Featured Feeds - Figure.fm
Featured Feeds are back and its better than ever with improved algorithms and wot not - the best thing about it however is that the approval process is now fully automated.
For those who don't know, Featured Feeds is a program where we place each others feed on our sites to share traffic which is what the Internet is all about. My users get to discover more great content (your blog/site) and your readers get to discover my sites. Win x Win all round.
Figure.fm regularly collaborates with makers like Bandai (Bandai World Gunpla Competition), Good Smile Company (Tokyo Figure Show), Kotobukiya (Otacool) and there will be more in the future. These collaborations alone bring in a load incremental users who will discover your content. My collaborators are obviously reading the site and will discover your content too.
If you blog about figures and related topics then Featured Feeds is the program for you to not only help increase exposure but also readership of your blog. Its also a great program for folks who have just started a blog and would like a boost in readership.
On Figure.fm, posts from your RSS feed will appear on the top page as you can see here on the right. All items are displayed with a thumbnail and your avatar/username displayed next to your post.
Posts from your RSS feed also appear at the footer of every page on figure.fm. Feeds appear randomly and you can click the "refresh" link to see other partners. Feeds are displayed randomly so it could be a while of clicking before you see your bits n pieces ^^;
This is a screenshot of the blog belonging to member Alafista Otaku. Have a lookie at his blog. You will see the RSS feed of figure.fm showing up in the bottom left corner-ish of his site. He has the figure.fm feed on his top page and post detail pages like this one.
Being a Featured Feed Partner is simple. All you have to do is follow Alafista Otaku's example and place the figure.fm RSS feed on your top page and all detail pages.
There are plugins for you to easily do this for folks using Wordpress, Blogger or other blogging platforms.
Remember - to have your posts displayed on the top page of figure.fm and all over the site in the footer, you need to have the figure.fm RSS feed registered on your site and be showing at least 5 items.
"Featured Feeds dannychoo.com" is a different program which I will announce later. Stuff that appears on Otaku.fm is only part of the "Featured Feeds dannychoo.com" program. Having only the dannychoo.com feed on your site means that your items will show up on dannychoo.com and otaku.fm but not figure.fm.
As soon as the figure.fm feed is showing up on your site, proceed to edit your figure.fm profile and click on the "Featured Feed" tab.
You will see "RSS Feed URL" and "Your Website URL" which both should be self explanatory.
It is your responsibility to make sure that your feed is valid. Also, the Website URL should be the location of your site or blog like http://lightningsabre.blogspot.com/ for example.
On the right you can see "Feed Category" - choose what you feel fits your blog content. If you cover everything under the rising sun then just categorize as "Otaku." You can change your category at a later date but your feed needs to be re-approved.
Once you are done, hit "Apply."
Once you hit Apply, the button will change to "Cancel Application" and you will see "Pending Approval" under "Featured Feed Status."
What happens now is that the Mirai Gaia Bot will then visit your site and check to see if the RSS feed of figure.fm is showing up.
Many moons ago I used to do this manually but now have Mirai Gaia do all this automatically.
Once the Mirai Gaia Bot has confirmed that you have the figure.fm feed on your site, the Mirai Gaia Spider will then proceed to spider your feed which will then start to show up all over figure.fm including the top page. This is *not* instantaneous and may take up to 24 hours - but usually within 30 mins.
You will see "Application Approved" under your Featured Feed Status. If you see any other message like "Application Rejected" then its most likely that Mirai Gaia Bot could not discover the feed on your top page and blog detail pages.
You can place the figure.fm feed on your pages and re-apply.
You will also see a link under "Application Approved" to a list of posts that Mirai Gaia Spider went to fetch. The spider usually runs once an hour and fetches the latest couple of posts from your feed.
A few things to note:-
- Mirai Gaia Spider looks for the first <img src="/moo/someimage.jpg"> in your post and makes a thumbnail from that. At this moment in time, only jpegs are supported. If your image tags are malformed then the spider will not be able to fetch images.
- Images over 1MB will be ignored.
- If there is only a YouTube video to be found in your post, the spider will attempt to make a thumbnail from the video.
- Posts without any images or videos don't show up by spec - sorry!
- If your application has been approved but your posts are not showing up on figure.fm then check the validity of the feed at W3C Feed Validator.
