Re: [syndication] RSS Clients

[Morbus Iff <morbus@disobey.com>]

>I hear this too and I don't understand it. To me having my content included
>on lots of pages is a good thing, like being included in Google or getting
>Slashdotted. For some reason people start worrying about bandwidth when it
>comes to their XML feeds. It's real, but I don't understand it.

Welp, I can hear it (and now realize that my other email I just sent was 
... ... repetitive/duplicative). It goes back to bandwidth stealing, and 
why there are now articles and scripts floating around that stop people 
from "stealing" your bandwidth by including an image from your server.

In my head, I see it in two directions:

 - I'm the webmaster. Slashdot suddenly includes my RSS
   in their default page. Millions of downloads off my
   site. My hit return value is maybe 2% (since there's
   so many damn stories on /. now that people don't have
   time to click on other people's stories).

   In this case, I'm paying for bandwidth without
   getting anything in return.

 - I'm the webdesigner of generic site. I include an
   RSS feed from Scripting.com. A client comes to my
   site. Instead of downloading everything from the
   same server in a few single pipes, the client
   downloads a bunch of stuff from my server, and
   then contacts your server for an RSS feed. If
   I'm a stupid webmaster and include your RSS feed
   in an important table, I'm potentially causing
   my site to slow down immensely as I wait for
   your servers response before the
   browser will draw the table.

   This can come into play if your site is slow,
   down, etc... The perception of the client is
   that my site is slow, and thus I can burn in
   hell.


Morbus Iff
.sig on other machine.
http://www.disobey.com/
http://www.gamegrene.com/