1) accessibility of feed list from everywhere, 2) accessibility of feed contents from show pages
Jon Udell
At some point, I picked up some shows from Radio Times and Bill
Moyers, then subscribed to those feeds.
I liked some of the shows, but not all. Now I want to review the
history of the feeds and see what else I might want to hear.
How do I find the feeds?
Click on My SpokenWord.
I see that I: Submitted 31 programs, 1 feed. Created 1 collection.
And: 1 to 25 of 394 Programs in this Collection.
OK, but where's the list of feeds I subscribe to?
Elsewhere it says:
This collection:
Curated by Jon Udell
Updated 8 days ago
Contains 394 programs
Subscribes to 19 feeds
OK. Now, where are those 19 feeds? I want to review them, and then
review the histories of some of them. But no link active on "19 feeds"
Hmm, How about:
Edit this Collection
Info
Programs
Feeds
Collections
I don't really want to edit, I want to view, but this seems to be the
path to those 19 feeds.
Click Feeds.
OK, now I can at least see my 19 feeds, including Bill Moyers and
Radio Times. But the only option here is to delete a feed. I want to
explore these feeds, and maybe collect some more of their past shows.
I seem to have run out of navigational options. Trying search.
OK, searching for Bill Moyers found http://www.spokenword.org/feed/87
as the #1 hit.
But searching for Radio Times only returns individual shows on the
first search-result page.
Clicking on a show link: http://www.spokenword.org/program/363621
It takes me to a show page that says: Subscribe to Comments: [RSS
feed URL] . OK, but I have a more basic need. I want to VIEW THE FEED
PAGE, not subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on an individual
show.
The show's icon -- http://assets.conversationsnetwork.org/haystack/feeds/4199.1.60x60.jpg
-- knows that the show belongs to Radio Times. But where's the link to
the feed?
Oh. Way below the fold:
15 collections include this program
Jorge Gomez
has collected 213 programs
collected this program 1 day ago
david osimo
has collected 191 programs
collected this program 1 day ago
Youval Bronicki
has collected 341 programs
collected this program 1 day ago
Michael Thomas
has collected 78 programs
collected this program 1 day ago
Jeff Singfiel
has collected 172 programs
collected this program 1 day ago
This Program
Runtime: 52 minutes
Published 07/21/2009 (1 day ago)
Submitted by National Public Radio
Submitted 07/21/2009 (1 day ago)
Language: English
Page views: 5
Audio plays: 1
Source Links
Audio file
Web page
Feed: WHYY's Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane <- WAY DOWN HERE IS
THE FEED LINK
This has tripped me up multiple times. We say that SpokenWord is a
great way to manage all your feeds. But this experience dilutes that
claim, at least for me. In iTunes my list of feeds is always
immediately available. And every show is always contextualized by its
feed, with its siblings immediately visible.
Suggestions:
1) Make my list of feeds 1 click away from anywhere. And, in fact, 0
clicks from My SpokenWord. That page currently opens with:
1 to 25 of 394 Programs in this Collection
I'll rarely navigate past the first of those 40 lists of programs. But
my list of 19 feeds would fit on that first page. They could expand, a
la iTunes, to reveal their children. Or if that's too much data for
the browser, they could expand to reveal the most recent 3 shows in
each feed, with a More link leading to the feed page.
2) Make the list of shows in any feed 1 click away from any show in
that feed.
Doug Kaye
Jon's message was the very first to this group. I was going to wait
until a few more people joined, but I can repeat this as necessary: We
don't need to limit our discussion to relatively minor changes to the
UI. I'm open to making changes that are quite substantial. I think the
database schema is conceptually correct, so it should survive any way
we decide to display the data. That's the big issue, of course. I've
already (re)written the collection UI a few times. I can do it again.
Don't go easy on me. Let's make SpokenWord.orq what it really should be.
I happened to be avoiding doing what I should be doing tonight, so
I'll reply right away. Apparently, Jon is emailing well past midnight
on the east coast.
