# There's been a bit of talk about blogrolls instigated by Dave Winer (who else) and most recently Richard MacManus who is indiewebifying his personal site.
As you'll know, if you've been reading this for a while, I have taken a different approach and have a directory of people that have interacted with this site via webmentions - both blogs and micro.blog accounts.
Colin Devroe has been considering a blogroll but finds "linking to individual posts with some context provides more value than just a list of URLs."
I can see his point.
Part of the problem with people based following models on social networks is that you follow the whole person so see everything they post whether it is relevant to you or not. There is no filtering system.
Following blogs has the same issue, when you subscribe to a site's RSS feed you get everything unless it is category specific. Category feeds, however, have the problem in reverse - you might miss out on posts you would normally want to read.
But, as Richard says, a blogroll wasn't always just an isolated list of URLs. It was often accompanied by an OPML file allowing you to easily follow each of the blogs within it in your feed reader of choice.
It's then a very personal decision regarding the value gleaned from each subscription as they whether to keep it.
The growth of social and shuttering of Google Reader combined into a perfect storm with many eschewing feed readers, instead choosing to get their updates via Twitter or Facebook. That's fine if you're always on but the more casual social user will miss a lot.
Recently, aligned with the push for the open and indie webs, there seems to have been a resurgence in subscriptions via RSS. It also seems that new feed reader software is being developed and released on a reasonably regular basis.
The passion is returning.
Perhaps it's time for blogrolls and OPML files to make a comeback too.
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# Bit of a nervous few minutes on the train this morning. A guy dumped a bag on the seat next to me then disappeared. I presumed he'd gone to the toilet (he had) but seemed to be gone for ages. Was just deciding how long before I report it when he came back.
# Forgot to say, happy summer solstice ?
# Liked: Don’t call it a comeback | Twan van Elk...
Twan van Elk agrees it's time for blogrolls to make a comeback and is going to put one together.
Sonant Thoughts - Episode 29: Focused
Our phones can be incredibly productive devices but also massive distractions. We can take steps to ensure they are the former rather than the latter.
It's not perfect but I have made some key decisions to prevent my phone from facilitating me wasting time rather than filling it productively.
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# Just stopped myself from publishing a passive-aggressive subpost - like a subtweet but on a blog.
If I've got something to say I should say it properly and stand behind it.
Practice what you preach!
Yesterday I wrote a post about blogrolls. I published it on AltPlatform, the new tech blog I recently started with my old ReadWriteWeb friend Emre Sokullu. It was the second post in a series I’m doing about IndieWebifying my personal website. I got some great responses, which I’m going to discuss in this post. Firstly, a note about what I’m attempting to do in 2017 with blogging. My goal is to explore the latest social web technologies and learn how to do more on the Open Web. The main impetus is my growing dissatisfaction with Walled Garden social networks, like Facebook and Twitter. My spidey sense is picking up similar vibes across the Web. It’s difficult to define at this point, but there’s a feeling that something needs to change. And that something has a lot to do with openness, inclusivity and not letting powerful corporations dictate what we do and think. One of my blogging heroes, Dave Winer, wrote a very nice post in response to mine. He has been thinking about blogrolls too (amongst many other things – he’s always one step ahead of the rest of us). Dave wants to link blogrolls to the “river of news” products he has been developing in recent times. I need to look more closely at this. I downloaded his Electric River product, which he says is “the closest to what Radio UserLand did with aggregation in 2002.” Radio Userland was how I got my start in blogging, so I’m intrigued. I will play with Electric River and put my thoughts into a separate post soon. Dave also pointed out the need to be open about which Open Web technologies to try. As he noted, I have been experimenting with the IndieWeb community’s suite of tools – and in particular their WordPress plugins. Also I’ve been following closely what fellow AltPlatform blogger Chris Aldrich has done on his personal website. Chris is a key contributor to the IndieWeb community. I’ve found the IndieWeb tools to be tremendously helpful, and the community to be open and friendly. But I think my own goals are a little different. I’m less interested in the technologies themselves (like microformats and webmention) and more interested in how they’re being used in the wider Web community. Not dissimilar to my interests when I started ReadWriteWeb. But of course to do this, I need to stand on the shoulders of the developers who build the tools. I think of it this way… The IndieWeb community is a group of tech people who are creating the building blocks, for which I’m very grateful. Dave Winer also creates building blocks, so I’m equally grateful to him. My “job” (although it’s really just my idea of fun, since AltPlatform is a non-profit blog) is to try out the technologies that IndieWeb, Dave and others are building. Ideally I’d like to help smooth the path for Open Web technologies to be used by non-tech people. An example perhaps is Tracey Todhunter, who runs a blog called Baking and Making. Tracey left this comment on my AltPlatform post about blogrolls: “I have a list of “blogs I read” – I almost deleted it because someone told me blog rolls were “so last century”! I noticed lots of new visitors to my blog click on these links (and hopefully discover other bloggers, so I’ve kept it.” Tracey’s comment is exactly the type of thing I want to see happen with the Open Web. She has an excellent niche blog and is using the Open Web to connect to other people. This is why blogging is still relevant in 2017. A couple of other responses I got… Kevin Marks, one of the founders of the IndieWeb movement, wrote a couple of posts overnight my time. Both were syndicated to the comments section of my AltPlatform post, which I was pleased to see (apologies Kevin that it got caught in our spam filter – we’re still dealing with the quirks of a new blog). In one post, Kevin defended the IndieWeb feed reader product Woodwind: “Woodwind’s integrated reading and posting is the thing I like best about it, so I’m sorry that Richard was unimpressed with it.” To clarify, I was mainly put off by the geeky UI. I certainly admire the sophisticated ‘under the hood’ technology of it. Perhaps I’ll give it another try. Kevin’s second post was more of a conversation with Dave. The only 2 cents I’d add is… kumbaya, let’s all work together ? Last but not least, Colin Walker also responded to my blogrolls post. He pointed out one problem with blogrolls: “Part of the problem with people based following models on social networks is that you follow the whole person so see everything they post whether it is relevant to you or not. There is no filtering system.” It’s a great point – and one of the reasons I was so interested in topic feeds back in the day. So this is something I’ll need to explore for this era too.