- Check to see if your server or blog settings don't have leeching settings on or we wont be able to grab your image to make a thumbnail.
- Check your profile settings to see if your feed has been approved. Remember that it is your responsibility to ensure that you have a valid feed registered.
- You will not receive any notification at this moment in time regarding your feed status - you need to check back under your profile settings.
- Mirai Gaia Bot will regularly visit partner Featured Feed sites. If it cant find the figure.fm feed anywhere, it will deactivate your feed and it will not be spidered anymore. In this case, your posts on figure.fm will disappear. Need all partners to play fair which is why the Mirai Gaia Bot was programed to be Tsundere.
- However, we understand that there are technical issues from time to time and Mirai Gaia Bot will check a site a few times before deciding to deactivate a Featured Feed partner in the event that the figure.fm feed cannot be found.
- Please display at least 5 items from the figure.fm feed.
- Mirai Gaia Bot does its rounds when it feels like it and usually goes out during low traffic periods.
- Hmmmm. I thinking that the Suenaga World needs a new mascot robot or pet called "Mirai Gaia Bot" ^^;
- If you need some banner material then you can nab some from the Suenaga World page.
- Finally, If you are trying to grow readership of your site, do be careful with other "Featured Feed" programs which have you placing their feeds on your site which constantly contain many adult type words which will reduce your Google Page Rank and affect your search engine rankings. Read this post for more details. The idea of a feed share program is to increase readership of your blog - not reduce it by having your search engine rankings reduced.
The figure.fm RSS feed is here - look forward to working with you!
Thanks for the update Danny! how nice that it is now automated! I just asked my husband to add both DC and FM links to his broggu (@ kamlau.com) hope that would work! He's BatMouse desu~ lol
I like the feeds and such, a little confusing at first, would like it to be in a separate area other than the "Danny's posts" and "DC.COM" section
Hoho otsukare~!
that's neat
Always love WIN - WIN situation, well done ^o^b
Hmm.. my feed doesn't seem to be showing up on Otaku.FM
Mirai Gaia Bot will start approving accounts again once I have announced it on dannychoo.com
oh very nice ^w^ I love the innovative idea from this one XD
however I'm still a novice blogger so prolly I'll join when I'm worth it ^w^
on the other hand .. my curiosity of testing it out gets over me XD
Please go ahead and join!
^^; lets get fed.
sweet!
I giggled madly when I saw my di:stage post on the second image xD
Thanks a lot Danny! You're always so good to your readers ^o^
"Need all partners to play fair which is why the Mirai Gaia Bot was programed to be Tsundere."
Best. Line. In. The. Post. Σd(>口<)
will try this out, new to feeds and RSS stuff o.O
Woow Too much english for me... Is dificult understand english with tecnical words... But sounds great LOL o_O
Don't use feeds personally but if this gets more people to read both dannychoo.com and figure.fm plus my blog I'm in.
Curious... can I have two different feeds/sites on dannychoo.com and figure.fm?
How do you mean?
If you mean you want a feed from your blog "moo" and from your other blog "boo" then you need two accounts.
Yeah, I think that's what I was thinking of. What I was gonna do was put the one blog's feed on dannychoo.com and another feed on figure.fm. But then I realize I should just focus on the main one.
Thanks for the update, and the clarification :) Had the DM feed, but not the figure.fm one.
Somehow the Figure.fm feed disappeared from my blog ^^; thankies for clarifying ^_^
Hmm.... I think I might try this. I was just going to start a blog today, in fact lol.
Although, I'm not sure if it would be the right kinda subject... My battle with agoraphobia (social phobic disorder etc) throughout my life until now and my newest attempt at fixing myself (which starts tomorrow) and how I've been handling it over the years through using my interests. ^^;
Its great that now everything is automated. Hope the Mirai bots keep up the good work ^^
Thanks for the update
I was wondering if I could move my feed from dc.com off and just have a figure.fm feed since my blog focuses mainly on figures and for some reason my feed category seems to be stuck on 'Otaku' over on the dc.com side... Does anyone know what I should do to rectify this?
yay its finally goin live :D
sorry i think im having a problem here..
i have an account (renntako) and featured feed at DC.com and Otaku.fm.. and its approved.
i oso registered another account at figure.fm under the same name renntako in order to use the featured feed feature.
but my application for a feature feed here at figure.fm is taking forever to approve. i've be waiting for 3days alr.. whereas DC.com took onli a nite.. i do have both feeds on my blog. but the bot doesn't seem to reject or approve my application.. so im quite stuck.. is there anything i can do...? any solutions..?
thanks alot.. ren.