Embedded comments below.
...doug
On Jul 22, 2009, at 9:40 PM, Jon Udell wrote:
>
> I've been meaning to write this up, so here goes.
>
> At some point, I picked up some shows from Radio Times and Bill
> Moyers, then subscribed to those feeds.
>
> I liked some of the shows, but not all. Now I want to review the
> history of the feeds and see what else I might want to hear.
>
> How do I find the feeds?
>
> Click on My SpokenWord.
>
> I see that I: Submitted 31 programs, 1 feed. Created 1 collection.
>
> And: 1 to 25 of 394 Programs in this Collection.
>
> OK, but where's the list of feeds I subscribe to?
In that yellow-background box near the top if the right column, you
can change the display mode for your collection. Click the radio
button for Feeds and you'll see all your feeds. Clearly this isn't
obvious enough.
> Elsewhere it says:
>
> This collection:
> Curated by Jon Udell
> Updated 8 days ago
> Contains 394 programs
> Subscribes to 19 feeds
>
> OK. Now, where are those 19 feeds? I want to review them, and then
> review the histories of some of them. But no link active on "19 feeds"
And we could make the "19 feeds" an active link that does the same
thing as the radio button.
> Hmm, How about:
>
> Edit this Collection
> Info
> Programs
> Feeds
> Collections
>
> I don't really want to edit, I want to view, but this seems to be the
> path to those 19 feeds.
>
> Click Feeds.
>
> OK, now I can at least see my 19 feeds, including Bill Moyers and
> Radio Times. But the only option here is to delete a feed. I want to
> explore these feeds, and maybe collect some more of their past shows.
>
> I seem to have run out of navigational options. Trying search.
>
> OK, searching for Bill Moyers found http://www.spokenword.org/feed/87
> as the #1 hit.
>
> But searching for Radio Times only returns individual shows on the
> first search-result page.
Interesting issue. I have some control over this because I create
Google Sitemaps for all 270,000+, feeds, collections and members. I've
asked Google to give programs a higher priority than feeds. Perhaps
this is a mistake, since it seems to work too well. FYI, the current
priorities are (most relevant first):
programs
feeds
collections
members
I can't explain why the feed page for Radio Times doesn't appear at
all, however.
> Clicking on a show link: http://www.spokenword.org/program/363621
>
> It takes me to a show page that says: Subscribe to Comments: [RSS
> feed URL] . OK, but I have a more basic need. I want to VIEW THE FEED
> PAGE, not subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on an individual
> show.
>
> The show's icon -- http://assets.conversationsnetwork.org/haystack/feeds/4199.1.60x60.jpg
> -- knows that the show belongs to Radio Times. But where's the link to
> the feed?
Perhaps the icon should take you to the feed?
It would be easy to make the default mode for My SpokenWord to be the
Feed mode:
http://www.spokenword.org/member/12?style=1&src=f
I wonder if that should be the case *if* your collection contains any
feeds. If you've only collected individual programs, it could default
to the Programs mode.
> They could expand, a
> la iTunes, to reveal their children. Or if that's too much data for
> the browser, they could expand to reveal the most recent 3 shows in
> each feed, with a More link leading to the feed page.
If we're only showing a single line per element, the iTunes-style
expanding list is reasonable.
> 2) Make the list of shows in any feed 1 click away from any show in
> that feed.
I think we already have that. A feed's page always shows the programs
in the feed. I must not be understanding this one.
Ken Kennedy
This is *exactly* what we need to discuss. Thanks, Jon.
Jon's message was the very first to this group. I was going to wait
until a few more people joined, but I can repeat this as necessary: We
don't need to limit our discussion to relatively minor changes to the
UI. I'm open to making changes that are quite substantial. I think the
database schema is conceptually correct, so it should survive any way
we decide to display the data. That's the big issue, of course.
