Over the last few months our team has been hard at work on a new version of Feed My Inbox, adding many of the most popular feature requests we hear from our customers. We've also decided on the best way to monetize the application (aka recoup server costs for the last 14 months).

We are REALLY proud of how it has come together. The official launch will be on January 9, 2010, but for now we've put together a one-page website to tell you all about it and answer some questions. Let the countdown begin!

http://www.feedmyinbox.com/v2

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Recently a service popped up that is really great for finding personalized feed recommendations based on feeds that you are already subscribed to. It's called SuggestRSS. Simply upload your OPML file (see below for instructions on getting it from Feed My Inbox), and their engine will recommend other blogs and feeds you are likely to enjoy.

Here is a little sample of what it looks like:

How to get your OPML file from Feed My Inbox

1. Login to your account
2. Click on Tools in the main account menu
3. Click the link to "Export your feeds as an OPML file", and it will download to your computer

Currently SuggestRSS is free to use, a great little tool for finding other interesting stuff to subscribe to!

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In the world of RSS feeds, one thing missing from the beginning has been support for real-time notifications. Until recently, any feed reader (Feed My Inbox in our case) has to manually go check a feed for updates on a regular basis. That is, unless it is being notified through a pinging service.

We've been testing "real-time" emails on Feed My Inbox for a while. Anyone that sends us an email (help(at)feedmyinbox.com) and requests to receive their updates in real-time rather than once per day can try it. The problem is that our system only gets around to checking a feed roughly every 3-4 hours for updates, so it is not truly real-time.

Over the last several months, two extensions to the RSS protocol have been made available, which allow real-time "pushing" of new feed content to third party services (like ours). They are RSS Cloud and PubSubHubbub. We plan on supporting both, but decided to start with RSS Cloud.

We deployed support for RSS Cloud a couple of weeks ago. Already over 2,000 feeds in our system are cloud-enabled, with that number growing every day. Cloud-enabled feeds will "push" new feed content to our service immediately, allowing the updates sent to subscribers to be truly real-time.

Dave Winer is the guy behind RSS Cloud and literally wrote the book on the RSS specification almost nine years ago. Wordpress is the first major supporter, and all 7.5 million blogs hosted on Wordpress.com are already cloud-enabled. If you self-host a version of Wordpress, there's a plugin to help.

How do I know if my feed is supported?

Look at your feed's source code. Cloud-enabled feeds have a tag like this at the top:

<cloud domain="rpc.rsscloud.org" port="5337" path="/rsscloud/pleaseNotify" registerProcedure="" protocol="http-post" />

Can I implement this into my feed(s)?

Yes, but doing so is rather technical in nature. Here are a few resources to get you going:

• Implementor's Guide to RSS Cloud
• W3 Schools Documentation
• RSS Cloud Wordpress Plugin

We're so excited to bring these protocols to you, as we feel it's a huge step in the evolution of RSS (and Atom) feeds.

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Today we deployed support for 52 languages (and counting) on Feed My Inbox. Actually, it only took about 10 minutes thanks to a new tool from Google Translate! At the bottom of all pages on FeedMyInbox.com, you will now see a dropdown to select an available language. Select one and the page is translated for you! Here is what it looks like in French:

We hope it helps our friends in the 185+ countries now using Feed My Inbox!

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This morning we received a great question from a customer asking how to subscribe to a private or password-protected feed. That's a great question we hear quite often, so we thought it would be valuable to post it here on the blog.

Method 1

What seems to work best in our experience is to modify the URL of the feed to include your username/password. Here is what it should look like:

https://[username]:[password]@[domain]/[path]

An example with fake values filled in would look something like this:

https://admin:testing@brightwurks.com/rss.xml

Simply type that into Feed My Inbox, and it works like magic. We know this is tested and works well for web apps with protected feeds, like those from 37signals, as covered on their product blog a while back.

Method 2

If you are not so keen about having your username/password as part of the URL and would rather have a feed URL you can share with others, FreeMyFeed.com is definitely worth a shot. Simply type in your feed URL, username and password, then they will generate a NEW URL that does not have any login information in it, like so: http://freemyfeed.com/feed/SPGadlaeK1291JA91LAMadmaldkfdls= (just an example).

The only potential downfall to Free My Feed would be depending on their website to be up and working properly in order to get updates from your feed.

We hope this helps, just let us know if you have any questions.

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One year ago today, we launched this little idea called Feed My Inbox, a simple RSS to email application. We never set out to re-invent the wheel ... only to grease it up so that it worked a hell of a lot better.

To say we've been surprised by the popularity and growth of Feed My Inbox over the last year would be a serious understatement. It's been tons of fun, and the app is something our team is fully dedicated to for many more birthdays.

We are so grateful to all of the people that use this service. Here are some statistics of what happened behind-the-scenes over the last year:

Unique Visitors- 131,134
Pageviews- 550,599

Active accounts- 34,727
Feeds we're tracking- 56,606
Confirmed subscriptions- 66,840
Emails sent- 3,077,382
Feed entries emailed- 33,771,734

Service Outages- 37 (most of them less than 5 minutes)
Uptime- 99.91%
* We're getting better at this!

Although the application looks pretty much the same to you, under the hood it is literally 100% different. We have learned a lot along the way and are now to the point where we can scale this thing for the long haul.