Owesome
Is my first time joining a forum, please direct me on this site
Hmmm... I've having problem at Figure.fm as well. Seems to be pending for a long time. Not sure what's wrong there.
My request has been pending for a long time as well. I wonder what I did wrong =/
Yea, My too. Been awhile both on DCCOM and Figure.fm
I applied the feed a while ago and it's still on Pending Approval.
Could you look into this?
Still waiting, sadly.
Is Mirai Gaia Bot just lazy? D:
Been approved , but my posts still cant be seen on 1st page, feed is validate, but still the 1st page says that i cant chat because im not approved. Why?
Well even though you may never read this, my feed in figure.fm is still saying pending approval, I sent it my feed about a week ago. I typed in all the necessary things in the boxes, my blog and my feed(which is feed burner just like figure.fm) I have figure.fms feed at the bottom of the page and it can be seen throughout every page, just wondering when its gonna approve it? :/ I know that figure.fm can add a bunch of traffic to my blog and I want to benefit from it like the rest. I hope you fix the problem Dan ^^
Ugh sorry Danny for cancelling and re-applying for figure.fm. I forgot to add the figure.fm feed before applying.
It's done now. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Just letting you know, in your final bullet point, the "Read this post for more details" link is broken. It returns your 404 page.
I'm confused? LOL SORRY I'M A NOOB I DON'T KNOW WHAT ALL THIS RSS STUFF IS ABOUT! But I realized that my posts never show up on figure.fm so I came here pondering on all this RSS stuff. One of my posts had an RSS thingy so people commented but now it doesn't show up etc. I'm too young for all this >.<;
Eh, on figure.fm my RSS updates once every 3 months if I'm lucky and on dannychoo it doesn't update at all.
Very confused.
I can't seem to get my feeds right. What should I put in the "RSS Feed URL" and "Your Website URL" as well? Need help! >.<
Ok, for 'RSS Feed URL' put:
http://code-kel.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
for 'Your Website URL' put:
http://code-kel.blogspot.com/
Then wait for approval.
Thanks! =D
Anybody knows how long it takes to approve, it's been like 4 days now :/
OK so it has been like 16 days I couldn't post or get help from anybody knowing the situation to this problem! I have been a true fan of this site for 2 years and I guess now my posting days are over since there truly is no customer support here what so ever! bye comrades! :(
It's been 1 month and no update, still pending approve?! this is seriously something wrong here! WTF?!
It took me 3 days or so for it to be approved. Are you sure you're doing it right?
I did everything I could, it's just not approving and Danny is ignoring me because he has become lazy :(
He hasn't become lazy.His quite busy and one should be thankful that he even offers the featured feeds for us.
In a similar situation as you. In fact, I'm currently re-applying because my previous one was rejected (even though I have the feed and all at my blog).
Good luck with that because after 30+ days of waiting for a stupid bot to approve things will get no where :(
If you're still wondering if my rss feed got approved, the answer is NO and this is July 10, 2011 ...Danny is not a true people person that I thought he were.
Copy and paste your feed here. Maybe there's something wrong with it.
I think you should also take a read of this post as it seems you have not taken a look at it.
I reapplied my new feed as I started a new blog. It went through. I think it's either something you're doing wrong. Please feel free to post what you input and I may be able to help you
Your RSS Feed
RSS Feed URL
http://feeds.feedburner.com/figure_fm_main_feed_eng
Your Website URL
(For the bot to check you are showing our feed)
http://dashboard.bloglines.com/sleeplessotaku
ah you did it wrong, your RSS Feed URL is suppose to be your own blog and not fig.fm. You put that fig.fm main feed on your blog, which you have done already. Just change your RSS Feed URL to your own site name and you should be fine. The bots go searching on fig.fm feed and not your own site, as you didn't list your site feed
For example, this is mine,
RSS Feed URL http://feeds.feedburner.com/Tanoshimini
Your Website URL http://www.tanoshimini.com
Anyways I hope this helped;)
How do you get your RSS Feed URL and Your own Website URL? are they free?
