Hi everyone! This morning we released another scheduled weekly development version of BlogBridge — version 2.22 — and updated most of our BlogBridge: Library sites, including our showcase, trial sites and the sandbox. So what’s new?

Traditionally, let’s start with BlogBridge which has become quite popular over the course of last several months and it’s great because it motivates and gives a spur. Keep up sending your comments and don’t forget to tell your friends. Where was I?

Oh yes, the first feature I would like to outline is the updated BlogStarz rating system. There were two new parameters added dramatically increasing the usefulness of the whole thing: number of feed views and number of times you opened articles from a feed in an external browser (clickthroughs). Personally, I immediately started using the former as it reflects the real value of a feed for me. I visit a feed often, I like it, and it gets the higher rating… Just what was needed!

The second feature on my announcement list is somehow related to feed ratings. If you are a publisher of Reading Lists it might come in very handy. From now on you can set the rating threshold and every feed below it in the guide you publish won’t show up in the resulting OPML (and JavaScript) of your Reading List. The filtering works only for gold Starz for now, meaning that if you have a threshold of 3 Starz (as shown in the picture) and you have several feeds with one or two silver Starz in your guide, they still will be published. The feature is quite experimental and you are welcome to send us the feedback.

OK, now on to the brief BlogBridge: Library news. The two most interesting features I wish to highlight are Search function and showing folders in preview areas (so-called ‘book shelves’). The search feature is perfectly visible with an unarmed eye and works as expected. You enter something and it looks for this something in all textual fields of folders and feeds registered. No surprises actually.

The preview enhancement plays best when it comes to showing the folders with no feeds in them, just sub-folders. Before today, such folders appeared simply as headers without items, which looked a bit strange as there were lots of sub-folders with loads of feeds in them. Today you can see sub-folders at the end of the sub-elements preview list. No big deal, of course, but still a pleasant eye candy.

For more details on the release, check out our history of changes page. Click here to download and run the latest Development Release (on any platform), visit our BlogBridge: Library showcase to see how it works, or start playing with it right now in our special self-managing sandbox.

• GUI: Added BlogStarz filter to guide publishing in order to control the minimum rating of feeds to publish
• GUI: Added two more parameters to BlogStarz rating system
• GUI: Added ‘Article Flag’ parameter to Search Feed query builder
• BBL: Nice preview folder icons
• BBL: Fixed top navigation unclickable on Safari / FF when not logged in
• BBL: Reworked data model to let folders and item form true net-like structures instead of tree-like
• BBL: Grouping similar items in top-lists
• BBL: Added periodical tasks manager
• BBL: Updated OPML support to read more flavors
• BBL: Returning source OPML when queried for dynamic OPML folder data
• BBL: Added convenient search feature

(Welcome readers of Simon Phipps in SunMink! If you want to take BlogBridge for a spin, click here!)

We’ve put a lot of effort into ensuring that BlogBridge plays nicely with others. As far as I am concerned, if an OPML file created by BlogBridge can’t be read by another application, that’s a BlogBridge bug. And if BlogBridge can’t read the file from another application, that’s still BlogBridge’s bug.

Simon Phipps uses the roach motel analogy, “roaches check in but they can’t check out”. Marc Cantor used a more colorful expression (which could have been even more colorful but would I think have become R-rated) - “if you suck then you also have to spit.”

(By the way Simon said, about BlogBridge: “… I just moved my blog subscriptions from Bloglines to BlogBridge to give it a try (it’s a pretty cool Java Webstart application) using the OPML export in Bloglines, and I work with a group of people routinely exchanging documents between a selection of applications that support ODF.” — Thanks for the mention, Simon!)

Certainly us application developers need to respect people’s desire to try our software without becoming locked in, which means supporting both the import and the export of data in the most flexible and reliable way.

With BlogBridge it goes even further, because we also use OPML as the format for subscribing to and publishing reading lists. And the new BlogBridge:Library (as David Weinberger said) “inhales and exhales” OPML. Any folder in BBL automatically has an OPML feed. And if you have an OPML feed from somewhere, you can have BBL turn it into a (dynamically updated) folder.

So for us, the OPML standard is a total godsend. It provides a degree of interoperability that is quite amazing without which I am sure we wouldn’t have the success we’ve had so far.

As you can imagine we are very closely listening and following stuff being written. There’s been some nice new stuff that I’d like to share:

Tony Hirst of OUseful Info wrote a pretty extensive review including lots of interesting screen shots of BlogBridge:Library. Tony coins the term ‘bookshelf’ for the folder summary views that are listed top to bottom in a typical BlogBridge:Library display:

Yup, that does look like a bookshelf. He also says:

“What really appeals to me is how this sort of display might be useful in managing the display of contents feeds from online journals. In use, I imagine myself to be stood in the library by the journals collection, leafing through print journals, scanning their contents lists and perhaps flicking through an abstract or two…”

Not only does he introduce, describe and show the Feed Library, but there are lots of valuable suggestions to us about how to make it even better. Read the whole post here.

