RSS and Syndication

Syndication and Feed Options

We have many different ways for our users to stay updated on changes to The Beer Mapping Project. One of the easiest ways would be via our many available RSS feeds. An RSS feed is simply a way for your browser or another application to go out and search for updates to certain pages or databases.

Rather than spend the time here to explain RSS feeds and how you can use them. I will simply point you to an introductory explanation page for the more popular browsers. Please, if you don’t understand RSS feeds and you would like to learn, check out the page below for the browser you use.

Browser RSS Explanations

Internet Explorer 7
Firefox
Safari (scroll down and click number 9)

There are also some online RSS Aggregators that allow you to create a free account where you can add new RSS feeds. Every time you visit, you will be presented with any updates to the RSS feeds that you are subscribed to. Here is a short list of some popular online RSS Aggregators.

Online RSS Aggregators

Google Reader
Bloglines - (Bloglines has a great mobile interface too)
NewsGator
Rojo

If you’re already using RSS feeds and you want to know what The Beer Mapping Project can offer, below is a rundown of the feeds that are available for you:

Recent Location Additions:

If you want to keep up with the newest approved locations that have been added to The Beer Mapping Project, this is the rss feed for you:

Newest Locations to the Database Feed

Recent Additions by map:
You can also subscribe to the newest locations that have been added to the city or regional brewery maps. If you know the “map name” you can find the feed that way, but each city map also has the correct rss feed tied to the page (look for the orange rss icon in your tool bar or address bar of your browser). If you know the proper map name you will simply use this format to find the proper rss feed:

beermapping.com/maps/rss.php?lfeed=MAPNAME

Recent Reviews:

You can also subscribe to our recent reviews rss feed. This will plink every review entered into The Beer Mapping Project into your RSS Reader.

Recent Location Reviews Feed

Recent Reviews by User:
For many people, bringing all incoming reviews into their RSS reader will become too much static. So you also have the option to narrow down the feed by a particular user. If you know the particular user’s usernumber, you can simply use the following format. If you have not already memorized the usernumbers of all your favorite Beer Mappers, you can also find links to a particular user’s RSS feed on their review profile page.

beermapping.com/maps/reviews/recentreviewsrss.php?u=USERNUMBER

Recent Images:

You can subscribe to the most recent images that are uploaded to the Beer Mapping Project. This is basically just an image feed, but the feed will also include location name and it gives credit to the image uploader.

Recent Uploaded Images Feed

High Location Scores:

Our High Scores feed isn’t actually a traditional RSS feed that you may wish to subscribe to. Most RSS feeds will have updates as new updates are made. But because a high scores list only fluctuates, with locations swapping positions or rising and falling on the list, you might not want to subscribe to this list via a traditional rss reader. But if you have a website where you would like to display a Live Top 10 List of Locations from The Beer Mapping Project, this feed is available for you to use.

beermapping.com/maps/reviews/highestscoresrss.php
(not really rss)

Beer Mapping Badge Feed:

This feed is also not really a traditional style feed. A query for this feed will simply return a Beer Mapping Project badge that contains review/forums information for a particular user.

beermapping.com/beermappers/badge.php
(this gets random user with more than 1 review)

For a Particular User you would make sure to substitute the user’s username in the following

beermapping.com/beermappers/badge.php?u=USERNAME

Beer Mapping User Top Ten List:

This is very similar to the Beer Mapping Badge. It basically gives you a user’s top 10 reviewed locations list. Again, it is not really a traditional rss feed so you might not want to subscribe to it via an rss reader. But if you have a website or another page on the internet that can receive an rss feed, this would be a good way to show your top 10 list to your readers.