unforum

[addlepated]

ARG blog ring

[miss_seph]

but that's not to say you must blog about nothing BUT ARGs - we agreed in chat that these blogs include blogs of normality that happen to mention ARGs sometimes

[Ozy_y2k]

Define "blogs of normality". I've never seen one.

[jamesi]

Re: ARG blog ring

[Phaedra]

[Dorkmaster]

While I understand the "unity" and "ease of finding" concept, I still think web-rings are so, 1990s... I don't know why, but I just feel like no one will take seriously a topic that has a web ring (unless you are in the web ring, but then really, you could probably find the sites you're looking for right?)

I don't mean to be so negative lately... honest (I've realized my last three topics of posting were "not so happy fun lovin" as usual... but um yeah...

I still think Web-Rings are a bit tired. We need like a ARGblog aggregator (I know, we could technically do that) or something cooler that I'm too tired to think of. Does anyone else agree or am I just tired and shouldn't post after 1am on a workday?

Edit: Perhaps a ARGBlog Daily page? Where someone wraps up the coolest and most interesting (and of course the troutiest smackable) content in ARGblogs? Or again, perhaps I should stop typing and retreat to bed?

[addlepated]

My main thought is that there are about a bajillion different ARG blogs out there - some just everyday blogs written by ARGers, and some discussing ARGs in particular - and it would be nice to have links in a tidy place to find. Oh, and I'm too lazy to make a new bookmarks folder.

A metablog would be very nice, although I'm not sure how one would go about setting one up.

ETA: Actually it looks like b2evolution does it... Is there enough interest in setting up an aggregate blog for me to look into it?

[FLmutant]

Actually, we've got some experience doing that -- what you're really looking for is an RSS aggregator and republisher. Easiest solution is a little pay-for-tool called Jawfish:

http://www.geckotribe.com/rss/jawfish/

Which is really just a hosted version of CaRP

http://www.geckotribe.com/rss/carp/

Then you could publish both a list of sources (blogroll) and an aggregated feed in both RSS and to a website. You can even pepper in a few Technorati or Blogpulse or Feedster search results (because you can get an RSS feed, for example, of all blog entries that used "alternate reality game" or "alternate reality gaming" or a host of other key phrases.)

A one-stop feed system would be a great thing.

[Phaedra]

[addlepated]

I'm a member of http://www.austinbloggers.org which is a community blog that selectively gets content from member sites in a couple of different ways. First, you can do it automatically if you have certain software, like Movable Type, which allows you to send a ping automatically if you have written a post in a particular category (for example, in your blog you'd have a category named "Austin", and anytime you post something to it, it would send a ping to the metablog which grabs that post's content), or a web-based form.

This might be an interesting concept for an aggregate ARG blog - set up an ARG category on your own site, then ping the meta-blog when you have posted an ARG entry. It could have a better signal:noise ratio than just including everything from every member's blogs. I've asked if the software is available for others to use.

[SpaceBass]

I'd be willing to host this, if it's not too mind-boggling to set up.

[addlepated]

Cool, Space, thanks! I'll let you know when and if I hear something back about it. If not, I'm gonna play with b2evolution a bit and see if that might work, since it's free.

[Phaedra]

[FLmutant]

Friendly advice: pinging probably isn't the best way to go, as there are alot of people abusing those systems (comment spam, trackback spam and ping spam are a complete pain in the tuckus.) We tried a joint pinging system once, but finally realized if we were pulling the RSS from "trusted sites" (instead of trying to figure who among the people pushing pings should be trusted) that many of the hair-pulling problems went away.

The trade-off is that the updates go from instant to delayed (to say once an hour.)



Brian

[Dorkmaster]

See people?!? I'm not a total idiot... Just mostly. I have a good idea once in a while.


Edit: Also, can I now claim the term "Bloggregator"?

Yes! I coined a term. Or, we could call it something in terms of eliminating the ring... so "Eringercate" (Erase/Ring/Eradicate)? Nah, I like "Bloggregator" much better.

2nd Edit: DANGIT! Bloggregator's been used. (Although not really for the same thing...) I'll call it "Blare" (Blog-Share). There ya go. I claim "Blare"!