Testing Blogroll Alternatives
A few blog posts ago I mused about the out-of-control nature of my blogroll. Marshall pointed me to Grazr. I'm giving it a test run. Check it out on my sidebar.
It took me a bit to figure out I had to post my OPML .xml file on my site so I could reference it through Grazr. I had to decide what to make public and what of my own personal garbage and junk reading I'd prefer that you, dear reader, did NOT see. I did a rough cut and I'm sure I should clean up more. This is not as easy as automatically having bloglines generate the blogroll, but it sure is neater. I'd be curious to know what you think.
Edit: Just saw this interesting blog post on the Grazr blog asking the question, "what do you think a reading list is?" Now we are getting to the nubbins.
posted by Nancy White at 8:37 PM
8 Comments:
I think it's neat-o. I'll be interested to see if other folks have thoughts on it.
Hi Nancy, I'd love to hear your impressions of Grazr. What do you think so far? Sounds like you had a little bit of trouble installing it. I'm trying to make it easier to configure and get the grazr widget but all that's in the next iteration of the code. In any event, thanks for trying it out!
I like that it has compressed my subs down to something far more manageable to read on a page. What I liked about using the bloglines blogroll is that my blogroll changed as I changed my subs. This requires me to update my blogroll and knowing me, that may be futile!
It took me a while to figure out how to rename the exported OPML file from bloglines, throw it up on my site, then feed it into Grazr. This is definitely a geeky thing, not someone can just plug and play.
This experience reinforces my theory that it is really easy to get into blogging and then the learning curve to add cool things is steep. So I look forward to things like Yahoo Widget approach to things we can add to our blogs. This requires that the blog tools create hooks and then the widget makers can program to those hooks.
I know I'm using all the wrong words. This is the problem when you have just enough knowledge to be dangerous!
In theory you should be able to have grazr and bloglines remain in sync. I'm not a bloglines user but I've seen a URL that looks like the following...
http://bloglines.com/export?id=XXXXX
You can use that as the *input* to grazr and it will consume it. That way you never need to move it at all. :)
So I signed up for bloglines account to do some testing and indeed you can keep your subscriptions synchronized. I signed up with the "blog id" of mikepk and used
http://bloglines.com/export?id=mikepk
Putting this url (with your own id of course) as the root for grazr allows it to stay in sync!
Additionally there is the ability to mark only a single folder for bloglines to export (say the things you want to share vs your private stuff) by using the query string option of 'folder' you can specify that only that folder appears as the blogroll.
I made a bloglines folder called Open and moved a couple of feeds to it and it used the export
http://bloglines.com/export?id=mikepk&folder=Open
and it only shows that directory! Neat. There's one glaring problem though in that bloglines always encapsulates the entire reading list in a top level folder "subscriptions" which makes the box look empty. Maybe I'll make a special bloglines mode just to strip out that top level.
Boo, hiss, thumbs down on Grazr replacing the traditional (sic) blogroll.
Gone is the big picture of reads or links you recommend; gone is the scrollable view of things you've found of interest. In place of that is yet another somewhat-walled-off directory.
With a blogroll you were sharing. Now, with Grazr, you are compartmentalizing, and hiding items from view. From sharing to closeting. Feh!
It must be added that I write this as a lurker who was prompted to become a *visibly active* participant. Participation is another story, but the Grazr net effect will be to remove incentive or impetus for more lurkers to openly interact, as there will be that much less of you (your interests, recommendations, concerns, pointers, et al) openly displayed on the blog, and thus less with which to interact, respond, or think about.
To which I say: PHOOEY!
Hey, if it got you to delurk Dean, then that's something good! :-)
Now I'm curious. Do you read on the blog or in a feed reader?
This is the great mystery. Who reads what and how?
Well, to be honest, I peruse my own blogroll (handmade and maintained) an click on friends and fellow bloggers or sites of interest on a haphazard basis. Truth be told, I've been back to your blog a few times, but hadn't followed the commments thread...and found this in the midst of a link search/analysis. I subscribe to a few aggretators or newsreaders, but rarely use them. There are sites I visit daily, weekly, regularly, sometimes, etc. Then there are links from other sites and recommendations of friends. You fall into all those categories!
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