I also wanted to give you an update on where we hope Feed My Inbox is headed in the next year. Putting this in writing is serious business, so we fully intend to live up to the following:

1. New features are on the way

We are currently working on the next big version of Feed My Inbox, which will bring many of the feature requests we have collected over the last year to light. We are not close enough to say when it will be launched, but it is officially a work in progress. Stay tuned to the blog for the first announcement.

2. We heart webmasters

Since we announced that webmasters can embed a sign-up form on their website that ties to Feed My Inbox, tools for you to see subscribers and have more control over outgoing emails have been sorely lacking. We have not forgotten about you, and over the next year we'll be bringing some game-changing stuff your way that no other RSS to Email provider can do.

3. We're listening

Our small team is BIG on customer service. We answer all emails and keep a close eye on the support discussions over at Get Satisfaction. If you have any feedback, questions,  suggestions or constructive criticism, don't hesitate to send it our way. 

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Hey everyone! This is a quick note to let you know that Feed My Inbox emails did not go out at the normal time this morning due to a little blip with our system. The issue is fixed and emails are going out as we speak. You should receive all your notifications by 11am CST today. Thanks!

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The idea for our latest application, called Linkpatch, came nearly 2 years ago. The important decisions we made over the course of that time are what I would like to discuss today, in hopes of describing our process of creating web apps, and explaining why we think this app will be extremely valuable for website developers, managers and owners.

The Process

We created the basic functions of the application in about a week, and started using it internally as soon as we could. We did the same thing when building Feed My Inbox. As a company that can't justify extensive planning, usability testing and so forth upfront, this was by far the best approach for us.

By installing Linkpatch on client websites and working through errors on our own, we were able to fix any bugs, think of useful features and update the app accordingly. That's definitely a huge luxury of developing an app that's for people just like us. As big believers in Getting Real, the first version of Linkpatch is the most basic iteration we could widdle down. We have a long list of other features that would be useful for tracking website errors, but it's more important to launch as soon as possible and get an idea of what you (the customers) think. Better yet, if no one finds the app as useful as we do, our investment in features so far has been minimal.

Why did it take 2 years?

Another thing we don't do much is plan for the future. That way, we can change course on a moment's notice. Almost a year ago, we decided to build Feed My Inbox instead of focusing on Linkpatch. Thanks to the wild success of that application, it's taken a lot for us to find time outside of client work to finish this project. I would not ever recommend spending 2 years on a web app before it sees the light of day, but we've only spent an actual 3-4 months actively working on it. Since we were using it internally the whole time and it met our immediate needs, we were able to put it on the burner until we could really make it the priority.

Webmasters need better

The one reason we developed Linkpatch is because link checkers and site crawlers don't cut it. They absolutely don't, and there is one glaring reason why: they don't account for external sites linking to you.

It's always a good move to run your site through a program that checks for broken links. The internal link structure of your site is important to verify. However, internal broken links are a very small piece of the puzzle! How about all the other sites you don't own that might have mis-typed or out-of-date links to your site? The only way to catch external links to your site that are broken is to monitor them on a regular basis.

Aside from webserver logs (messy), monitoring traffic to your error pages is the only way to catch those issues and submit a fix quickly. Webmasters and analytics junkies alike can all see how fewer broken links can lead to a better user experience. If someone gets a 404 (page not found) error on your site, by having Linkpatch installed, you have what you need to keep it from happening again ... no matter where the broken link is.

Filling a small void

I recognize that the void Linkpatch fills is a small one, for a relatively small (but growing) group of people. It will take longer for us to market this app and help people understand why it is so important. But if you want to provide great service to your clients, cover all your bases and be well above the status quo as a webmaster, you will pay attention to broken links on a regular basis. I hope you have tried it and gotten a free 5-site account with our introductory promotion. If so, please don't hesitate to let us know what you think, and how we can make it better.

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This announcement has been an extremely long time in the making, but we are thrilled that today is the day to talk about our second web app, called Linkpatch.

Linkpatch is meant for anyone that develops, oversees or works on a website. The purpose is simple: it sends you an email whenever someone encounters a 404 page (or other error pages, for that matter) on your website. The email has tons of useful information, from which you can figure out exactly what the problem is and fix it. Here is what a Linkpatch email looks like:

As you can see, the email provides a wealth of information about the user, where they came from and where they were trying to go. No matter what kind of error it is, you have all you need to go in and fix whatever might be wrong.

It's a foundation

As you may have seen with Feed My Inbox, the way we build web apps is to start extremely simple, let it simmer, and listen to our customers. Once we have a great idea of where we want to take things next, we build in more features.

Linkpatch is no exception. We know it's a really simple idea, but it's extremely useful for people that are behind-the-scenes of any website. We have tons of ideas on how to make this service more useful for webmasters, but we're going to let this app simmer first and listen to what you people have to say.

We're committed to Linkpatch, and building out a wealth of fantastic features in the future, just like we are committed to Feed My Inbox.

How to get a FREE 5-site account

Starting today, we have a special offer for all you early adopters out there. For 30 days (through July 8), we're giving away FREE 5-site accounts to anyone that is willing to post a message about Linkpatch on Twitter.

Visit this page to submit your tweet and get a free 5-site account.

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