Here's a thought. Imagine a system where you subscribe to an RSS feed and you receive one item each day. Each subscriber gets the same items in the same order irregardless of when they subscribe. So everyone starts from day one and works forwards. The URL for the feed contains the time you subscribed so that the system knows which post to deliver.
With this you could deliver tutorials, books, or other "step by step" content over RSS and everyone would get the right piece each day. Combine this with podcasting, and you could subscribe to, say, a language learning course. Any tools out there to let you do this? If not, I'll make one.
Another option to add would be to let the subscriber choose the regularity of the items. Perhaps they'd rather get a new item per hour, or perhaps just one a week. Certainly beats timed e-mail autoresponders.
I am alpha testing a system which does just this...currently reading Cory Doctorows new book chapter a day, and anyone who subscribes to the feed starts at the beginning regardless of when they subscribe. But you're right there's all sorts of possible use cases.
Posted by: Charles at August 12, 2005 02:29 AMA related example is Matt Webb's light cone RSS feed.
Posted by: kellan at August 12, 2005 12:50 PMGreat idea! Would be great for podiobooks too - Earthcore (http://scottsigler.net/earthcore) and The Pocket and Pendant podcast audiobooks are both finished so that now, any new subscribers can't experience the fun of waiting a week for the next episode. With your system, they could! Very cool idea. Do it!
brian
Posted by: Brian P at August 12, 2005 01:35 PMhttp://myvogonpoetry.com
It's simple:
http://example.com/feed/atom/date/2005-08-10
http://example.com/feed/atom/date/2005-08-12
etc.
On 2005-08-12:
Posted by: A at August 12, 2005 02:09 PMFirst feed has 3 entries.
Second had 1 entry.
That's a good idea, Pete. You could be onto somthing there.
Posted by: Michael at August 12, 2005 02:48 PMContinuing this, have a link that feeds the next installment after the previous one is complete.
Also, you're getting into workflow. RSS to me is RSWF.
Posted by: Alan Gutierrez at August 13, 2005 11:39 AMHi, I tried both of these in iTunes, and they don't download. Suggestions?
ttp://example.com/feed/atom/date/2005-08-10
Posted by: Scott Sigler at August 14, 2005 01:49 AMhttp://example.com/feed/atom/date/2005-08-12
The idea is good (and not new; it’s been tried and works well), but… please! it’s “regardless” or “irrespective,” not “irregardless.” That, uh, “word” makes my head hurt. :-)
Posted by: Aristotle Pagaltzis at August 14, 2005 02:08 AMIrregardless of what you say, "irregardless" is in the dictionary ;-) It's informal, of course, much like other common terms like "ain't", or the thousands of slang words I use all over this "blog". Sorry!
Posted by: Peter Cooper at August 14, 2005 02:14 AMReturn to the homepage.
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