For the album/scan/tracklist feeds, it'd be updating an XML file each time an update is made to something. Here's an example of what one
might look like for album updates:
HTML Code:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rss version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>VGMdb Album Updates</title>
<link>http://www.vgmdb.net/db/recent.php</link>
<description>Recent album updates to VGMdb</description>
<language>en-us</language>
<copyright>Copyright 2007 VGMdb.net</copyright>
<lastBuildDate>Mon, 01 Oct 2007 14:30:00 GMT</lastBuildDate>
<docs>http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss</docs>
<item>
<title>Parade of Happiness / Winbee [KICA-7649]</title>
<link>http://www.vgmdb.net/db/albums.php?id=4820</link>
<description>Parade of Happiness / Winbee [KICA-7649] updated by seanne.</description>
<pubDate>Mon, 01 Oct 2007 14:30:00 GMT</pubDate>
</item>
<item>
<title>Parade of Happiness / Winbee [KICA-7649]</title>
<link>http://www.vgmdb.net/db/albums.php?id=4820</link>
<description>Parade of Happiness / Winbee [KICA-7649] updated by seanne.</description>
<pubDate>Mon, 01 Oct 2007 14:18:00 GMT</pubDate>
</item>
...
<item>
<title>Parade of Happiness / Winbee [KICA-7649]</title>
<link>http://www.vgmdb.net/db/albums.php?id=4820</link>
<description>Parade of Happiness / Winbee [KICA-7649] added by seanne.</description>
<pubDate>Mon, 01 Oct 2007 14:16:00 GMT</pubDate>
</item>
<item>
<title>Winbee's Neo Cinema 2 ~Paradise side~ [KICA-7642]</title>
<link>http://www.vgmdb.net/db/albums.php?id=4140</link>
<description>Winbee's Neo Cinema 2 ~Paradise side~ [KICA-7642] updated by seanne.</description>
<pubDate>Mon, 01 Oct 2007 13:53:00 GMT</pubDate>
</item>
...
</channel>
</rss>
The spec is
here. There are a lot of optional elements (contact information, tagging, etc.) and a bunch of different ways you can fill out the fields (perhaps a longer description for items that actually tells what was changed in each update, for example), but what I've got above at least covers the basics of what'd be in the feed.
Then, for browsers to autodetect the feed, you'd stick something like this in the <head> section of the album updates page: <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS 2.0" href="albumupdates.xml" />
As far as front page news updates go, that'd probably have to tie in somehow with vBulletin. I dunno if the capability is built in, if there's a plug-in available, or if custom code would have to be written, although I'd greatly expect one of the first two cases to hold.