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iTunes Offers RSS Feeds

Posted by pudge on from the money-maker dept.

TheChocolatay writes "iTunes is now offering RSS Feeds for the latest happenings in the Music Store. Users can set up their parameters for a feed at Apple's iTunes Music Store RSS Generator. After you have set your parameters, just sit back as the news and track listings are sent to your favorite RSS Reader."

31 comments

  1. Re:What the fuck? by Tego · · Score: 5, Informative

    RSS feeds are a kind of XML format into which headlines of all posted stories of a website are summarized.

  2. Re:What the fuck? by Tego · · Score: 4, Informative

    Or more detailed :
    The RDF Site Summary is actually an extension to the RDF language. Quoting the official RSS v1.0 specification: 'RDF Site Summary (RSS) is a lightweight multipurpose extensible metadata description and syndication format. RSS is an XML application, conforms to the W3C's RDF specification and is extensible via XML-namespace and/or RDF based modularization.'

    (http://web.resource.org/rss/1.0/spec)

  3. Re:What the fuck? by Bazzargh · · Score: 5, Funny

    RSS feeds are animal byproducts made according to the Revised Statutes of Saskatchewan (RSS). In the case of websites, mostly it refers to recycled bovine ordure, or "bull logs", often pronounced colloquially as "blogs".

    Hope that clears things up.

  4. URL? by jasoncart · · Score: 0, Insightful
    I see all the feeds are coming from ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net - Akamai's caching URL for ax.phobos.apple.com

    This looks like a big mistake - what happens if they want to use a different caching service, or Akamai goes bust? All the feeds will die.

    1. Re:URL? by Meowing · · Score: 5, Informative

      Don't worry about it too much. Apple owns a big chunk of Akamai, and is also its largest customer.

    2. Re:URL? by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

      Isn't Microsoft larger? Or have they stopped using Akamai?

      --
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    3. Re:URL? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Apple sold the last of their stake in akamai last quarter, as reported in their earnings results.

  5. Re:What the fuck? by Mork29 · · Score: 1

    Now is that bovine American? Might have trouble with exports...

  6. RSS Readers for OS X by l0wland · · Score: 4, Informative
    Yes, I am playing the karma-whore here, but still:

    RSS Readers for OS X

    --

    "Honey, I feel a certain distance between us..." "Really? A 31ms ping ain't that bad..."
  7. Thank Goodness! by 0x0d0a · · Score: 4, Funny

    Here I was, wondering desperately how I could get my hands on some more advertisements -- and here Apple comes to save the day!

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    May we never see th
  8. Finnally ... by Sonic+McTails · · Score: 4, Informative

    I can just open my RSS reader and know if the cd I want has (finnally) made it to the iTMS, and not have to bother searching whats new. I'm happy that it's easily to see what's new, even though you still do need an additional program.

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    This signature was left intentionally blank.
  9. Actually, by flimflam · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Not anymore. They may still be the biggest customer, though.

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    -- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
  10. Get the feeds on your iPod by rf600r · · Score: 4, Informative

    By using this spiffy program to sync it. Well, if you have an iPod. Oh, and a Mac. Please donate to the author.

    1. Re:Get the feeds on your iPod by CAlworth1 · · Score: 0

      Why would anyone ever list a mac as a requirement for running software? Doesn't everyone use them? aren't they the world-wide standard?

      Oops. It appears I am channeling the though patterns of the me in the universe next door. . .Sorry about that. . .

      On the plus side, I use a mac. . .

    2. Re:Get the feeds on your iPod by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ALL THE TIME.

  11. iTunes hacks anyone? by mr_c0w · · Score: 3, Funny

    How long before O'Reilly has an "iTunes Hacks" book with stuff like this in it?

  12. Apple is selling Akamai shares by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Apple actually started selling its AKAMAI shares last quarter: http://macnn.com/news/22948

    "Apple saw $13 million other revenue, including a pre-tax gain of $4 million from the sales of Akamai shares, but Apple expects this to remain below the previous quarters due to lower interests rates."

  13. Re:URL? Caching by borkus · · Score: 2, Informative

    Motley Fool is pretty bullish on Akamai. Of course, they better be since they're a customer. However, many large companies rely on Akamai, including Best Buy, McAfee and MSNBC. Given that a good caching service can reduce bandwidth usage by 50% or more, any large website that uses a caching service is highly dependent on it. However, it'd be hard to run any type of large site without one - Akamai or whomoever.

    Changing a caching provider is relatively easy once a contract is signed. A caching network is largely a DNS configuration change. One shouldn't need to change any telecommunications connections or reconfigure applications.

  14. View the feeds as album art by saddino · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If you have our freeware image searcher Beholder, you can view the iTunes RSS feeds as collections of album art via the search engine templates that are now available online.

  15. Meta RSS? by 4of12 · · Score: 1

    Are there any listings of great places for RSS feeds?

    I know of a few pretty much by chance, like /., but there must be tons of interesting sites out there that provide RSS.

    Who?

    --
    "Provided by the management for your protection."
    1. Re:Meta RSS? by Tego · · Score: 1

      Didn't really look at it, but found this using google: http://www.syndic8.com/

    2. Re:Meta RSS? by cheerios · · Score: 1

      weather here

  16. Am I missing something here? by Polarweasel · · Score: 1

    So my browser and I visited the URL, checked some boxes, hit Submit, and ... Nothing Happened. Well, the page reloaded with all the boxes checked, but that's it.

    Somebody please point out the painfully obvious thing that I'm missing here. See, I was expecting to get a page with the URL for my custom RSS feed, so I could then point my headline-grabber script at it. Is that not the idea here?

    1. Re:Am I missing something here? by Louis_Wu · · Score: 1

      I noticed the same problem. I went back to the page an hour or two later to try it again, and when I clicked "generate", the list of genres dropped down and a 3-line text box appeared with a url in it. I don't think I changed any settings between the 2 attempts. But it seems to work for me now. Good luck.

    2. Re:Am I missing something here? by Polarweasel · · Score: 1

      Noticed the fix today. Thanks for replying!

      /me goes off to update the headline grabber

  17. Proving just how big iTMS is by chia_monkey · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is yet just another thing that shows how bit iTunes is. An RSS feed? Not that it's the hardest thing to do, but I'm not aware of any other music services having that (am I missing anyone?). Apple keeps doing little things here and there that make their products and services the standard to follow.

    --

    "He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
  18. Re:What the fuck? by laffer1 · · Score: 1

    RSS 1.0 wasn't created by the original author. It is the only version that is RDF compatible.

    RSS .91 was created for use by netscape's web portal system and the current release is 2.0. Harvard's law department now controls the standard.

    --
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