4 ms·

What's the use case for something like this ? Looks a bit like what any RSS reader would provide. Or maybe it's meant to publish links to other blogs on a sepa

What's the use case for something like this ? Looks a bit like what any RSS reader would provide. Or maybe it's meant to publish links to other blogs on a separate site, which could work if the articles have a somewhat permissive license, I guess.

reaperducer 7y ago
What's the use case for something like this? Looks like it takes RSS feeds and makes a blogroll. I thought most blogging platforms had that function built-in. Certainly Blogger does (ex: http://www.sloopin.com http://www.sloopin.com). Maybe this is for if you built your own blogging platform and don't have a blogroll plug-in/feature available.
vbsteven 7y ago
It allows bloggers that want to keep control over their own platform and content (read: not use Medium) to be part of a bigger network of selfhosted blogs. Like in the good old days. I for one hope it catches on
- flunhat 7y ago
  How does it solve curation & search? Edit: I'm asking because I suspect your answer is going to be "it doesn't/that's not the point/who cares?" But people who read blogs will just flock to the centralized services that solve curation & search quite effectively and keep users reading. And then this centralized service will have strong incentives to become _more_ centralized, not less, and decentralized solutions like this one never really gain traction and become functionally irrelevant.
  - swsieber 7y ago
    It's meant to be used and configured for individual blogs - you provide the sites you're following and it picks out articles. I'd say the selection of blogs you follow is curation enough. It's not meant for use a la medium.
  - boomlinde 7y ago
    What does it mean for this to be functionally irrelevant? It fulfills its functional purpose regardless of whether it's popular or not.
  - onion2k 7y ago
    But people who read blogs will just flock to the centralized services that solve curation & search quite effectively and keep users reading. I don't think that's true. People read blogs by writers they like (they go directly to that writer) , or about topics that interest them (they follow links from a website or social account about that topic) , or because they're looking for a specific post about a specific thing (eg they Googled). None of those things are best served by gathering writers on a single centralised platform. In fact, so long as blog posts are open the reader probably doesn't care how the posts are published. (Side note: this is the flaw in Medium. No one want the subscribe to the Netflix of blogs. People might pay to access their favourite writer, but not in the long term.) Centralized blog platforms serve the writer. They're easy, they often have good tools, and they have an audience, although I doubt that's actually very useful to most writers - just having more readers without caring who they are is pure vanity. You want relevant interested readers if your blog is going to be effective promotion for you. Ultimately, blog platforms are fine. Writers are a great customer base to have. Just don't kid yourself blog platforms benefit readers. They don't.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- tonyarkles 7y ago
  Yeah, I remember webrings back in the day and absolutely miss it. The discovery aspect of it was awesome! You come across a great article through a search engine and are curious who the author likes reading. Most centralized platforms seem to recommend other authors based entirely on the topic. You’re reading a post about Rails Generators? It’ll recommend other articles about the same thing. With WebRings it was way more diverse than that. End up on an electronics page and discover all sorts of other fascinating authors doing entirely different things.
  - thinkingemote 7y ago
    It was also a key feature of Google reader kind of. You would be able to follow other readers and not just publishers also increasing discovery.
Sir_Cmpwn 7y ago
You rig it into your own blog. It's designed for use with static site generators. Check out the links on the bottom of my blog posts: https://drewdevault.com/2019/06/13/My-journey-from-MIT-to-GPL.html https://drewdevault.com/2019/06/13/My-journey-from-MIT-to-GP... They're generated by this software.
- frenchman99 7y ago
  Oh, OK, thanks for the example. That's nice !
pvg 7y ago
I've never been able to find an answer to this I could make sense of, even back when 'blogrolls' and 'webrings' were actually in popular use.
majani 7y ago
It's good for people with content that doesn't align with the values of employees of major platforms e.g right wing publishers, the porn publishers of Tumblr etc. Such people are always at risk of deplatforming and it's nice for their content to be spread out all over the web to prevent that risk.

reaperducer 7y ago

What's the use case for something like this? Looks like it takes RSS feeds and makes a blogroll. I thought most blogging platforms had that function built-in. Certainly Blogger does (ex: http://www.sloopin.com http://www.sloopin.com). Maybe this is for if you built your own blogging platform and don't have a blogroll plug-in/feature available.

vbsteven 7y ago

It allows bloggers that want to keep control over their own platform and content (read: not use Medium) to be part of a bigger network of selfhosted blogs. Like in the good old days. I for one hope it catches on

flunhat 7y ago
How does it solve curation & search? Edit: I'm asking because I suspect your answer is going to be "it doesn't/that's not the point/who cares?" But people who read blogs will just flock to the centralized services that solve curation & search quite effectively and keep users reading. And then this centralized service will have strong incentives to become _more_ centralized, not less, and decentralized solutions like this one never really gain traction and become functionally irrelevant.
- swsieber 7y ago
  It's meant to be used and configured for individual blogs - you provide the sites you're following and it picks out articles. I'd say the selection of blogs you follow is curation enough. It's not meant for use a la medium.
- boomlinde 7y ago
  What does it mean for this to be functionally irrelevant? It fulfills its functional purpose regardless of whether it's popular or not.
- onion2k 7y ago
  But people who read blogs will just flock to the centralized services that solve curation & search quite effectively and keep users reading. I don't think that's true. People read blogs by writers they like (they go directly to that writer) , or about topics that interest them (they follow links from a website or social account about that topic) , or because they're looking for a specific post about a specific thing (eg they Googled). None of those things are best served by gathering writers on a single centralised platform. In fact, so long as blog posts are open the reader probably doesn't care how the posts are published. (Side note: this is the flaw in Medium. No one want the subscribe to the Netflix of blogs. People might pay to access their favourite writer, but not in the long term.) Centralized blog platforms serve the writer. They're easy, they often have good tools, and they have an audience, although I doubt that's actually very useful to most writers - just having more readers without caring who they are is pure vanity. You want relevant interested readers if your blog is going to be effective promotion for you. Ultimately, blog platforms are fine. Writers are a great customer base to have. Just don't kid yourself blog platforms benefit readers. They don't.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
tonyarkles 7y ago
Yeah, I remember webrings back in the day and absolutely miss it. The discovery aspect of it was awesome! You come across a great article through a search engine and are curious who the author likes reading. Most centralized platforms seem to recommend other authors based entirely on the topic. You’re reading a post about Rails Generators? It’ll recommend other articles about the same thing. With WebRings it was way more diverse than that. End up on an electronics page and discover all sorts of other fascinating authors doing entirely different things.
- thinkingemote 7y ago
  It was also a key feature of Google reader kind of. You would be able to follow other readers and not just publishers also increasing discovery.

Sir_Cmpwn 7y ago

You rig it into your own blog. It's designed for use with static site generators. Check out the links on the bottom of my blog posts: https://drewdevault.com/2019/06/13/My-journey-from-MIT-to-GPL.html https://drewdevault.com/2019/06/13/My-journey-from-MIT-to-GP... They're generated by this software.

frenchman99 7y ago
Oh, OK, thanks for the example. That's nice !

pvg 7y ago

I've never been able to find an answer to this I could make sense of, even back when 'blogrolls' and 'webrings' were actually in popular use.

majani 7y ago

It's good for people with content that doesn't align with the values of employees of major platforms e.g right wing publishers, the porn publishers of Tumblr etc. Such people are always at risk of deplatforming and it's nice for their content to be spread out all over the web to prevent that risk.