No RSS? Feed43 lets you make your own

March 8, 2006 By

This is gonna be controversial, that’s for sure. Your favorite site doesn’t provide news feeds? This service, Feed43, converts any Web page to an RSS feed on the fly. Subversive!

I wonder if it’ll make full text feeds out of pages that only provide partial text feeds? Hmmm.

Update: Another company, FeedYes, released a similar product today. They claim that FeedYes is easier to use and faster and has one-click adding to MyYahoo and MyMSN.

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  • http://www.bradmurray.com/ Brad Murray

    I’ve wrote a feature on my own site six months ago that creates full feeds from partial feeds. What I basically do is cache the published feed. Then I go out and follow the link, correct the HTML as best as possible and pull the paragraphs into a basic feed. I’ve been using these feeds on bloglines for a while and some people have stumbled across them because I see other subsribers on my feeds. It really works well if I configure the feed to work off of the printable version because I’m less likely to pick up grabage from there. If anybody wants to see an example, compare:

    http://www.opinionjournal.com/newsfeed/rss/opj_frontpage.xml
    to
    http://www.bradmurray.com/RSS/WSJOpinionFull

    I basically do this because I like to get full feeds for my Axim running Egress. Summary feeds are worthless when you’re offline.

    I thought about trying to turn this into a service, but there are probably too many copyright issues.

  • http://www.bradmurray.com/ Brad Murray

    I’ve wrote a feature on my own site six months ago that creates full feeds from partial feeds. What I basically do is cache the published feed. Then I go out and follow the link, correct the HTML as best as possible and pull the paragraphs into a basic feed. I’ve been using these feeds on bloglines for a while and some people have stumbled across them because I see other subsribers on my feeds. It really works well if I configure the feed to work off of the printable version because I’m less likely to pick up grabage from there. If anybody wants to see an example, compare:

    http://www.opinionjournal.com/newsfeed/rss/opj_frontpage.xml
    to
    http://www.bradmurray.com/RSS/WSJOpinionFull

    I basically do this because I like to get full feeds for my Axim running Egress. Summary feeds are worthless when you’re offline.

    I thought about trying to turn this into a service, but there are probably too many copyright issues.

  • http://www.bradmurray.com Brad Murray

    I’ve wrote a feature on my own site six months ago that creates full feeds from partial feeds. What I basically do is cache the published feed. Then I go out and follow the link, correct the HTML as best as possible and pull the paragraphs into a basic feed. I’ve been using these feeds on bloglines for a while and some people have stumbled across them because I see other subsribers on my feeds. It really works well if I configure the feed to work off of the printable version because I’m less likely to pick up grabage from there. If anybody wants to see an example, compare:

    http://www.opinionjournal.com/newsfeed/rss/opj_frontpage.xml
    to
    http://www.bradmurray.com/RSS/WSJOpinionFull

    I basically do this because I like to get full feeds for my Axim running Egress. Summary feeds are worthless when you’re offline.

    I thought about trying to turn this into a service, but there are probably too many copyright issues.

  • http://www.walliswallis.plus.com/ BooooooooB

    It seems it can. How very handy. :)

  • http://www.walliswallis.plus.com/ BooooooooB

    It seems it can. How very handy. :)

  • http://www.walliswallis.plus.com BooooooooB

    It seems it can. How very handy. :)

  • http://bmurray.wordpress.com/ bmurray

    Make that opener – “I wrote.” I guess I should finish the first cup of coffee before I post.

  • http://bmurray.wordpress.com/ bmurray

    Make that opener – “I wrote.” I guess I should finish the first cup of coffee before I post.

  • http://bmurray.wordpress.com/ bmurray

    Make that opener – “I wrote.” I guess I should finish the first cup of coffee before I post.

  • http://www.bynkii.com/ John C. Welch

    you know, when someone writes 9 page articles, there’s maybe a reason for partial feed.

  • http://www.bynkii.com/ John C. Welch

    you know, when someone writes 9 page articles, there’s maybe a reason for partial feed.

  • http://www.bynkii.com/ John C. Welch

    you know, when someone writes 9 page articles, there’s maybe a reason for partial feed.

  • Igor

    What makes Feed43 different from FeedTier, FeedYes and other similar services is that it gives you the ability to specify what and how to translate as RSS. You have the total control on feed presentation. See this, for example:
    http://feed43.blogspot.com/2006/01/getting-weather-from-weathercom-as.html

    Other services just grab all (or some) links from a web page. No content, no images. Pure headlines. Yes, this is easier for end user, but the quality of the resulting feeds is incomparable.