This should indeed be interesting...it appears that Jon uses collections very differently than I do. I currently subscribe to no feeds at all, b/c of the "a program can only belong to one feed" issue. My podcast subscriptions include a large of "customized" feeds, that aggregate or filter other feeds. Those feeds haven't worked well in the past in Spokenword, as the first feed submitted to the site that included a program "owned" it. Has that limitation been resolved in the db schema changes?
I've been using collections for things that I can do at the program level, like "very good podcasts on this topic (financial crisis, future of news, Linux kernel hacking...whatever), or "I listened to this recently", or "absolute favorite pograms, year XXXX". In all these cases, it doesn't matter to me what feed "owns" the program; I'm rating/describing/aggregating across feeds anyway.
Ken Kennedy
Contact info: http://kenzoid.com/me/contact
Doug Kaye
> This should indeed be interesting...it appears that Jon uses
> collections very differently than I do. I currently subscribe to no
> feeds at all, b/c of the "a program can only belong to one feed"
> issue. My podcast subscriptions include a large of "customized"
> feeds, that aggregate or filter other feeds. Those feeds haven't
> worked well in the past in Spokenword, as the first feed submitted
> to the site that included a program "owned" it. Has that limitation
> been resolved in the db schema changes?
What do you mean by "My podcast subscriptions include a large of
"customized" feeds, that aggregate or filter other feeds."??? Are the
'customized' feeds from SpokenWord.org or somewhere else? I can't
visualize what's going on. I think you need to spell it out for us and
maybe use examples or schematic names.
The limitation of one parent feed for a program hasn't been lifted
yet. It's gnarly. But it's on the list.
...doug
Pedro Palhoto
I'm using/have used collections for 4 different purposes.
1) Moods: these are mapped to smart playlists on iTunes/iPod. For
instance, work mood, entertainment mood, informal tech mood, etc.. As
each mood ends up as an individual feed in iTunes with its own Album,
I'm able to use "Album contains <XYZ mood>". iTunes playlists are
limited to AND xor OR sequences of individual expressions. This is my
way of doing ((feed1 OR feed2 OR feed3 OR ...) AND (playcount == 0))
for each smart playlist.
2) Unavailable feeds: there are shows that don't have feeds available,
just the individual programs. To give other users a feed with all the
shows, I manually add in each program.
3) Suggestions: I send someone the RSS feed link to a customized
collection to suggest some content. Some people don't want to
subscribe to yet another service, so this has proven to be the easiest
way to introduce people to parallel content consumption.
4) Generic Collection of casts: for future reference or my backlog.
These don't necessarily have to have feeds attached to them.
There is more information on my current collections on SpokenWord.org:
http://www.spokenword.org/search?v=1&media=&style=0&table=td&member=276&src=c&ipp=25
Pedro Palhoto
ignore what I've written in this thread, I'll create a new topic.
On Jul 23, 10:51 am, Pedro Palhoto <palh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> [...]
Jon Udell
> In that yellow-background box near the top if the right column, you
> can change the display mode for your collection. Click the radio
> button for Feeds and you'll see all your feeds. Clearly this isn't
> obvious enough.
are bound to the list -- follow, subscribe, show -- while others,
including the one I was wanting, are bound to the right column where I
don't expect them to act on the list.
>> 2) Make the list of shows in any feed 1 click away from any show in
>> that feed.
>
> I think we already have that. A feed's page always shows the programs
> in the feed. I must not be understanding this one.
check out sibling shows.
Suppose that via search or referral I land here:
http://www.spokenword.org/program/292591
Now I want to subscribe to the feed:
http://www.spokenword.org/feed/2758
I see now that this is the same problem (for me) as above. The show
page has what I think of as an active region -- left pane -- and an
auxiliary region -- right pane. The reason I think of the left pane as
active is that it has a bunch of controls: Share, Collect, Subscribe
to Comments.
But the action View Show's Feed is a link over on the right. And it's
a very low-priority link. If there are a bunch of collections that
include the show, it gets pushed down below the fold. Having to scroll
down to find the View Show's Feed control means it might as well not
exist.