To learn more about Feed Library, here’s a podcast done by Adam Green on his new Feedonomics (clever name eh?) blog.

It’s a high level introduction to Feed Library with some discussion of the roadmap as well.

By the way, Adam previously wrote on the DarwinianWeb blog, which always was interesting, so expect more good stuff from Adam in this new blog.

Technorati Tags: adamgreen, blogbridge, blogbridgelibrary, OPML, podcast

First of all, BlogBridge:Library (BBL) is fully independent of BlogBridge. It will work for anyone, no matter what aggregator they use, or even if they don’t use an aggregator at all.

Period.

BlogBridge can use a private instance of BBL

In the BlogBridge aggregator, there are several features that provide ’suggestions’ for Feeds to subscribe to, Reading Lists to subscribe to, and Feeds to put in a new Guide. In each case, BlogBridge can be set up to use your own customized (organizational) instance of BlogBridge:Library, and so you get to decide what suggestions are offered to your users: they will be the ones in your BlogBridge:Library.

Using BlogBridge to manage BBL

Of course you can manage BBL from it’s web based interface. But if you are a BlogBridge user, you can publish a Guide as a Reading List, and in turn use that Reading List to populate a folder in BBL. The effect of this is that you can simply drag and drop your feeds to manage the Guide, and in turn the folder in BBL. A lot simpler.

Technorati Tags: blogbridge, blogbridgelibrary

First of all, BlogBridge:Library (BBL) is fully independent of BlogBridge. It will work for anyone, no matter what aggregator they use, or even if they don’t use an aggregator at all.

Period.

BlogBridge can use a private instance of BBL

In the BlogBridge aggregator, there are several features that provide ’suggestions’ for Feeds to subscribe to, Reading Lists to subscribe to, and Feeds to put in a new Guide. In each case, BlogBridge can be set up to use your own customized (organizational) instance of BlogBridge:Library, and so you get to decide what suggestions are offered to your users: they will be the ones in your BlogBridge:Library.

Using BlogBridge to manage BBL

Of course you can manage BBL from it’s web based interface. But if you are a BlogBridge user, you can publish a Guide as a Reading List, and in turn use that Reading List to populate a folder in BBL. The effect of this is that you can simply drag and drop your feeds to manage the Guide, and in turn the folder in BBL. A lot simpler.

Just a quick reminder that our little tette-a-tette about BlogBridge:Library starts on Skype at 9:30am, EST. In about one hour from when I am writing this. Here’s the announcement again:

This Thursday, June 22, at 9:30am Boston USA time (EDT) I will be having a Skypecast to talk about BlogBridge:Library with anyone who might be interested.

Follow this link to see the specifics including how to participate.

Skypecasts are a new Skype feature and this is an experiment for us too. You will need Skype to participate but otherwise it’s totally free. And who doesn’t have Skype, anyway? See you (hear you, actually) June 22, Thursday, at 9:30am EDT.

Check out our BlogBridge Playpen library. It’s gonna be a free for all. Anyone get login as a “librarian” and use all the features. Yes, we are ready for it to be a little tortured by funny users so every night we will reset it back to a pristine state.

Here are the particulars:

URL: http://www.blogbridge.com/playpen/folder/1

username: user1 … user3

password: password

Look for the login box at the top right of the front page. Here are some things to try:

Look for these four icons in various places of the UI. Here’s what each one does:

1. Create a new folder, which in turn can create items and other folders. In the properties, take a look at the “Also list in: ” setting which allows something to appear in two different places if that’s needed.
2. Create a new Item. Here’s where you would add information about a single Feed or Podcast. Note that the thumbnails are automatically computed.
3. Change Properties. Gets you back to the properties for the item, so you can change your mind.
4. Create Shortcut, which simply puts a link to this item into the navigation menu on the left.

Simple, eh? Give it a spin!

Technorati Tags: blogbridge, blogbridgelibrary

The response has been tremendous. In fact so tremendous that we are having trouble keeping up! (After all, you must know that BlogBridge is a modest operation, to say the least.) Those of you to whom we owe emails or other responses, please bear with us as we catch up.

Anyway to try to help get questions answered we are turning to a new tool: every heard of “Skypecasts“?

This Thursday, June 22, at 9:30am Boston USA time (EDT) I will be having a Skypecast to talk about BlogBridge:Library with anyone who might be interested.

Follow this link to see the specifics including how to participate.

Skypecasts are a new Skype feature and this is an experiment for us too. You will need Skype to participate but otherwise it’s totally free. And who doesn’t have Skype, anyway? See you (hear you, actually) June 22, Thursday, at 9:30am EDT.

Technorati Tags: blogbridge, blogbridgelibrary, skype, skypecast