What do they have in common? In the past I have sported one but would not be caught dead wearing one now.
There is value, however, in sharing a list of the blogs you read or subscribe to, it’s just sidebar clutter is not really the best place. On some long frequency wavelength, I remember to update (maybe once a year).
It is still a sad missing and some-cheap-intern-could-code-it-in-a-few-days feature that Google Reader lacks a way to syndicate a list of the feeds we have in there. You can syndicate/share what you have “shared” in terms of items form different feeds, but nothing to share the sources.
Ah, but there is a 2 step end around. I use GReader’s export feature to save my feeds as an OPML. Then I go to my never-user-for-anything-else account on Bloglines. I then delete everything I have in my feed list there, and import the OPML file I exported from Google Reader.
I then use the Bloglines Blogroll Wizard to create a cut and paste javascript code– I use this to display my feed eating list as a WordPress Page I call my Blog Pile and also provide a local link to my OPML file.
Update: D’Arcy Norman (comment below) has a much better approach- use a Grazr widget, so once again, I trashed my approach and am Copying D’Arcy%trade;
So the big hair is not coming back, and likewise, the Blogroll has a shaved new appearance.
Pssss – If anyone is noticing, I am playing with the Zemanta WordPress Plugin to add the related links below… more to be barked at in a future post, but I am trying it out and tossing it around the yard.
Related articles by Zemanta
- Destruction Of Bloglines Now Complete; Founder Prepares To Switch To Google Reader
- Feature Request: Google Reader
- Sidebar Widgets – Google Reader Shared Items
I periodically dump an export of my Google Reader subscriptions to a static XML file, which I then copy onto my server and use the awesome Grazr embedded app to render a view of the subscriptions.
http://www.darcynorman.net/links/
I’ve been working on removing clutter from my blog – links got dumped a long time ago, and I’m still working on organizing things better into pages/sections/subpages rather than Big Pages With Everything Dumped On Them. Still, even my minimal sidebar stuff feels cluttered. Time to rethink that… what needs to be there…
@D’Arcy Norman: Well….there you go again… that’s a better solution! Thanks, will copy D’Arcy (again).
I have always been fighting sidebar clutter by not publishing most of my blogroll. I recently followed your example and put my blogroll as a menu item in my header in one of my blogs.
I notice that Zemanta is not giving you related items on many of your posts. I have not used that plugin myself, but if you are not satisfied with it but like the idea of related posts I wrote my own plugin for that which generates related posts based on your post tags (or categories if you prefer that method) – You’re welcome to try it out if you are looking for that kind of functionality.
Hiya David,
I have more clutter to clean, plus I’ve had the same template for like 4 years 😉
Zemanta is doing something different from what you are talking about- your plugin relates a current post to others I wrote; Zemanta tries to relate to posts outside of my site.. As I am editing, it is looking at my words and offering suggested links to add, so I selected the ones there, so if thet are not good matches, it is author error… the sources are limited and it is far from full fledged semanticism. They also suggest images you can also use (but they are just tiny thumbs).
I see the difference. That’s much different than what I was trying to do. It also explains why so many of your posts don’t have related items – you’d have to go back through and ad them.
Good luck with that. I love seeing all the things you try and reading your evaluations.