Corante recently started running three ‘hubs’ which are focused portals of original and syndicated content. For example, here is Corante’s Web Hub.

In the right margin there’s a Subscribe area where you find the usual RSS feed icons. But notice the Import OPML icon (see to the right.) That’s your reading list. If you want to follow this hub in BlogBridge, just make it a reading list.

Next, in Guide Properties, add the hyperlink for the “import OPML” as a reading list, and bingo, you’re in business! Notice the new Guide is automatically populated with all the feeds from the OPML, dynamically. That is to say, as Corante recruits new writers for this hub, they automatically display in your Guide.

Notice how each Feed that was automatically added because it’s on a Reading List has a little antenna icon with a tooltip telling you it’s origin.

Soon we will publish a list of useful Reading Lists on all sorts of topics and where you can find them on the web.

Technorati Tags: blogbridge, OPML, readinglists

Since we first introduced the 7-day activity chart in BlogBridge a few months ago it’s been one of the most commented and appreciated features in the product.

People refer to it as ‘the little histogram’ or ‘the little calendar’. It is a very compact representation of the activity in a certain feed over the last 7 days. You read it as follows. Each column corresponds to one day, the rightmost column is today and the leftmost column is 7 days ago.

The number of colored dots in a column tells you how many new articles were posted on that day. A red dot means the article is unread by you. If there are too many articles on a certain days, then the top of the little column is a little triangle.

Cool? At the time there was an interesting comment from glenn who compared the activity chart to what Edward Tufte calls ‘Sparklines.’ Tufte describes sparklines as “simple, intense, word-sized graphics.” In Tufte’s examples, these graphics tend to literally be mixed in with the text, which is not exactly the case here, but it’s probably reasonable to say that the term applies to BlogBridge’s activity charts too.

Here are some interesting links on Sparklines.

Technorati Tags: blogbridge, sparklines, visualization

• Added Categories and Keywords counters to the articles title bar
• Added All/None buttons to the Synchronization and RL Updates dialogs
• Added the alert to notify when exceeding the limit during OPML import
• Added support for importing feeds from BlogLines
• Added single-row mode for the feeds and guides lists
• Reworked Global Preferences dialog
• Bug Fixes

Yesterday we released another weekly build — BlogBridge 2.10. This release brings several significant enhancements to the user interface, several fixes to the logic and database operation. More detailed list of changes follows:

• Added Categories and Keywords counter to the article panel.
• Added panel to the preferences dialog to control the layout of minimal, brief and full modes.
• Added select all/none buttons to Synchronization and Reading List updates dialogs.
• Added the alert to notify the user when the number of feeds in OPML exceeds defined import limit.
• Added an ability to set specific view mode to the feeds (see static feed preferences).
• Enhanced the progress indication in the Activity dialog box.
• Enhanced the look of Synchronization and Reading List updates dialogs.
• Enhanced the OPML import operation to support BlogLines and others better.
• Enhanced the recognition of categories in Atom and RSS feeds.
• Enhanced the Feeds and Guides lists single-row mode.
• Compacted articles list.
• Rearranged the preferences dialog box.
• Fixed dragging out feeds from Reading Lists.
• Fixed Starz filter not working in some cases.
• Fixed not removing duplicate feeds when detected.
• Fixed several local database problems.
• Fixed copy, open and add-as-a-feed commands for hyper links in articles.

As you can see, this release still has no traces of reading lists publishing. It’s generally because we have too few opinions from you on what the interface should look like and what is really necessary. Please pay attention to the post with our poll and give us your points. We appreciate your help!

The weekly version can be installed using Java Web Start launcher. Those, who already use our weekly build, do not need to do anything — the application will be automatically updated.

Have fun!

Look in the left margin of this page and you’ll see that, for now, we’ve indicated the reading list link for Jenny Levine’s new Library Blogs list with a bit of a lame [RL].

It’s practically crying out for a little icon don’t you think? Here are two ideas, neither of which I like.

Any suggestions?

Technorati Tags: blogbridge

First of all, my apologies for giving the impression in the Robin Good podcast that the latest weekly release (2.9) already supported reading list publishing. In fact the release lets you use a reading list, but publishing will be coming in the next 2 weeks.

Let me explain. In 2.9, you can tell a Guide to use a “Reading List” for a source of feeds. This is a dynamic source of feeds, so if it changes, then the Guide automagically changes too. For example, you could create a Guide in BlogBridge called “Library Feeds” and make it dynamic by adding Jenny Levine’s list as a Reading List. Try it. It’s pretty cool!

Now in 2.11, what we will provide you is a way to actually “Be Jenny” - well not exactly, but a way for you to share your idea of a list of interesting feeds with the world, just like Jenny did. So for example, “Here’s my reading list of the best rock-and-roll feeds”. And BlogBridge will automagically create a reading list (that is an OPML file) and store it up on our server, and give you back the hyperlink to the list so you can give it to your friends. Cool?

Now, BlogBridge users, if you are still with me, please tell us what you think of these two approaches to providing this functionality.

