An RSS Feed for a Daily Album Recommendation  🔗 **Source:** [An RSS Feed for a Daily Album Recommendation](https://bell.bz/an-rss-feed-for-a-daily-album-recommendation/) > [!note]+ Document Notes > tags: > - rss > - small-web > - indieweb > - personal-publishing > author: Andy Bell > source: https://bell.bz/an-rss-feed-for-a-daily-album-recommendation/ > reference: https://bell.bz/an-rss-feed-for-a-daily-album-recommendation/ > date created: 2026-09-17 > > [!info] Generated analysis — not the author's words. Sections below are machine-written > > from the captured source. Only text inside `> [!quote]` blocks is verbatim from the author. > > Do not quote or attribute any other line to the named author. > > <!-- deep-read: light-touch --> > A ~165-word personal post announcing one small build, so it gets a light-touch pass rather than a full deep read. > <!-- deep-read:sections start --> ## 🏷️ Title An RSS feed for a daily album recommendation — Andy Bell, bell.bz ## 🧭 Table of Contents 1. The problem: a large collection, a habit of repeat-listening 2. The idea: RSS as a once-a-day nudge 3. The build: one random album as the feed's single item 4. Why it works: the reader accumulates the days you miss ## 🔗 References (in-page) - `https://bell.bz/music-collection/random.xml` — the feed (linked twice: "music collection" and "Try it for yourself") - `https://bell.bz/music-collection/covers/` — album-covers view of the collection - `https://feedbin.com/` — Feedbin, the author's RSS reader - Site closer, not post body: set.studio, piccalil.li ## 📝 Summary Bell's music collection is large, published on his own site, and underused — by his own account the size of it is overwhelming, so he replays the same records. Rather than reach for an algorithmic recommender, he wrote a small RSS feed that picks one random album per day and serves it as the feed's single item. His reader, Feedbin, does the rest: missed days stack up as a queue of suggestions instead of vanishing. He invites readers to subscribe. ## 📖 Main Content A build note, not an argument. Three moving parts: a data source (his own catalogued collection, already published with a covers view), a selection rule (one album at random, once a day), and a delivery format (an RSS document with exactly one `<item>`). The decision worth noticing is that single item. A conventional feed appends entries; this one replaces its only entry daily. It works because the durable state lives on the subscriber's side — readers poll, see a new item, and file it — so the publisher never stores history or manages a queue. ### 🗒️ Notes - **Where the picks come from:** entirely his own collection — no external catalogue, no collaborative filtering, no third-party API. The engine is a random pick over a list he already owns and publishes. - **Reusable?** Yes, cheaply. Any site with a structured list (books read, past posts, plugins, patterns, community resources) can emit a one-item feed surfacing a different entry daily. It needs a template and a per-day seed, not a database. - **Cadence does real work.** A "random" button needs you to show up; a daily item arrives where you already look, and missing three days yields three suggestions, not zero. - **Small-web / IndieWeb angle:** he owns the data and the URL and publishes over an open protocol any client can read. Discover Weekly solves the same problem by holding both your history and the delivery channel; this needs only a static XML file. - **Feeds as an output format.** Most people treat RSS as a way to read other sites; Bell treats it as a personal notification bus, something to publish *to yourself*. The most portable idea here. ## 📚 References No external literature cited — only the author's own pages plus Feedbin. Pairs naturally with IndieWeb wiki entries on personal sites and feeds, and with POSSE as an ownership pattern. ## 🗣️ Paraphrase I own a lot of music and keep replaying the same slice of it, because choosing is tiring. So I built a feed that chooses for me: one album, at random, once a day, as the only item in an RSS file. ## 📰 Newsletter **The smallest recommendation engine that could possibly work.** Bell's fix for too much choice wasn't an algorithm, it was a file — an RSS feed publishing one random album from his own collection each day as its single item. RSS isn't only for consuming other people's sites; it's a publishing surface you can point at yourself. ## ✅ Action Items - Subscribe to `https://bell.bz/music-collection/random.xml` and watch a single-item feed behave in a reader for a week. - Prototype one: a template emitting valid RSS with a single item, seeded so the pick is stable within a calendar day. - For WordPress: sketch it with `add_feed()` or a small plugin, caching the daily pick in a transient. - Keep it as a buildable open-web example for talks and for The WPOCC. ## 🧪 Hypotheses - A daily one-item feed gets checked more reliably than a "random" button, because it rides an existing habit. - Accumulation is a feature: at one a day, a backlog of unheard suggestions reads as a gift, not debt. - The pattern generalises to any owned list; music is incidental to the mechanism. ## 📊 Methodology Not applicable to this source — a personal build note, not a study; no data collection or analysis method is described. ## ❓ Questions - Is the pick seeded by date (stable for all subscribers within a day) or generated per request? - Does the item GUID change daily, and is the feed regenerated on a schedule or computed on request? - What does the item body carry — cover art, credits, a link to the collection entry? ## 🔮 Future Research - Try it for teaching: a daily WCAG criterion, WordPress function, or block pattern. - Consider whether a