funmusicplace
Improvements to RSS feeds
This is a catch-all ticket to document improvements to RSS feeds.
This post is a launching point: https://the.socialmusic.network/t/improving-rss-feeds-in-social-music-platforms/344?u=simon
- [ ] Include artist image
- [ ] Include album song/description
- [x] Include album song/coverart
- [ ] Player (?)
- [ ] Include audio download (do we want this? likely not
About the player, I think the podcast apps will render a basic player only by linking to an audio file, but I'm not sure. For what is worth, here you have a bunch of podcast with embedded players in their RSS feeds -- maybe someone can look into the feeds to see what they are doing there.
https://red.podkasts.org/t/programas-con-player-incrustado-en-podkasts/21071
About audio downloads, one thought and one idea.
The thought is that having the audio file or not is what for podcast apps makes the difference between a podcast (something you can play right away) or a news piece, which offers you a link that you have to click to go to a web page and then press play. In other words, it is what makes the difference between listening seamlessly or maybe not listening at all because of the extra clicks breaking the flow.
At the same time, when people pay for a song, which % really pays to have the audio files downloaded vs pays to say thank you to the artists? How many artists have name your price and would love to be listened to regardless? And audio files downloaded by a podcast app are there until they are automatically deleted. You really need to want to to move them to a different location to enjoy them as a song with your regular media player.
The idea: Soundcloud allows artists to decide whether a new track goes to the RSS feed or not. In your case, maybe you could offer to artists the possibility to decide whether a track has the audio file available to the RSS feed or not. If saying yes means that your song will be added not only to your RSS feed but also to the Mirlo general ones, I believe many will want just that.
While the big questions re: podcasting are worked out I've got some what I believe are low hanging fruit, which would enhance the existing feed immensely (IMO):
Could you add the Artist to the RSS Item title, so each item has a title of Artist - Release ? Without the artist in the feed it's a bit of a lottery of what music to get (which admittedly can be fun too, but maybe not as the default option)...
See OP here
Yeah! I made that into a ticket here https://github.com/funmusicplace/mirlo/issues/1116, sorry I thought I had shared it