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Collecting posts for a weekly round-up
< 10 reasons for doing a weekly round-up | Unsorted Posts | Three tips for thinking up new content >
On Monday I listed 10 reasons for doing a weekly round-up. One of the comments asked how I keep track of the posts I like from one week to the next. I'm writing this post to explain how I do it. Thanks to Atms for giving me the idea.Use Google Reader.
I highly recommend using Google Reader so you can subscribe to your favourite sites and keep up with all the latest posts. If you need any help with it, check out my Google Reader guide.Start reading some sites.
It probably goes without saying that you won't find many good posts if you never venture outside your own site. It's a really good idea to try and network with other sites. I'd particularly recommend that you network with sites of a similar size to yours.As you find sites you like, subscribe to them. Then you'll know when they have a new post just by going into Google Reader. No need to keep checking the site.
Star the posts you like.
Once you've subscribed to a site, you can use the "star" icon to highlight the posts you like. For instance, today I liked a post entitled April Fools' Jokes - Are They Truly Ingenious? I'm a day or two late, but I only read it today. Here's the post in Google Reader:On the left, you'll see a star outline. Click the star and it'll turn yellow, like this:
Tip: Although I think you should subscribe to the sites you like, sometimes you only like one post (rare, but it has happened to me) and sometimes you already subscribe to a lot of sites. If you really, really want to star a post without subscribing to a site, all you have to do is this:
- Subscribe to the site. (Bear with me!)
- Star the item.
- Unsubscribe from the site.
Review them as often as you like.
Once you've starred some posts, use the "starred items" link in Google Reader to see them all.All you have to do now is look at the date and start from the day after your last round-up. As you can see below, I starred quite a lot of items on Monday:
Other than the post I mentioned above, I've decided to blank out the titles of the other posts. You'll have to wait and see which posts get included in this weeks round-up. I guess you could go to each site and look for the latest post, but remember that I don't always read the newest post as soon as it's published.
Another use for starred items
I've had a few people ask if I can allow them to subscribe to comments on specific posts. This is a good idea and I'd like to include this feature in the near future, but I have some other things to do first (as I write my own system, I'll be doing the code for this myself - so it takes time).In the meantime, why not use starred items to keep track of the posts you've commented on, not just the ones you like? Every so often, you can look at your starred items to check back and see if any new comments have been made since yours.
Since I started commenting on more blogs, I much prefer this method. If I subscribed by email, my inbox would be flooded with replies. I like to keep my email and my favourite posts / recent comments separate.
However, it does raise the question of how to distinguish between posts you like and those you comment on. My suggestion here is to comment on the posts you like. That's what I do!
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Comments on Collecting posts for a weekly round-up
Cool! ...this might be a stupid question, or maybe a question you wouldn't want to answer but is there any way to do this without the use of rss feeds? (other than manually anyway). Probably not... but a girl has to ask!
I try to add posts to mine throughout the week so that it's not too hard to remember which posts I wanted to include.
I like your method however, I never got along very well with google reader so had to switch to bloglines. And now I have that many posts saved it's not always easy to spot which ones I want specific to this week. I think google reader is a bit better than bloglines (my computer just kept freezing whenever I tried to use it).
Laura - I used newsgroups a bit in 1998, but not much. They moved too quickly for me (and not because of spam - they were so busy, yet so hard to keep track of). I discovered web forums in 2000 and I liked them a lot more than newsgroups. Then again I was trying to look at them in Outlook Express, yuck! Anyway, I can see the similarity you mention.
Also, there seems to be a certain snobbery from bloggers who think forums are outdated. Meanwhile, forum users who don't use blogs are about as thrilled with blogs as bloggers are with forums. I know it doesn't apply to everyone, but the two are really not that different. I won't go on about that too much here because I have a post about it: Blogs and forums - is there much of a difference?
The difference with an RSS reader is that you still have to go to the site to comment. Thinking about it, I wouldn't be surprised if someone decides to make something that lets you comment right in the reader. I actually wouldn't like that because my site has more on it than I put in the feed. And while a reader is great for reading new content, it's not the best way to read a bunch of related content (see my tutorials for an example).
You can probably tell that you found a subject where I have lots to say! :)
fragileheart - I guess you could bookmark the posts instead. Or, you could stumble them. You could then look through your bookmarks or your StumbleUpon history. If you use multiple computers, maybe [http://del.icio.us]del.icio.us[/link] is more suitable. I think that Google Reader is one of the easiest ways though, mainly because the starred items are displayed in date order.
Lightening - I haven't tried Bloglines, what does it do differently? I doubt I'd switch, but I like to keep my options open. :) Which one of the two made your PC freeze, Google Reader or Bloglines? I've found that a number of sites can freeze Firefox 2 - especially Facebook, sometimes Gmail, but it can even happen on my site sometimes. I've had more luck with Firefox 3, but it's still in beta so most addons don't work yet. Which browser do you use?
Thanks for the comments. :)
The only thing I really know about Bloglines is that you can set up unlimited blogrolls and post the list of sites to your blog.
I still like forums. Didn't know about any snobbery with forums versus blogs. But it's been awhile since I was active in a forum. I remember when the web chats and IMs started getting big. They seemed to be gaining on the forums (messageboards seem the same as forums to me though no doubt some would not agree). But, forums didn't need someone to be there to keep them active. You could go to a forum any time and read what was there. But it was pretty lonely sitting in a chat or waiting at an IM with no one one the other side. I think that is why web chat and IMs died down. They still have their fans but not as big as they were when ICQ was around. Now I bet most people have never heard of ICQ.
Internet start ups are so interesting. I really like to watch them. I tend to join a lot of new startups and get active if they really seem to have something I like. Most of them I forget about and later bump into them on another blog and remember to check back.
Ah, I see - didn't know Bloglines did that. Handy!
There are several blogging forums on the web, so that bridges the gap somewhat. The fact you don't have to be on a forum all the time is part of the reason why some forums never get off the ground - it's so hard to get people to join when you have no existing users, and it can die out very quickly.
I've also heard conflicting comments in terms of how much a forum owner should post. Some say it looks bad if the forum owner posts too much as it looks like nobody else uses the forum. Others think it's bad if the owner posts too little because they mustn't care much for their forum.
I love the concept of IMs, but I've had so many problems with the IM clients. Long story. I'm trying Google Talk at the moment, it looks pretty good but you do have to use Gmail. Sometimes I feel pretty detached from other bloggers - comments are good, but not always ideal. Maybe I should email a few people occasionally.
I didn't realize that Google Reader would hang on to the starred posts even if you later unsubscribe from the feed - thanks for that tip!
Hi Jen, glad it helped you! :)
Were you around when newsgroups were still good? Reading your post I was thinking that blogging is getting more and more like the old newsgroups. RSS feeds are taking the place of what used to be a newsgroup reader. I think the one I used was Secret Agent. I just remember the icon had a green fedora hat.
I've been against the RSS feeds as a way to read blogs. But, now that I think of the newsgroups I'm rethinking that. If you set up your newsreader/ feed reader to collect all the posts in one mass you could read them like a topic based newsgroup, without the flame wars and spam.
Also, it was the spam (and junk posters) who killed off the newsgroups as a good source for online information and fun. It's been hurting the blogs too, as far as the blog readers. Maybe an RSS feed really is the way to go. As much as I'd not like missing the atmosphere and creative layout of the blog itself.