Mocking up what an subscription UI could look like:

A personal site optionally has a homepage feed, as well as linking from the homepage to other pages with some rel value. When asked to subscribe to a URL, if a feed reader finds these links, it shows a UI a list of the linked feeds, with “Homepage” (any posts found on the page) automatically selected.

The user can then select/deselect feeds, with the preview updating to reflect what the subscription will look like. The selection dialog could either be a modal which goes away once confirmed, or it could be a collapsable panel in the feed column, which has the nice side effect of putting the preview directly where it will be seen, in context.

Additionally, either the personal site could mark up, or the feed reader detect, special feeds such as personal metrics feeds, and treat those differently.

updated: — 4 comments