Ryan North has done it again
Changed the way I interact with comics and the web, that is. Ryan is the mad genius behind Dinosaur Comics and OhNoRobot!, the webcomics search engine. If you don't think a search engine that lets you look for specific text within the comics themselves (dialogue, character names, sound effects, or whatever) is interesting, try using the random comics browser It's a great way to waste time, and a great way to find new comics.
His new project is RSSpect, a website that lets you easily create syndication feeds (viewable with bloglines or your favorite aggregator) of any content on the web. Originally it was just supposed to let you add syndication of your own site with no muss and no fuss, but he's just added a new and insanely spiffy capability: attaching feeds to somebody else's content!
RSSPECT - automatic and free RSS feeds for everyone.
AnySite feeds are a new, easier type of feed that allows you to create update feeds from any website or any document online, even those that you don't control. Want to be updated when a particular webpage, mp3 file, or PDF document is updated? All you need is the URL, and you're set. It's a great way to keep on top of anything that happens online.
Basically, this means that RSSPect will check whether the page you're interested in has changed, and will notify you via your aggregator if it has. You still have to follow the link to the site to see the changes (so Ryan isn't swiping content from them, or robbing them of advertizing viewers or anything). This is nice to have for sites that you might forget about because they only update once in a while, but I think it's great for webcomics. I had organized my comics bookmarks into folders based on when they updated (M-F, Tu-Th, Daily, etc.), even ones that did offer an RSS feed of their own because there just weren't enough of them to make it worth putting them into bloglines, but now I plan to read all my comics via bloglines. If they offer a feed, great, if not, then RSSpect to the rescue!
The only drawback is that it's only free for up to five feeds, and with the free account you have to log in to make it manually check updates (otherwise it checks once every four hours, which is plenty for a comic strip). That means the free account is of limited value, but the paid, unlimited account is cheap ($19.95 for a year). I'll pay less than two bucks a month to never have to surf to a site and be disappointed that the comic hasn't uploaded yet, or worse, drop a comic that I otherwise like from my regular reading because the updates are too darn irregular. Hey, I know what it's like to have stuff happen in your life and miss updates, or go on hiatus, but there's only so many links I'm willing to check by hand even just once a month before it goes from being a treat to being a chore. I'm practically giddy with the idea that it's just not a problem any more: if the site doesn't update, it takes up zero time, so there's no reason no to throw every comic that I like onto my reading list, no matter how sporadic. Wheee!