Now the Daily Express RSS feeds are in Latin

There is something very wrong with the RSS feeds from the Daily Express - and I don't just mean that the constant focus on Diana makes it look like they are ten years out-of-date.

I've already written about how I had to pull the Express content from the Chipwrapper sports feed, as the stories in it still have Sam Allardyce at Newcastle, and Fabio Capello denying links with Liverpool - December 5th was the last time the feed updated.

I've recently being doing some development work for some Chipwrapper features, which led me to the Daily Express 'Entertainment (All Areas)' feed at http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/rss/entertainment.xml. The feed only has three items, and it must be said it doesn't look like the Express is at the cutting edge of celebrity gossip with headlines like:

• Callum best get's a trowel in dad's will
• Michael Jackson whiter than white
• Kylie Minogue plays tennis

Still, it wasn't just the headlines that were a problem - take the abstract for the story about Callum Best's less-than-glamourous inheritance.

Decima et quinta decima eodem modo typi qui nunc nobis videntur parum clari fiant sollemnes in? Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetuer adipiscing elit? Me lius quod ii legunt saepius claritas est etiam processus dynamicus qui sequitur mutationem consuetudi um lectorum!

I'm sure I've seen that Latin somewhere before - what's the French for déjà vu?

The links associated with each item lead not to the Express site, but to a sub-domain of the digital agency that the Daily Express use. Following the Kylie story gives a 404 error at venus.netro42.com/cakee/posts/view/177 - which has been indexed by Google incidentally.

The Daily Express are in Netro42's portfolio list:

"Netro42 were commissioned to relaunch the Daily Express website. The brief was to create a website that reflected the brand and heritage of the title whilst bringing the website up-to-date and incorporating the ability for users to interact and contribute to articles online. The website is underpinned by a comprehensive content management system allowing the Daily Express editorial team to update and maintain the content quickly and easily".

Netro42 boast that anything is possible 'when you employ a full service agency with technical, creative, marketing and e-business experience and expertise'. Including, it seems, the possibility of your live RSS feeds carrying dummy content and pointing at your agency's staging servers.

Posted by Martin Belam, January 15, 2008
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