Faster for the feed of sound - Updating the backbone of podcasting
Published by Mr. C
In preparation for the 2015 season, we've spent a little time tweaking our behind-the-scenes website code. One subtle but important change made since last year relates to the way we're handling news and podcast feeds. Admittedly the intricate detail of processing syndication updates is about the last thing most F1 fans will want to read about less than a week before the first track action of the year, but timing was never our strong point.
The good news is that nobody has to change anything, any shows or stories you might currently be subscribed to will continue to work just as they always have. If however, you're interested in the finer details, do read on.
We don't tend to advertise or discuss RSS feeds much these days. Once upon a time they were the hippest and fastest way to keep up to date with recently published stories. Today, they mostly exist behind-the-scenes, replaced by easier to fathom solutions such as Facebook or Twitter. That being said, podcasts still very much rely on structured feeds and therefore we can't drop them entirely.
Up to speed with feeds
Pretty much since this site came into being, we've been using a service called Feedburner to manage our feeds for us. We started using it before Google bought the company and continued using it long after Google got bored of owning the company. Even though the system is largely still working, it hasn't been updated since the summer of 2012 and is beginning to feel tired.
Although there are a number of competing services keen to pick up Google's slack, we figured we could probably do a better job by ourselves. Having brought feed management entirely "in house" there have been a number of visible changes worth noting.
We publish a total of three feeds and the location of each has changed slightly. Existing subscribers will automatically be forwarded from old locations to the new ones, and you ought not miss out on any Sidepodcast content. You can however reduce data load times and increase your own security by updating any apps to use the new addresses. For the technically inclined they are as follows.
Removing old subscriptions and adding these new details should be straightforward in most feed reader or podcast applications. It is worth repeating that nobody needs to make these changes, we're just flagging them up for anyone who might be interested.
Making these tweaks gives us more control while reducing our dependancy on a disinterested third party. It was also a nice challenge for the off-season, but now it's back to the racing.
