Sunday, July 10, 2005

Aggregation

   I wrote earlier about looking at where hits to my journal are coming from. In examining the various statistics provided to me by StatCounter, I noticed some regularly recurring locations and ISPs. That's the coolest; the knowledge that I have regular readers. At least I assume that there aren't several people in, for example, Oakville, Ontario, using Cogeco Cable, visiting my site. I suspect my friend, Paula (Queen of the Servins)(don't ask) comes by almost daily (thank you, Paula).
   What interested me was the fact that Paula drops by almost daily, regardless of whether I have updated recently, or not. Perhaps some others of you do as well. I know I used to spend hours clicking on each and every one of the sixty plus blogs I read, only to find that only about 20% of them had updated since that last time I checked. A definite time waster.
   Then I discovered Bloglines.com. Bloglines is a web based syndicated feed reader. If you are staring at your monitor right now in uncomprehending, slack jawed blankness, I will explain. Many blogs and journals provide what is called syndication feeds. AOL journals do, automatically. You don't even have to turn them on. Every time an AOL journaler publishes a new entry the AOL journals software generates syndication feeds. In this case, RSS and atom feeds.
   What good are they? Well, you can get a piece of software called a feed reader that will go and look at all your favourite blogs every time you sign on to the Internet, and tell you which ones have been updated since you last checked. Then, you need only visit the ones with new entries. A huge time saver.
   Bloglines is for those that are not comfortable downloading and installing software. Just go to the website, create an account, enter the urls of the blogs/journals you read, and it will generate a list for you, which you can visit in your web browser whenever you want.
   I just looked at 'my feeds' on bloglines. I am subscribed to 65 feeds. Probably fewer than twenty of them update daily. Which means that when I click on 'my feeds' in the morning, I probably don't have to spend the time to visit forty or more of my favourite blogs that day.
   Another time saver is the fact that I can read many of the blog entries right there in the the reader on the bloglines site. I don't have to click through to the journal in question unless I am moved to comment. Not all of the blog feeds offer the full entry in the reader, but many of them do. Those that don't typically have revenue generating ads on their site, and if you don't click through, they don't get paid.
   So, if you are finding that you take an inordinate amount of time browsing through blogs and journals, check out a dedicated software feed reader, or Bloglines.com.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tricky Tricky. I'm one of those who check your blog daily.....could you tell? Am I being monitored for activity through your journal? My anonymous cruizin through journals <unless I comment> isn't feeling so sneaky now.
Thanks for the tip, I could use all the time savers I can get. I turned off all but about 10 alerts awhile ago because I couldn't take the overload anymore.
Rebecca

Anonymous said...

I just use alerts because I only read AOL journals.  It's part of that boringness (is this a word?) that is me!  ;)

Anonymous said...

I was kind of wondering how that atom feed works.  Thanks for explaining.  I'll have to try it.  
Lisa

http://journals.aol.com/randlprysock/AdventuresFromFlorida/  

Anonymous said...

Ah, but that's what I use AOL Alerts for. If they're working, they tell me which of the (only 14) AOL journals I read have updated, as soon as it happens.  

It's true that that leaves me out in the cold on the few non-AOL blogs I read, but LJ is covered by my Friends page, and the others, well, I just don;t read them as much as I should.

Okay, so it's not a perfect system.  So I just went to Bloglines for the first time in nearly a year.  I like that the feeds put the oldest entries on top, but otherwise there' no advantage on the AOL ones, and the Blogspot one I searched for didn't turn up.  Eh.  That leaves making light, and it doesn't take long to check that one directly.

Karen

Anonymous said...

Very interesting. Thx for sharing. Will it also let you know if someone has posted a comment to your journal if you keep your own on alert there? My regular AOL alerts seem to work, but the comments isn't. Grrr! ~ Lori

Anonymous said...

I have bloglines saved, but have been too lazy to enter the URL's. With aol alerts down or damaged half the time, I tend to check in just to be sure I didn't miss anything, but you tend to be so boring that I fall asleep before I remember to comment..okay, think we have probably dragged THAT dead horse long enough!! ;) Penny

Anonymous said...

Wow, I'm now famous (infamous?).  Well, since I actually only check into 2, count 'em, 2 blogs daily, efficiency is not a priority here.   And I like to read comments too so there's usually something to read every day even if you're off gestating something profound, Paul.   Yes, it's worth the drive to Aurora :)

Paula        

Anonymous said...

I use Bloglines with the Firefox browser.  When I find a blog or journal I like, I just hit the "Sub with Bloglines" button on my toolbar and it adds it to my list.  I've got another button on my toolbar that takes me straight to my Bloglines feeds.  Very easy to add blogs and journals, very easy to get to them without clogging my mailbox with AOL Alerts.

Anonymous said...

I use the alerts too...but for some reason over the past year some have deleted themselves...so it's not a sure fire way to do it, then again it could be me! I do try to  pop in every now & then and it's one reason why I read the board messages too....Sandi