  • Igor

    What makes Feed43 different from FeedTier, FeedYes and other similar services is that it gives you the ability to specify what and how to translate as RSS. You have the total control on feed presentation. See this, for example:
    http://feed43.blogspot.com/2006/01/getting-weather-from-weathercom-as.html

    Other services just grab all (or some) links from a web page. No content, no images. Pure headlines. Yes, this is easier for end user, but the quality of the resulting feeds is incomparable.

  • Igor

    What makes Feed43 different from FeedTier, FeedYes and other similar services is that it gives you the ability to specify what and how to translate as RSS. You have the total control on feed presentation. See this, for example:
    http://feed43.blogspot.com/2006/01/getting-weather-from-weathercom-as.html

    Other services just grab all (or some) links from a web page. No content, no images. Pure headlines. Yes, this is easier for end user, but the quality of the resulting feeds is incomparable.

  • http://www.bradmurray.com/ Brad Murray

    Then I can’t read it if I’m offline. I set the total feed to cap at 1MB.

  • http://www.bradmurray.com/ Brad Murray

    Then I can’t read it if I’m offline. I set the total feed to cap at 1MB.

  • http://www.bradmurray.com Brad Murray

    Then I can’t read it if I’m offline. I set the total feed to cap at 1MB.

  • Jeff

    It would be neat if there was a site like this that would log you into your account at a site and then perform the page extraction. (e.g. a feed for your power consumption, account balances, cell phone minutes remaining, library books due, track your packages you sent, etc.). It would definitely have to be trustworthy to store your credentials. Does anyone know if something like this exists?

  • Jeff

    It would be neat if there was a site like this that would log you into your account at a site and then perform the page extraction. (e.g. a feed for your power consumption, account balances, cell phone minutes remaining, library books due, track your packages you sent, etc.). It would definitely have to be trustworthy to store your credentials. Does anyone know if something like this exists?

  • Jeff

    It would be neat if there was a site like this that would log you into your account at a site and then perform the page extraction. (e.g. a feed for your power consumption, account balances, cell phone minutes remaining, library books due, track your packages you sent, etc.). It would definitely have to be trustworthy to store your credentials. Does anyone know if something like this exists?

  • Igor

    Jeff, Feed43 is planned to support https and POST requests in the future, as well as https access for feeds, thus, making your wishes come true. Currently, I don’t know of such a service to be implemented already.

    – Feed43 author.

  • Igor

    Jeff, Feed43 is planned to support https and POST requests in the future, as well as https access for feeds, thus, making your wishes come true. Currently, I don’t know of such a service to be implemented already.

    – Feed43 author.

  • Igor

    Jeff, Feed43 is planned to support https and POST requests in the future, as well as https access for feeds, thus, making your wishes come true. Currently, I don’t know of such a service to be implemented already.

    – Feed43 author.

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  • http://eegah.us/ Eliot

    I’ve been using Feed43 for a few weeks now and really love how much control I have over the output feed. I was quite impressed that I could give it a nasty HTML site and come up with a solid feed.

    I’m glad to see more services like this. Maybe if nothing else, it will spur website owners to make their own feeds.

  • http://eegah.us/ Eliot

    I’ve been using Feed43 for a few weeks now and really love how much control I have over the output feed. I was quite impressed that I could give it a nasty HTML site and come up with a solid feed.

    I’m glad to see more services like this. Maybe if nothing else, it will spur website owners to make their own feeds.

  • http://eegah.us Eliot

    I’ve been using Feed43 for a few weeks now and really love how much control I have over the output feed. I was quite impressed that I could give it a nasty HTML site and come up with a solid feed.

    I’m glad to see more services like this. Maybe if nothing else, it will spur website owners to make their own feeds.

  • http://www.richbrownell.com/ Richard Brownell

    As soon as I find a hack on how to disable these feed sites, I will be doing so on all of my sites. This is nothing more than aggregating somebody else’s content. It’s buying a magazine, copying the articles and handing them out to people.

    There are legitimate uses for a site like this, but this also makes it that much easier for splogs or whatever to steal content. Subversive is absolutely right. It allows one to steal content from sites and republish it. Even if you attribute it to the original site, you’re still stealing their ad revenue. Congratulations.