plugin could make "daily pick from my own list" a one-click feature. ## 💡 Implications It persuades better than an essay because it is small enough to copy in an afternoon. What platforms sell as sophisticated — personalised daily recommendations — is, for a library you already own, a static file and a random number. For WordPress it points at an underused surface, since sites ship feeds automatically and almost nobody customises them. ## 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment Suits verbal and pragmatic learners: stated problem, stated fix, a live artifact to click. Visual learners get the covers view. No code or walkthrough, so implementers must reverse-engineer the feed. ## 📊 Accessibility Assessment Brief and plainly written; link text is mostly descriptive, though "Try it for yourself" carries its destination only by context. The idea itself is quietly accessibility-friendly: RSS is consumed in a client of the reader's choosing, at their own pace and type size. ## 🌍 DEIB Assessment Low surface area — a personal post about music, no demographic claims. In its favour, an open protocol lowers the cost of participation versus a platform requiring an account or a supported device. The usual gap applies: it assumes a personal site, a catalogued collection, and the ability to write a feed template. ## ✅ Logical Validity Not applicable to this source — the post makes no argument to evaluate. Its one implicit inference (too much choice leads to repeat-listening, so let something else choose) is offered as personal experience. ## 🛡️ DARVO Analysis Not applicable to this source — no conflict, accusation, or defensive framing. A friendly personal post about a hobby build. ## 🎯 Conclusion One portable idea: RSS is a publishing surface you can aim at yourself. Bell replaced a platform recommendation engine with a random pick over a list he owns, published as a one-item feed, and let his reader handle accumulation. About the cheapest convincing demonstration of the small-web case going. ## 🧱 Refactor Appendix If borrowing it: seed the pick by date so the choice is stable within a day and cacheable; give each day's item a date-based GUID so readers file it once; keep the feed valid with a single `<item>`; include enough in each item (title, artist, cover, permalink) to be useful without a click; and regenerate on a schedule, not per request. <!-- deep-read:sections end --> 📄 **Full text:** [[Full Document Contents/Articles/An RSS Feed for a Daily Album Recommendation.md|An RSS Feed for a Daily Album Recommendation by Andy Bell]] ## Highlights - I thought RSS could be useful here, so I wrote a little feed that picks a random album, each day, then serves that as the single RSS item. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2pfpmjcdr1gdhctyh667qy5)) - Note: The whole mechanism in one sentence: a one-item feed that replaces its entry daily — reusable for any owned list. - Tags: atom/zettel/z1, atom/literature/h1 - I thought RSS could be useful here, so I wrote a little feed that picks a random album, each day, then serves that as the single RSS item. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2zdvwffccx3sfq3yq4p2car)) - This works great because my RSS reader, Feedbin will happily build those up if I don’t get around to checking. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2pfpxc3nbwq98bqywdqvfr4)) - Note: Why the single-item design holds: durable state lives in the subscriber's reader, so the publisher stores no history. - Tags: atom/literature/h2 ## New Highlights added 2026-09-21 at 5:45 PM - I thought RSS could be useful here, so I wrote a little feed that picks a random album, each day, then serves that as the single RSS item. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2pfpmjcdr1gdhctyh667qy5)) - Note: The whole mechanism in one sentence: a one-item feed that replaces its entry daily — reusable for any owned list. - Tags: atom/zettel/z1, atom/literature/h1 - I thought RSS could be useful here, so I wrote a little feed that picks a random album, each day, then serves that as the single RSS item. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2zdvwffccx3sfq3yq4p2car)) - This works great because my RSS reader, Feedbin will happily build those up if I don’t get around to checking. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2pfpxc3nbwq98bqywdqvfr4)) - Note: Why the single-item design holds: durable state lives in the subscriber's reader, so the publisher stores no history. - Tags: atom/literature/h2 ## New Highlights added 2026-09-21 at 6:45 PM - I thought RSS could be useful here, so I wrote a little feed that picks a random album, each day, then serves that as the single RSS item. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2pfpmjcdr1gdhctyh667qy5)) - Note: The whole mechanism in one sentence: a one-item feed that replaces its entry daily — reusable for any owned list. - Tags: atom/zettel/z1, atom/literature/h1 - I thought RSS could be useful here, so I wrote a little feed that picks a random album, each day, then serves that as the single RSS item. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2zdvwffccx3sfq3yq4p2car)) - This works great because my RSS reader, Feedbin will happily build those up if I don’t get around to checking. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2pfpxc3nbwq98bqywdqvfr4)) - Note: Why the single-item design holds: durable state lives in the subscriber's reader, so the publisher stores no history. - Tags: atom/literature/h2 ## New Highlights added 2026-09-22 at 8:52 PM - I thought RSS could be useful here, so I wrote a little feed that picks a random album, each day, then serves that as the single RSS item. