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7:46:53 PM    

It was a slog, but I finally migrated all my weblog content into Movable Type. It wasn't that difficult, actually, just one of those things that is challenging when you mix in all the usual office interruptions. Bill Kearney's Radio.exporter was invaluable. The big pain was getting all the file paths where I wanted them -- this article on future-proofing URLs in Movable Type was a big help.

My RSS feed is still in the same place. I imported all of my Radio posts into Movable Type, it appears that my links still work. If time allows, I'll assemble all the scribbles I made in the process into something coherent so anyone else contemplating such a switch won't go through the same pain.

In the end, I simply wanted a publishing tool that would allow me to post from any of the three computers I use regularly. I'll lose the offline seamlessness of Radio, but I'm rarely offline when I want to post anyway.

In any case, let me know if you see anything unusual. All in all, I think everything worked.

6:29:47 PM    

Web Stars: Best of the Web: Blog Sites & Aggregator Tools

"Memingo
Memigo ranks the quality of individual news items according to the clicks and recommendations of registered Memigo users (as well as to your own clicks as you surf through the site). A fascinating and constantly changing compilation of news stories from an eclectic range of sites and feeds around the Web, the site delivers its content enjoyably fast. Memigo holds a lot of promise as a news aggregation service, but it's still an experiment, so expect a few rough edges. It aims to "cut through the infoglut" by delivering high-quality content through group consensus, but a few out-of-place stories occasionally float into positions that give them top billing. " [PC World, via Lockergnome's RSS Resource]

This is an interesting type of aggregation service that I haven't seen before. Granted, you don't get to pick and choose your feeds (although you can suggest one to add to the database), but it would be interesting to implement a Memigo site for all library feeds (or even just LISFeeds for the moment) to let users customize it to display the stories (not feeds) that are most interesting to them. Another intriguing aspect of Memigo is that it looks like you can log in, rate articles, and then get a customized RSS feed based on those ratings.

On a similar note, Dave Winer has been putting together a pretty powerful new site called Share Your OPML that lets folks upload the list of their subscriptions from their aggregators. It then polls these files to show the Top 100 Feeds in terms of the number of subscribers, who subscribes to them, the full subscription list for those participants that have approved the display of their file, a group aggregator, and more.

My first intent here is to ask fellow librarians to upload their subscription files to the site. I think we can do some interesting things with our files if we get enough of a critical mass, especially since Dave is promoting the idea of managed sets of  feeds by subject.

My second intent is to point out that there are similaraties between Memigo and Dave's project and that what we're really seeing here is a next big step for aggregators. A year from now, I think we'll look back and recognize that 2004 was a year of evolutionary change for aggregators.

6:25:28 PM    

I love the new "Share your OPML" site. I've found so many great feeds. And, on that site you can see who subscribes to my RSS feed. If you're not listed, share your OPML already!

I've been adding a ton of feeds. Want me to add you to my list? Leave me a comment here.

6:13:33 PM