  • http://www.richbrownell.com/ Richard Brownell

    As soon as I find a hack on how to disable these feed sites, I will be doing so on all of my sites. This is nothing more than aggregating somebody else’s content. It’s buying a magazine, copying the articles and handing them out to people.

    There are legitimate uses for a site like this, but this also makes it that much easier for splogs or whatever to steal content. Subversive is absolutely right. It allows one to steal content from sites and republish it. Even if you attribute it to the original site, you’re still stealing their ad revenue. Congratulations.

  • http://www.richbrownell.com Richard Brownell

    As soon as I find a hack on how to disable these feed sites, I will be doing so on all of my sites. This is nothing more than aggregating somebody else’s content. It’s buying a magazine, copying the articles and handing them out to people.

    There are legitimate uses for a site like this, but this also makes it that much easier for splogs or whatever to steal content. Subversive is absolutely right. It allows one to steal content from sites and republish it. Even if you attribute it to the original site, you’re still stealing their ad revenue. Congratulations.

  • http://admin.support.journurl.com/ Roger Benningfield

    These types of services are *extremely* toxic to the RSS space… they’re the syndication equivalent of Napster, and if they become popular, something’s gonna hit the fan.

    If a site doesn’t have a feed, there’s a reason. When someone complains that their feed is being republished somewhere, we typically say things like “hey, you’re the one producing a syndication feed.” These services undermine that argument, and ensure that anyone running a public aggregator will be visited by lawyers sooner than later.

    Personally, I’ll be blocking access to Feed43 URLs in my subscription code.

  • http://admin.support.journurl.com/ Roger Benningfield

    These types of services are *extremely* toxic to the RSS space… they’re the syndication equivalent of Napster, and if they become popular, something’s gonna hit the fan.

    If a site doesn’t have a feed, there’s a reason. When someone complains that their feed is being republished somewhere, we typically say things like “hey, you’re the one producing a syndication feed.” These services undermine that argument, and ensure that anyone running a public aggregator will be visited by lawyers sooner than later.

    Personally, I’ll be blocking access to Feed43 URLs in my subscription code.

  • http://admin.support.journurl.com/ Roger Benningfield

    These types of services are *extremely* toxic to the RSS space… they’re the syndication equivalent of Napster, and if they become popular, something’s gonna hit the fan.

    If a site doesn’t have a feed, there’s a reason. When someone complains that their feed is being republished somewhere, we typically say things like “hey, you’re the one producing a syndication feed.” These services undermine that argument, and ensure that anyone running a public aggregator will be visited by lawyers sooner than later.

    Personally, I’ll be blocking access to Feed43 URLs in my subscription code.

  • Igor

    Richard, you’re not right. it’s not “buying a magazine, copying the articles and handing them out to people”, but “buying a magazine, and reading the articles personally the way one prefers”.

    Feed43 is a *personal proxy*, not an automatic spider. If the person wants to read the content the way he likes, why not give him an option? Feed43 is intended to work on sites that do not provide feeds at all (most of the sites do not provide feeds just because they don’t bother) — see our TOS for more information. We strongly encourage users not to make feeds for sites that provide their own feeds, and have the sole right to remove some feeds or block access to some sites. However, most people create feeds for their personal sites (just because they do not want to learn how to add RSS support) and to sites that do not provide feeds at all.

    Any tool can be used in abusive way, but should we outlaw knives and scissors, for example? You as a website owner has the sole right to ban Feed43 proxy (it identifies itself as ‘Feed43 Proxy’, so you can deny access to it easily), but it is much like banning all mobile users just because they can’t view your site the way you insist them to do.

    – Feed43 author

  • Igor

    Richard, you’re not right. it’s not “buying a magazine, copying the articles and handing them out to people”, but “buying a magazine, and reading the articles personally the way one prefers”.

    Feed43 is a *personal proxy*, not an automatic spider. If the person wants to read the content the way he likes, why not give him an option? Feed43 is intended to work on sites that do not provide feeds at all (most of the sites do not provide feeds just because they don’t bother) — see our TOS for more information. We strongly encourage users not to make feeds for sites that provide their own feeds, and have the sole right to remove some feeds or block access to some sites. However, most people create feeds for their personal sites (just because they do not want to learn how to add RSS support) and to sites that do not provide feeds at all.

