I mentioned in an earlier post, that I had promised Pearl a guest post for her blog, Interesting Observations.

Well, I finally got my act together, sent the finished post to Pearl, and she posted it today, along with some kind words.

Please go over and read “Free RSS Icons - Help visitors become regular readers“.

I’ve mention Pearl and her blog from time to time, but if you haven’t visited, then your missing some really great posts, at least the ones before my post. I highly suggest making the time to check out Interesting Observations.

Posted in Guest Posts, RSS, free stuff, LinkLove 2 Comments »

I saw BlogRush for the first time on Phil’s new blog Tech Fires, and I was a little curious. Then I followed the link from his widget, and I started to get really excited. This is really a great idea, and I wish I had thought of it.

You display a widget on your blog, much like the one pictured below. The widget has 5 links in it, which open up in a new window if one of your readers clicks on it. Every time you have a page load, a link to one of your posts is displayed somewhere else.

That’s right. One page load = one link. What is even better is that when you sign up, you choose a category for your blog. Your widget shows links from that category, and your link is displayed on other blogs in that category. In other words, your link is being displayed to readers who are already reading topics close to yours.

Now I thought that was well worth putting the widget on my site. Then I found out that BlogRush also acts like a pyramid scheme.

For every person who follows your referral id, or clicks on your widget, and signs up, you get a credit. Every page load they have, you get your link displayed on another blog.

The referrals from your referral count for you too, down through 10 generations of referrals. After so many generations, it isn’t one for one, but it is still better than nothing.

The only thing that I didn’t like is that you can’t choose a size for the widget. That is why it is a little larger than my sidebar. I was planning on resizing the sidebar’s a little bit anyway, I’ll just have to do it sooner. 

Posted in Promotion, widgets, RSS, Recommendations, Blogging, Web Tools 3 Comments »

Imagine this, you’re talking to your friend, and you start telling them about this great post which you just read. “I’ll email you a link” is what you tell them, “I subscribe to the RSS feed“. Feeling a little superior, since you are now a purveyor of fine knowledge, you go along your merry way.

It isn’t until later, when you finally get to a computer, that you realize you didn’t star or bookmark that post. How will you ever find it? How will you ever know that it was a Port 16 article?

Now your friend’s life will remain a hollow shell of an existence. The light of knowledge and wisdom will never shine it’s humorous, witty style of illumination into his dark part of the universe.

No need to worry, there’s still hope for your poor, unfortunate friend. Google has introduced a search feature in Google Reader! Not only can you search your feeds, but you can search individual folders (tags). Now you can find that post in a matter of seconds. Your superior feeling doesn’t have to fade like the output of a cheap inkjet.

Google also increased the number of unread posts that Reader will report as being unread. Previously it reported up to 100 unread feed items, after which it would display “100+”. Was it 101 unread posts, 200? There was no way to know, but now it reports up to 1000!

That little feature wasn’t mentioned in the post, but I tend to subscribe to a whole lot more feeds than I have any reasonable expectation of reading. Is it 1001 unread posts, 2000? I don’t know. Maybe they can bump it up to 10,000. I would have a chance then.

References:

Find a needle in a feedstack with Google Reader - Official Google Blog

Posted in RSS, Google Reader, Google, Internet 4 Comments »