Apologies for not articulating this sooner. It's been bugging me for a
while, but I just didn't get over the activation threshold of figuring
out why.
Doug Kaye
pages (program, feed, collection, member) there's a lot of stuff. As
Jon points out, there are multiple regions on the page, each with a
whole lot of buttons and links. For now let me ask the general
questions:
1. Are there data or controls we can just get rid of?
2. For what has to stay, can the data or controls be grouped more
logically?
3. Can entire groups be hidden until needed with a link/button that
makes it obvious what will be exposed when clicked?
Just consider your own My SpokenWord page.
Left Column:
Stuff about you
Your primary collection
Controls as you'd see for any collection
Modal display of the contents of your collection
Programs, Feeds, Collections, Followers (selectable)
Right Column:
Mode selector for the collection display
"Whose following this collection"
This Collection (stats, etc.)
Subscribe Externally (RSS and other links)
Edit this Collection (shortcuts to tabs in the Collection Editor)
Options (more Collection-specific links and controls)
Personally, I don't see anything in there I'd want to do without. But
there's *got* to be a better way to present it. I've thought of trying
to find a UI designer, but given that the person would have to dive
into using the site quite extensively, I don't think we can afford it.
Besides, as we're seeing already, the use cases are tremendously
varied. It's not just novices vs. power users. In each categories
there are tremendous variations in expectations.
...doug
Doug Kaye, Executive Director
The Conversations Network
A 501(c)(3) Non-Profit
do...@rds.com
v: 415.868.5461
twitter: dougkaye
facebook.com/doug.kaye
Ken Kennedy
What do you mean by "My podcast subscriptions include a large of
On Jul 22, 2009, at 10:21 PM, Ken Kennedy wrote:
"customized" feeds, that aggregate or filter other feeds."??? Are the
'customized' feeds from SpokenWord.org or somewhere else?I can't
visualize what's going on. I think you need to spell it out for us and
maybe use examples or schematic names.
The limitation of one parent feed for a program hasn't been lifted
yet. It's gnarly. But it's on the list.
Sorry to be confusing. I'm happy to elaborate, and it appears at least some of my concerns are not justified. It may be a case of where your db tweaking (finding and fixes guid dupes, I'm guessing) has borne fruit.
I seem to remember from very early on when I was adding feeds that I hit one that didn't import correctly, b/c it included programs that were already in the system with another parent. The "dupes" were just skipped over. I'm almost positive I remember an email discussion with you about this, Doug, but I haven't been able to find it today to use as an example.
So I stopped even trying to manage feeds at SpokenWord; any potential upside was overshadowed by the possibility of silently missing programs. However, this doesn't appear to be happening right now with at least two examples that popped into my head.
1) I use a GigaDial feed for adhoc collection of single programs (this started before I was using SW at all): http://gigadial.com/public/station/452288/rss.xml (knock off the rss.xml to see the page). I was afraid that this feed would fail to include all programs, as many (all?) of these are programs drawn from other podcasts. But I just checked this feed in SW (http://www.spokenword.org/feed/3240), and it is correct. I'm guessing the guid work is "fixing" this, as the RSS item guids generated by GigaDial are different from the ones from the original podcasts. So far so good!
2) The most recent episode of Dave Slusher's EGC worried me as well, as he's actually "transcluding" an episode of Thomas Gideon's "The Command Line Podcast". But again, even though it's the same file (same download URL for enclosure, even), it's a different RSS item guid, so it's coming through correctly.
However, I have in the past literally filtered existing feeds (usually with Yahoo Pipes) to only pick out certain episodes I want, or to exclude episodes I don't want (usually based on a topic or something). I don't have an example of one off the top of my head, but I can go create one in Y!Pipes easily enough once I get a bit of free time. Since that wouldn't create new guids, that might get icky. But I can see how (since it doesn't create new guids), that it'd almost be understandable for SW to refuse those "programs".
Now that I see that at least some of my concerns aren't present (if they ever were...but I SWEAR I remember that happening), I'm thinking I may give feed management via collection another try.