    Any tool can be used in abusive way, but should we outlaw knives and scissors, for example? You as a website owner has the sole right to ban Feed43 proxy (it identifies itself as ‘Feed43 Proxy’, so you can deny access to it easily), but it is much like banning all mobile users just because they can’t view your site the way you insist them to do.

    – Feed43 author

  • Scott

    People are right about this being a toxic service. The Drudge Report is the only website that I still read regularly that is not through RSS because they don’t offer one. Using this service it was pretty easy to build one:

    http://feed43.com/drudge-report.xml

    However I would imagine that Mr. Drudge would be furious if he know about this. Why? Because his entire lively hood is made by selling advertising on the site. Feed43 has enabled me to see the content while stripping away the advertisements.

    RSS is killing the ad supported business model.

  • Scott

    People are right about this being a toxic service. The Drudge Report is the only website that I still read regularly that is not through RSS because they don’t offer one. Using this service it was pretty easy to build one:

    http://feed43.com/drudge-report.xml

    However I would imagine that Mr. Drudge would be furious if he know about this. Why? Because his entire lively hood is made by selling advertising on the site. Feed43 has enabled me to see the content while stripping away the advertisements.

    RSS is killing the ad supported business model.

  • Igor

    Richard, you’re not right. it’s not “buying a magazine, copying the articles and handing them out to people”, but “buying a magazine, and reading the articles personally the way one prefers”.

    Feed43 is a *personal proxy*, not an automatic spider. If the person wants to read the content the way he likes, why not give him an option? Feed43 is intended to work on sites that do not provide feeds at all (most of the sites do not provide feeds just because they don’t bother) — see our TOS for more information. We strongly encourage users not to make feeds for sites that provide their own feeds, and have the sole right to remove some feeds or block access to some sites. However, most people create feeds for their personal sites (just because they do not want to learn how to add RSS support) and to sites that do not provide feeds at all.

    Any tool can be used in abusive way, but should we outlaw knives and scissors, for example? You as a website owner has the sole right to ban Feed43 proxy (it identifies itself as ‘Feed43 Proxy’, so you can deny access to it easily), but it is much like banning all mobile users just because they can’t view your site the way you insist them to do.

    – Feed43 author

  • Scott

    People are right about this being a toxic service. The Drudge Report is the only website that I still read regularly that is not through RSS because they don’t offer one. Using this service it was pretty easy to build one:

    http://feed43.com/drudge-report.xml

    However I would imagine that Mr. Drudge would be furious if he know about this. Why? Because his entire lively hood is made by selling advertising on the site. Feed43 has enabled me to see the content while stripping away the advertisements.

    RSS is killing the ad supported business model.

  • http://www.dahowlett.com dahowlett

    That’s just killed at least on business I can think of in the UK

  • http://www.dahowlett.com dahowlett

    That’s just killed at least on business I can think of in the UK

  • http://www.accmanpro.com Dennis Howlett

    That’s just killed at least on business I can think of in the UK

  • http://www.richbrownell.com/ Richard Brownell

    Igor: The buying the magazine comment was specifically in reference to how easy Feed43 makes it for content to be stolen. Using Feed43 the way you are thinking of is one thing, but it also allows people to easily replicate a site’s content on other sites or in other feeds. This is a problem RSS feeds already have and it is one reason that sites choose not to have feeds in the first place!

    But also, by subverting the way a website author chooses for the content to be displayed, you are potentially destroying the way the website makes money. You “pay” for ad-supported free sites with your eyeballs. And having to opt-out of having your content swiped by setting up a block on your server is not cool.

    Your mobile comparison isn’t accurate either. For mobile users, websites should follow web standards in using proper XHTML and CSS. And if you really want your site to look good on mobiles, you set a CSS file just for mobile devices. That’s how the web was designed. Not ensuring your site looks good on mobiles is lazyness. Blocking screen scrapers from swiping your content is protecting your ad revenue, not to mention your branding and the cohesive look of your website, which is important for many sites.

  • http://www.richbrownell.com/ Richard Brownell

    Igor: The buying the magazine comment was specifically in reference to how easy Feed43 makes it for content to be stolen. Using Feed43 the way you are thinking of is one thing, but it also allows people to easily replicate a site’s content on other sites or in other feeds. This is a problem RSS feeds already have and it is one reason that sites choose not to have feeds in the first place!

