I was helped greatly by so many sources
on this quest that it is hard to name them all. I would like to single
out Vincent Smyth from
The
Purple Pages (A site I highly recommend you bookmark), who helped me
above and beyond the call of duty when I reached a snag in trying to
figure out their tutorial. Their article "Offering
Automatically Updating Syndicated Articles" is an inspiration
for parts of this tutorial. There is also a good article, "Black
Monday for Online Content Syndication", on the same site. At
the end, the writer says, "There is a rising need for
syndicators but unfortunately syndicators seem to be forgetting whose
needs they should be addressing." I would only add that
don't think they thought much about either writers or readers in the
whole process, that's what's got them where they are. That's why writers
need to be empowered with our own syndication tools!
As part of my ongoing struggle to find
content management tools for my own web site, I went on a number of
mailing lists and discussion groups looking for inexpensive ways to
facilitate the easy transfer of my content to my partner sites. I
encountered a lot of wackos trying to sell me $50,000 "CSM
Solutions" (click here
for details & stop the madness!).
I also encountered a lot of helpful
people in online writer's groups and lists, including one young man who
even wrote a CGI script for me. I could not figure it out though, and
kept up my search for something simple that would rotate daily content,
as well as send it out to my clients.
I have now found how to do this in
JavaScript, and here is the simple process to do it yourself - free! If
you find this site helpful in your own efforts to be a paid online
writer, you can express your appreciation
here
... but there is no obligation to do so. This information is freely
offered instead of sold, because I know just what you are going through
looking for these tools!
There are some limitations - the
rotation code works only with single paragraphs to rotate content at
this point.
Ready? Okay. Before we get started, I
want to break this down into two kinds of self-syndicated content -
daily rotated single-line content and full-page articles:
Related Links - Other Self-Syndication
Options - "Free" (meaning the technology is free - you may
need a techie to implement them) or less than $100 total cost.
These options may be a bit more robust or complicated. I went with
JavaScript because it's acceptable in most browsers and it's relatively
easy to do without any programming training. These other options may not
be as simple.