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2pfpmjcdr1gdhctyh667qy5)) - Note: The whole mechanism in one sentence: a one-item feed that replaces its entry daily — reusable for any owned list. - Tags: atom/zettel/z1, atom/literature/h1 - I thought RSS could be useful here, so I wrote a little feed that picks a random album, each day, then serves that as the single RSS item. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2zdvwffccx3sfq3yq4p2car)) - This works great because my RSS reader, Feedbin will happily build those up if I don’t get around to checking. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2pfpxc3nbwq98bqywdqvfr4)) - Note: Why the single-item design holds: durable state lives in the subscriber's reader, so the publisher stores no history. - Tags: atom/literature/h2 ## New Highlights added 2026-09-25 at 1:01 PM - I thought RSS could be useful here, so I wrote a little feed that picks a random album, each day, then serves that as the single RSS item. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2pfpmjcdr1gdhctyh667qy5)) - Note: The whole mechanism in one sentence: a one-item feed that replaces its entry daily — reusable for any owned list. - Tags: atom/zettel/z1, atom/literature/h1 - I thought RSS could be useful here, so I wrote a little feed that picks a random album, each day, then serves that as the single RSS item. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2zdvwffccx3sfq3yq4p2car)) - This works great because my RSS reader, Feedbin will happily build those up if I don’t get around to checking. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2pfpxc3nbwq98bqywdqvfr4)) - Note: Why the single-item design holds: durable state lives in the subscriber's reader, so the publisher stores no history. - Tags: atom/literature/h2 ## New Highlights added 2026-09-25 at 1:46 PM - I thought RSS could be useful here, so I wrote a little feed that picks a random album, each day, then serves that as the single RSS item. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2pfpmjcdr1gdhctyh667qy5)) - Note: The whole mechanism in one sentence: a one-item feed that replaces its entry daily — reusable for any owned list. - Tags: atom/zettel/z1, atom/literature/h1 - I thought RSS could be useful here, so I wrote a little feed that picks a random album, each day, then serves that as the single RSS item. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2zdvwffccx3sfq3yq4p2car)) - This works great because my RSS reader, Feedbin will happily build those up if I don’t get around to checking. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2pfpxc3nbwq98bqywdqvfr4)) - Note: Why the single-item design holds: durable state lives in the subscriber's reader, so the publisher stores no history. - Tags: atom/literature/h2 ## New Highlights added 2026-09-25 at 2:46 PM - I thought RSS could be useful here, so I wrote a little feed that picks a random album, each day, then serves that as the single RSS item. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2pfpmjcdr1gdhctyh667qy5)) - Note: The whole mechanism in one sentence: a one-item feed that replaces its entry daily — reusable for any owned list. - Tags: atom/zettel/z1, atom/literature/h1 - I thought RSS could be useful here, so I wrote a little feed that picks a random album, each day, then serves that as the single RSS item. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2zdvwffccx3sfq3yq4p2car)) - This works great because my RSS reader, Feedbin will happily build those up if I don’t get around to checking. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2pfpxc3nbwq98bqywdqvfr4)) - Note: Why the single-item design holds: durable state lives in the subscriber's reader, so the publisher stores no history. - Tags: atom/literature/h2 ## New Highlights added 2026-09-25 at 4:30 PM - I thought RSS could be useful here, so I wrote a little feed that picks a random album, each day, then serves that as the single RSS item. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2pfpmjcdr1gdhctyh667qy5)) - Note: The whole mechanism in one sentence: a one-item feed that replaces its entry daily — reusable for any owned list. - Tags: atom/zettel/z1, atom/literature/h1 - I thought RSS could be useful here, so I wrote a little feed that picks a random album, each day, then serves that as the single RSS item. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2zdvwffccx3sfq3yq4p2car)) - This works great because my RSS reader, Feedbin will happily build those up if I don’t get around to checking. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2pfpxc3nbwq98bqywdqvfr4)) - Note: Why the single-item design holds: durable state lives in the subscriber's reader, so the publisher stores no history. - Tags: atom/literature/h2 ## New Highlights added 2026-09-26 at 5:49 PM - I thought RSS could be useful here, so I wrote a little feed that picks a random album, each day, then serves that as the single RSS item. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2pfpmjcdr1gdhctyh667qy5)) - Note: The whole mechanism in one sentence: a one-item feed that replaces its entry daily — reusable for any owned list. - Tags: atom/zettel/z1, atom/literature/h1 - I thought RSS could be useful here, so I wrote a little feed that picks a random album, each day, then serves that as the single RSS item. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2zdvwffccx3sfq3yq4p2car)) - This works great because my RSS reader, Feedbin will happily build those up if I don’t get around to checking. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2pfpxc3nbwq98bqywdqvfr4)) - Note: Why the single-item design holds: durable state lives in the subscriber's reader, so the publisher stores no history. - Tags: atom/literature/h2