/Tools/ Feedo Style
18/08/2006 | Filed under Develop > Tools
Add other people’s content to your site or blog thanks to this nifty – and free – RSS repackaging service
RSS (Really Simple Syndication – there are other definitions, but we’re sticking with that one) is a fantastic thing, and it enables you to subscribe to sites in newsreading software or via Firefox’s Live Bookmarks. However, RSS can also be used for syndication – you can take content from one site and put it on another. With Feedo Style, putting other people’s RSS on your site couldn’t be easier.
Feedo Style is a free service that produces impressive results in just three steps. The first step is to tell Feedo Style which feed (RSS, RDF or Atom) you want to use. You then need to choose a design, copy the code to your own site, and that’s it. You can choose from a range of predefined feeds or add your own, and if you don’t like the default design it’s very easy to customise it to suit your site’s layout and colour scheme.
As you’ll see from our tutorial, Feedo Style is very easy to use, produces excellent results and works with any site’s feed, but before you start merrily republishing other people’s content on your site make sure you have their permission to do so. Most web site feeds are freely available and the authors don’t mind if you republish them, but some feeds are strictly for non-commercial use or for private reading only. As with all copyright-related matters, don’t make assumptions. If you’re not sure whether you can republish a specific site feed, we strongly advise you email the site owner and ask first.
Step 1: Unlike most free services, Feedo Style (www.feedostyle.com) doesn’t ask you to register, to provide your email address or to think of a password and secret question. In fact, the only thing it’s interested in is your choice of web site feed. Click on the ‘Get To IT!’ button to start adding a feed to your site.
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Step 2: You should now see two options to select from: ‘I want a predefined publisher’ and ‘I want to enter a custom feed’. If you already know the address of the feed you want to add then go for the second option. For now, though, we’ll take a look at Feedo Style’s selection of predefined publishers.
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Step 3: Click on the radio button next to ‘I want a predefined publisher’, and the section of the screen marked ‘Step 1b.’ should now appear. To choose a publisher, simply click on the Publisher drop-down menu and then click on the name of the publisher you want to look at. Click the Next button to continue.
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Step 4: In this screenshot we’ve chosen the good old Auntie Beeb’s (bbc. co.uk). That means there’s more than one site feed to choose from, so Feedo Style asks us to select one. We’ll go for the technology feed. To choose a specific feed, just click on the radio button next to it and then click Next.
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Step 5: That’s the content taken care of, so now lets work on the design. You can choose to display your content in several different ways; as static text, as a horizontal scrolling banner, or as a vertical scrolling banner. Select the option you’d like to take a look at and then click the Update preview button.
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Step 6: When you click Update preview, your Feedo Style should appear on the left of the screen. This is exactly as it will appear on your own site, except that if you specify a size that’s bigger than the available space, the preview won’t be actual size. Click on ‘View in new window’ to see the full-size version.
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Step 7: Your Feedo Style should now appear in a new window. In this example, we’ve tweaked the width by changing it from ‘auto’ to 120 pixels wide and kept the height at auto. It’s impossible to tell from the screenshot, but the headlines scroll slowly upwards. Close the window to return to Feedo Style.
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Step 8: When you’ve found a design, size and colour scheme that you think will work on your site, click on the Finish button (you’ll need to read and agree to the Terms of Service before you can do this - the link is immediately above the Finish button). Feedo Style will now create the code for your web site.
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Step 9: If you’re adding the style to a normal web site you can simply copy and paste the code anywhere in your site’s HTML code. However, if you want to add it to your blog, you’ll need to add the code to your blog template. In this screenshot, we’ve pasted the Feedo Style code into our Blogger weblog.
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Step 10: Once you’ve put the code in the appropriate place, preview your page to see how the end result will look (use a separate window so you can easily return to Feedo Style). In this screenshot we’ve made the Feedo Style box a little on the small side, so we’ll go back and tweak the design to make it a bit wider.
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Step 11: You don’t have to use Feedo Style’s predefined publishers if you don’t want to. To use a custom feed, start the Feedo Style process again but this time click on the option ‘I want to enter a custom feed’. Step 1b at the right of the screen should now be highlighted, as in the example shown above.
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Step 12: Type the URL of the feed you want to use in the Address box and then click the Validate button. If the URL is correct, you should see the green ‘Success!’ message; if you don’t, it means there’s a problem with the URL you have entered. Once you’ve entered a valid feed address, click the Next button.
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Step 13: You’ll now be taken to another page, which, rather unnecessarily, tells you once again that your feed is okay. Click Next to change the design, colour scheme and formatting of your feed. The process is the same as before: when you make changes, click the Update preview button to see the results of your changes.
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Step 14: If everything’s working properly you should be able to see the headlines from your chosen feed in the preview at the left-hand side of the screen. When you’re happy with the results, click on the Finish button and once again, copy and paste the code into your page HTML or blog template.
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Step 15: It’s worth double-checking that the links work correctly before publishing your site. When you click on a headline in the Feedo Style box it should open this ‘fetching’ page in a new browser window. If the site you’re linking to is working okay, the appropriate page should then appear within a second or two.
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Comments
Patrick B / 18/08/2006 / 15:07 / http://www.huffyinthestreet.com
Very cool! Thanks for the link and description!
Gordon / 19/08/2006 / 11:25 / http://www.gordonmclean.co.uk/
Whilst I agree this is a handy tool, I declined the opportunity to feature this product on my blog. Having received an email from a person at the 'company' (details of which are scant), I asked for a response to some questions, stating that I'd have been very happy to mention this product if I received some answers.
That was two months ago, I've yet to get a response.
So yes, good tool, poor customer communication. In the age of the internet, transparency is easy to achieve but the people behind Feedo don't seem to have grasped that.
david / 20/08/2006 / 13:02 / http://www.mologo.co.uk
this is great but it does require reg if you are to customise any of the features on the feed........
Alan Tomkins / 02/09/2006 / 14:59
Interesting product, I loved it. BUT but too much advertising on linked pages to be of any real value unless you pay $4.99 to upgrade to the baby package.
Mak / 02/07/2007 / 08:53 / http://gallery.k-netsystems.net
I only see 1 advertising link tho.
It's cool and I recommend it.
Bill Smith / 24/03/2009 / 06:34 / http://www.feedostyle.com
We have moved Feedostyle from Italy to Canada and have corrected many issues - and made some serious performance improvements. Please give it a good work out and let us know any extra features or changes you need.