Approach 1: ‘Share’ option on a guide

• A new tab ‘Share’ is added to the guide Properties
• It contains a control to share this guide as a reading list
• When enabled, a hyperlink is displayed, which you can provide to others as a Reading list corresponding to the Feeds in the Guide

Approach 2: ‘Publish Reading List command on Tools menu

• A new command ‘Publish Reading List’ creates a reading list
• It displays a list of all guides in a scrollable list, allowing you to check off which guides you want to include in your published Reading List
• There are some filters, like for example, include only 5 Star Feeds
• A list of the resultant feeds to be published is displayed, based on the criteria so you can see what will be included in the published Reading List
• And like in the first approach, a hyperlink is displayed, which you can provide to others as a Reading list.

Now, BlogBridge users, each approach has definite plusses and minuses. Any advice or recommendation? (And “both” is not a valid answer We promise to listen to what you have to say, but reserve the right to make the final decision.

Technorati Tags: blogbridge, readinglists

Jenny is the Strategy Guide for the Metropolitan Library System of  Burr Ridge, IL.  Beyond her official duties, she also runs the very popular Shifted Librarian blog where people say that “the most important thing Levine does for the profession is explain it to the rest of the world.

The Shifted Librarian is linked in and  read by techies at Lockergnome and Scripting News and other geek watering holes, and happens to be ranked number 369 in Feedster’s top 500 blogs in the whole world, which is a Big Deal!

Her daily musings are read by journalists of all stripes—  technology reporters, of course, but also those who cover pop  culture, politics, law, intellectual property, and civil liberties. The upside of this is that she’s made people outside our profession realize that librarians are…cool.”

If you are interested in  libraries or are involved with them, you should definitely check out Jenny’s  recommendations.

With no further ado, here is Jenny’s list of the top Library Blogs!

• ALA TechSource Blog, (Click here for RSS Feed)
• Feel-good Librarian, (Click here for RSS Feed)
• Free Range Librarian, (Click here for RSS Feed)
• Information wants to be free, (Click here for RSS Feed)
• Librarian.net, (Click here for RSS Feed)
• LibrarianInBlack, (Click here for RSS Feed)
• LibraryStuff, (Click here for RSS Feed)
• LISNews.org, (Click here for RSS Feed)
• ResearchBuzz, (Click here for RSS Feed)
• ResourceShelf, (Click here for RSS Feed)
• Stephen’s Lighthouse, (Click here for RSS Feed)
• Tame the Web: Libraries and Technologies, (Click here for RSS Feed)
• Walking Paper, (Click here for RSS Feed)

A note about BlogBridge Topic Experts: BlogBridge’s mission is to help you find and use the best information available from the blogs and feeds.  We are constantly trying to get experts in one subject or another to join us as topic experts.

The list of recommendations come directly from the topic expert, and is first announced in our blog. At the same time they are added to our growing directory (on the left) as well as integrated into the BlogBridge application as part of our ’suggestion’ mechanism.

Here’s how to start reading the recommendations:

• You can simply use drag and drop to drag the links in the text above (the ones worded like this: “Click here for rss feed”
• You can click on the link in the sidebar at the left to locate the announcement for each topic expert
• In BlogBridge, when you “add a feed” or “add a guide”, request “suggestions” and all the recommended feeds for each expert will be available, directly.
• And as of today, in BlogBridge, you can add a “Reading List” in any guide and use the “OPML” link in the left sidebar for the URL.

Please send all questions, comments and especially suggestions for other BlogBridge topic experts to us at info\at\blogbridge.com. Thanks.

Technorati Tags: blogbridge, library, readinglists

I came across a really interesting thread about an aggregator feature referred to as ‘threading’. Threading is a feature, available in SharpReader and RSS Bandit which displays a list of other, related, items, indented, under a certain item. Sounds like a very useful feature. Here’s what Jack Vinson says about it:

“Why I like threading in my reader

I came upon an interesting blog-based discussion rather late, as I have been busy with Thanksgiving and other activities.  But when I came upon it, I had a good chunk of the blog discussion right at my fingertips, thanks to SharpReader’s threading feature.” (from Knowledge Jolt with Jack)

In BlogBridge we display the article content right with the article (at least by default.) The way threading would work in BlogBridge is that at the bottom of an Article there would be a collapse/expand control, which would reveal a list of links to other related articles.

What are related articles? The simplest definition would be that they have one or more links in common. One could imagine more elaborate notions of related article, but that would be a good start.

What do you think, BlogBridge users?

Technorati Tags: blogbridge

Robin Good’s write-up of BlogBridge Reading Lists gives a good summary of what the new capability is about, and where it is going. Click here to for an interview I gave him where you can hear in my own words, what Reading Lists are about, and why they matter, as I see it. Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: blogbridge, podcast, readinglists

Kathleen Gilroy of the Otter Group has written a good introduction and review of BlogBridge on her site. Kathleen Gilroy is an industry expert on e-Learning or the next generation, “Learning 2.0″. This is from Kathleen’s post:

“People ask me two questions: what aggregator should I get and how do I start populating it with channels that will be useful for me? Now I’ve got the right answer to both questions. I am strongly recommending Blogbridge, a java-based aggregator that is rich in features and very easy to use.” (from the Otter Group blog)

You should read the whole post, because there’s a good introduction and overview of BlogBridge.

Technorati Tags: learning2.0