Ha, OMG, if I had a nickel everytime my partner mentions the idea of opening a laundrette. It's almost to the point of annoying... but color me intrigued:)
We style RSS feeds as part of our custom RSS tool. Most users of that aren't necessarily technical and so providing a more user friendly interface makes a huge difference. You can see an example at https://sniprss.com/sniprss/curiously-creative/
I'd love to explore how we could do more with this as well as I see so much value but like it has been pointed out here, RSS is set and forget for many people and therefore isn't in the majority of user's minds. Also the utility of having content in a feed is undervalued IMHO.
You don’t seem to be doing the same thing: rather, you’re sniffing for an Accept header, and if it includes text/html, you serve HTML, and if it doesn’t, you serve an Atom feed with no XSL stylesheet.
Incidentally, given this behaviour your response should include `Vary: Accept`. This is actually messing Firefox up a bit: open the document, it loads the HTML, View Source, it renders the source of the Atom, loading it from the cache according to the dev tools, not sure how it got there, force reload and you get the source of the HTML. Your server is also not handling HEAD requests, but improperly responding 405 to them.
With FlipRSS.com we let subscribers choose only the content they want to receive. Using RSS feeds, matched to interest groups, content creators can keep in regular contact but deliver more personalised subscriber experiences. We love RSS!
I'd say yes but don't get hung up on it. It's good to be aware of what's happening in the landscape but it's easy to get sidetracked or diverted by what others are doing and that's rarely a good thing early on. Stick to testing and iterating.
Just to add, SnipRSS is free to sign up and use the product up to the point there are 50 posts in feeds after which point it's £18pa so priced to be inclusive for individuals and businesses of all sizes.
I don't think it's spam when a subscriber chooses which categories of your site they want to receive in a newsletter...
This was a recruitment firm letting their subscribers pick the categories of jobs they receive in their newsletter. I think this is anything but spam. Cuts out the things they aren't interested in and makes sure they only receive jobs relevant to their search.
Other companies using the service are doing similar - sending relevant articles to subsets of their audience - not even for commercial purposes. We have educational institutes using the service for sending information to students.
Maybe it was the word automation that concerned you in this but I think done correctly it can be a big benefit for subscribers and content producers.
We picked up ideas from our clients. If you've got a niche or area of experience - offer consultancy services or pick up some projects and dig into the pain points of your customers.
See where they're having problems and then do the research to see if it's a problem for others in the same industry. If it is you have your idea and probably your first couple of customers.
We've just done something similar with our product https://fliprss.com - it integrates with MailChimp and Campaign Monitor to solve a niche problem neither solve. We knew it was a problem for at least one company as our client approached us to see if we a product that would allow them to send automated newsletters with multiple RSS feeds based on individual subscribers preferences.
It's since turned there is a demand for this beyond our one client too thankfully.
I think it's helped that this product is aimed at businesses primarily too. With a higher price point we won't need a mass volume of clients to be profitable reducing demand on customer service requests etc.
Maybe I'm a little too inexperienced to understand how this works - how does your app access Mailchimp without their permission? Are you using their API? Sorry if it's a silly question
