Trying Some New Things

[SunshineGirl]

In an effort to integrate some of the cool content that our merchants are creating into SR, I'll be trying some new things. Feel free to comment positive or negative on ANY of it. Some of it will work, some of it won't. I'm totally used to that.

One of the things that we have been playing with recently is incorporating RSS feeds into the forum. That means that every time a videoblog or coupon gets posted, they will automatically show up here in the forum with links to them without Cindy or I having to do anything. I'm sure that you have noticed those.

Today I pulled the Fandango Entertainment Feed and set up an account that will periodically post entertainment news with links to Fandango to read the full stories, buy tickets, etc.

If it is too obtrusive, I can have it only visit once a day and pull one story. Or none at all. Just thought it might give us more to talk about around here plus remind people that we have Fandango.

[m4travels]

It's at times like this that I really wish I had more time to spend in the forums.

I'd love seeing this stuff go live!

[askomsky]

At first I thought it was spam, until I saw you reply to it.

I like it so far, it took a while to get used to all those coupons, but I like the news updates!


Update: This is my opinion only but I think that too many will be overwhelming or possibly overlooked? Is there a way to only pull the more popular stories? I'm not sure how you would determine what to pull and what not to, but speaking from how the coupons are posted I usually just glance through them really quick and if one catches my eye I'll click on it.

[disneyforever]

Well you learn something new every day!

I didn't know you had Fandango and I was looking to do a couple movie ticket purchases today.

[m 'n c]

Is there a way to do a condensed feed into a post? I'm thinking if we get too many going it might bury other posts. Otherwise I love entertainment gossip so this will be fun.

[SunshineGirl]

Is there a way to do a condensed feed into a post? I'm thinking if we get too many going it might bury other posts. Otherwise I love entertainment gossip so this will be fun.

The only way for me to do it is just to limit the number. Right now it only takes the 3 most recent and looks once an hour. If we are getting a lot of them, I can tell it to only look every 6 or 8 hours. And only pull 1 each time. So we would have no more than 3-4 a day.

[m 'n c]

Hmm well let's see how it goes for a few more days before changing things up. It might not be that intrusive at all.

[askomsky]

The only way for me to do it is just to limit the number. Right now it only takes the 3 most recent and looks once an hour. If we are getting a lot of them, I can tell it to only look every 6 or 8 hours. And only pull 1 each time. So we would have no more than 3-4 a day.

I like that idea better. I agree with Cate and that's what I was trying to say earlier I think. Too many and the other posts get buried. I'm thinking one every 4 hrs would be ok? Or something along those lines.

[~Kathie]

I agree with Cate & April. I came here looking for info before I reported it as spam.

I went looking for the 'Thank Your Pal' post and it was on page 2. There were 12 Fandango's on the first page.

That being said........we go to the movies only occasionally......so movie reviews don't interest me like they might someone else.

Just my 2 cents. The forums don't like the cents sign.

[faithhope]

The forum is useful for SR information and friendships and SR help...
The coupons notices are great! The general news feed has little to do with SR and clutters up the board and makes me miss the posts I really come here for...

Is there anyway to block one person's posts?? Not that I want to block a real person... but I would love to block the news feed, so that the new posts button is still useful to me.

I'm sorry if this sounds harsh... but I figured I should be honest if you asked for an opinion... otherwise I would have (hopefully) kept my mouth shut

Feel free to delete it if it is too negative a post...as I love SR.