know… Facebook URL’s are easy to setup, but impossible to undo… so choose your name wisely and check your spelling. So how do you do it? Here are the steps to setup your custom Facebook URL on your Facebook page.

Login and visit your page on Facebook
At the top of your page (on the right), click Edit
From the left menu, click Marketing
Choose the page you want to add your custom URL
Type your desired URL name, and press Check Availability Check your spelling, and remember you can’t change it once it’s set… Only when you’re satisfied…
Click Confirm

Over to you!