    But also, by subverting the way a website author chooses for the content to be displayed, you are potentially destroying the way the website makes money. You “pay” for ad-supported free sites with your eyeballs. And having to opt-out of having your content swiped by setting up a block on your server is not cool.

    Your mobile comparison isn’t accurate either. For mobile users, websites should follow web standards in using proper XHTML and CSS. And if you really want your site to look good on mobiles, you set a CSS file just for mobile devices. That’s how the web was designed. Not ensuring your site looks good on mobiles is lazyness. Blocking screen scrapers from swiping your content is protecting your ad revenue, not to mention your branding and the cohesive look of your website, which is important for many sites.

  • http://www.richbrownell.com Richard Brownell

    Igor: The buying the magazine comment was specifically in reference to how easy Feed43 makes it for content to be stolen. Using Feed43 the way you are thinking of is one thing, but it also allows people to easily replicate a site’s content on other sites or in other feeds. This is a problem RSS feeds already have and it is one reason that sites choose not to have feeds in the first place!

    But also, by subverting the way a website author chooses for the content to be displayed, you are potentially destroying the way the website makes money. You “pay” for ad-supported free sites with your eyeballs. And having to opt-out of having your content swiped by setting up a block on your server is not cool.

    Your mobile comparison isn’t accurate either. For mobile users, websites should follow web standards in using proper XHTML and CSS. And if you really want your site to look good on mobiles, you set a CSS file just for mobile devices. That’s how the web was designed. Not ensuring your site looks good on mobiles is lazyness. Blocking screen scrapers from swiping your content is protecting your ad revenue, not to mention your branding and the cohesive look of your website, which is important for many sites.

  • Igor

    Richard, the problem you describe is not a problem of Feed43 service (or similar services), but a problem of end user that might use this service in the way content owner doesn’t want to. I completely understand that. The only thing I can say, Feed43 tries to play nice and respects copyrights. It is clearly stated in our TOS, and every user must agree to TOS prior to creating any feed. As I said before, we reserve the rights to block access to some sites if the respective site owners ask us to. I think it’s pretty fair.

  • Igor

    Richard, the problem you describe is not a problem of Feed43 service (or similar services), but a problem of end user that might use this service in the way content owner doesn’t want to. I completely understand that. The only thing I can say, Feed43 tries to play nice and respects copyrights. It is clearly stated in our TOS, and every user must agree to TOS prior to creating any feed. As I said before, we reserve the rights to block access to some sites if the respective site owners ask us to. I think it’s pretty fair.

  • Igor

    Richard, the problem you describe is not a problem of Feed43 service (or similar services), but a problem of end user that might use this service in the way content owner doesn’t want to. I completely understand that. The only thing I can say, Feed43 tries to play nice and respects copyrights. It is clearly stated in our TOS, and every user must agree to TOS prior to creating any feed. As I said before, we reserve the rights to block access to some sites if the respective site owners ask us to. I think it’s pretty fair.

  • http://admin.support.journurl.com/ Roger Benningfield

    Igor: Let me say quickly that I’m not casting aspersions on your motives. I’m sure you intend Feed43 to be a wholly positive service. In the short view, it *is* a positive service.

    Hell, I’m not even opposed to the concept behind Feed43. I don’t see anything wrong with an individual user of a desktop aggregator using it to subscribe to a feed-free site. I’m not worried about anyone’s ad-supported business model, as the AdBlock extension in my browser attests. My machine, my rules.

    But when it comes to web-based aggregators and syndication applications, Feed43 starts to look extremely problematic. It opens up aggregator developers to lawsuits based upon the actions of Feed43 users, and makes it easier than ever to redistribute content without authorization. Folks like me keep reminding content producers that they need to take responsibility for how they publish their material, and Feed43 removes one fundamental avenue of responsibility.

    Obeying robots.txt is a wonderful thing, and you should be applauded for it. In fact, that alone is enough for me to withdraw the “toxic” statement I made earlier… it demonstrates that you’re interested in playing fair.

    Perhaps you could take a leadership role in this situation? What if Feed43 evangelized an “all purpose” user-agent for scraping services, one that would make blocking (via robots.txt) a one-step process? In addition to obeying references to “Feed43 Proxy”, you could also respect references to “All Scraping Proxies”… other well-meaning service providers could do the same, and blocking those services as a whole would become pretty darned simple.

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