Out of some idle curiosity, I checked up on the mirror sites of our Feed2JS site that allows folks to embed RSS content into their own pages. Currently there are 7 mirror sites and it looks like we may open up a few more. Checking up on these by going to the examples page– it lists the number of cached feeds as a crude measure of usage:

  • The Original Feed2JS (Phoenix, Arizona) ~20,000 cached feeds per day (note, we flush our cache every 24 hours, but average about 13 new feeds cached per minnute)
  • OpenGUI (California, USA) 89 total cached feeds
  • Astra Systems (U.K.) 90 total cached feeds
  • trendnetters (The Netherlands) 373 total cached feeds
  • firebase software (Dallas, USA) 20,083 total cached feeds
  • KinScape (Michigan, USA) 105 total cached feeds
  • incsub.org (California, USA) 188 total cached feeds
  • UNITEC (New Zealand) 137 total cached feeds

It is really useful when the sites get up to the 10,000 or 20,000 number of cached sites to set up a regular script to do a daily dump of the cache files like we do on the main site. I am looking at one more US mirror and have had contact with someone in Italy who has offered a site.

Note that the normal download of the scripts allows you to set up a basic public (or not) site to host Feed2JS — all the mirror sites provide is a site that has all the pages we have on the main site, the cool orange design. A condition to be added is that no mirror site shall insert any content into the output feed content (I had an email request from site XXXcelebtrity-photo.XXX site wishing to insert links to their content). That is a BAD thing.

In addition, I am hopeful to move the source files to a sourceforge site and perhaps open it up to other developers to add to the code. I am seeing less time available to tinker with the code, and I am positive better PHP coders can improve the functionality. It really has not been true open source since I have held the keys to the code (but do give it away GPL-ed).

Also, I’ve been in contact with another developer who has done a prototype version that can handle RSS enclosures and display a mini player button if the feed contains audio or embed images… I need to dive deeper into this as it looks like the various methods for “extending” RSS is getting, well, less standard, but if it can be done it would be a worthy feature- if not tell me so!

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An early 90s builder of web stuff and blogging Alan Levine barks at CogDogBlog.com on web storytelling (#ds106 #4life), photography, bending WordPress, and serendipity in the infinite internet river. He thinks it's weird to write about himself in the third person. And he is 100% into the Fediverse (or tells himself so) Tooting as @cogdog@cosocial.ca

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