Feedburner is free. Website url I have to pay for, as it's a domain.
You can google "Google FeedBurner" click on the first link and if you need help, read http://www.google.com/support/feedburner/
For example, yours would be RSS Feed URL http://feeds.feedburner.com/dashboard.bloglines.com/sleeplessotaku if you register your feed.
I got a question, your blog doesn't seem to have any posts? unless that MerchantCircle is the blog posts?
I never had any post to begin with.
That's why your feature feed doesn't appear because you don't have any posts. The featured feeds show your posts from your blog. And the Mirai bot needs to search for these posts
I have been posting on figure.fm for over a year w/o a single post on my blog. Are you saying from now on I have to post on my blog? then why does figure.fm have "create a post" function? I'm confused!!!!! x_x
Yes, the point of feature feeds is to have your posts from your blog show up on http://www.otaku.fm/ and on the footer of fig.fm (bottom of the page if you didn't know what a footer is) So it's like advertising for your blog in a way.
The create a post function is just for posts you post on fig.fm.
It seems to me that you don't need to use the featured feeds.
Then why isn't the post that I make for fig.fm isn't showing up in any of the categories anymore? no body seems to know the cause of this :(
What do you mean not show up in the categories? If you mean otaku.fm, that only shows the latest blog post from your blog.
Your posts won't show on otaku.fm if you don't register for a featured feed.
Your posts will show on fig.fm only.
If you mean your posts won't show up on fig.fm, it may be that the mods still need to approve your posts
I don't visit otaku.fm, my NEW post are not showing up in any of the categories here at figure.fm. Click on my profile and see my latest post and see if you see it under classifieds.
Ok I see that normal time for approval is 30mins to 24 hours... and guess how long I've been waiting about 50 days <---- LOOK AT THIS WORD IT'S 50 DAYS THAT'S ABOUT 1,000 HOURS OF WAITING FOR A SITE THAT HAS NO MODERATOR!!!!!! :( :(
Your classified was posted just today? it hasn't even been 24hrs yet. There's no need to get angry, this is a free service.
There may be reasons why your post wasn't approved.
Dude! you should check out my 3-4 previous post and tell me what is 24 hrs lol. Been waiting for over a month for this. Go see if my last 3-4 post ever showed up on any categories, if u find any I'll give you my 20,000k worth of figure for FREE!!! :angry face:
http://www.figure.fm/archive/en/post/all/classifieds/all/published/2011/06/2.html here you go
What is this?! this isn't what I'm looking for!!!!! >_<
Try finding the following 3, I bet u can't find it in any of the categories!!!!!! :
http://www.figure.fm/post/en/28465/Anime+Expo+Contest+Extended+for+1+more+day.html
http://www.figure.fm/post/en/28502/CONGRATS+microgamer2vs2+-+You+re+going+to+Anime+Expo+2011+_.html
http://www.figure.fm/post/en/28927/I+m+giving+5+to+anyone+who+can+answer+this+question.html
Case closed! Danny has solved this issue! Thanks Danny! :)
My feed hasn't been picked up by figure.fm and otaku.fm since June 2011. It was working before.
Can you advise why and how I should rectify the issue?
My feed: http://ponytale.lalaparadise.com/feed
My featured feed: http://www.figure.fm/page/en/fusion/202/all/all/all/1.html
Thanks!
Danny, I changed both RSS feed URL and website URL, but the status still under pending approval. I wonder what's wrong with the spider bot.
This happens for both application for Figure.fm and Otaku.fm...
This is Slowking level of slowpoking..
My RSS -here- hasn't updated in almost a whole year. And on Dannychoo it refuses to update at all....
I've been using the url http://www.anime-envoy.com/feed/.
What do I have to do to get it do display normally here?
Use feedburner? Different url (http://www.anime-envoy.com/?feed=rss)?
I'm at a loss here, that bot is too tsundere !!
Danny, when you have the chance, could you check what is going on with my feeds, please?
They are not working neither on dannychoo.com or figure.fm.
Thanks in advance!