It’s far from finished (particularly from the data perspective), but it’s starting to shape up and look like something. I’m currently publishing an Indieweb blogroll on my front page. (Don’t presume anything if you’re not on it yet, I’ve a long way to go.) I’m still contemplating how to break it up into more manageable/consumable chunks primarily for myself, but also for others like Richard who were looking for ways to subscribe to others in this particular community.
For those who have readers that allow them to either subscribe to OPML files and/or import them, here’s my open OPML file. It’s a full firehose of everything, but hopefully I’ll get a chance to divide it into chunks more easily. I’d recommend subscribing to it if you can as it’s sure to see some reasonable changes in the coming weeks/months.
Chris’s new blogroll (in an opml file) is an excellent place to start for those looking for #indieweb bloggers to subscribe to.
There have been recent discussions about blogrolls (also check out the comments) which I found interesting.
I’m sure other people thought of this before, and it’s a direction Micro.blog is going but what if we could also have a public timeline for IndieWeb-enabled sites?
So as an experiment, I’ve set up the following:
1. I subscribed to Chris Aldrich’s OPML file with a list of IndieWeb bloggers.
2. My feedreader InoReader allows me to get a combined RSS feed of bloggers from this OPML file:
3. I’ve added this combined RSS feed to WordPress Reader which is now my public timeline from where I can easily interact with other IndieWeb folks:
I’ve tried something similar using woodwind.xyz a few days ago but subscribed to all my feeds (not just IndieWeb people). It was quite overwhelming and posting didn’t work as expected so let’s see how it goes with a more targeted feed in combination with an indiewebified WordPress setup.
In my continuing 2017 project to IndieWebify my website, so far I’ve upgraded my WordPress site with IndieWeb plugins and then installed a blogroll. I also began to explore what the indie blogosphere is like nowadays. Not that I ever really left the blogosphere, but – like most people – much of my attention had drifted to social media over the past several years. So I wanted to re-engage with blogs in 2017 and subscribe to a bunch of new people. For that I needed a capable, IndieWeb-friendly feed reader.
I should mention upfront that different people have different needs for a feed reader. Some people prefer the river of news style, which outputs a stream of content ordered by freshness. Dave Winer builds these kinds of feed readers and has many fans who enjoy them. Personally, I prefer a different kind of feed reader. I need a reader that enables more granular control of the content; such as the ability to organize your feeds into folders, have different view options, create filters, and more.
My current feed reader is Feedly, which I began using in earnest once Google closed down its Google Reader in 2013. Before Google Reader I was a fan of Bloglines, which in many ways invented the browser-based feed reader back in 2003. Unfortunately Bloglines got sold to Ask.com in early 2005, and it struggled to keep up after that. Bloglines’s demise opened the way for Google Reader, which launched in October 2005 and eventually reached a position of dominance. Which made it even more galling when Google ditched the product in mid-2013, because by then there were few decent competitors. Anyway, enough of the past.
I like Feedly and pay for the Pro version each year. But the UI is in need of a refresh (it’s difficult to re-arrange feeds and folders, for example) and it doesn’t yet offer OPML subscriptions. An OPML file is a way to subscribe to a group of feeds, such as Chris Aldrich’s blogroll of IndieWeb bloggers. While you can upload your own copy of Chris’ OPML file into Feedly, you can’t subscribe to the original file – which lives on Chris’ server. So any time Chris updates his file, which he is likely to do whenever he finds a new blogger to add, then your list in Feedly gets out of sync. So it’s a pretty important feature for a feed reader to offer, particularly as a way to subscribe to other peoples’ blogrolls.
Feedly
As I say, I really like Feedly and they did a tremendous job shoring up the feed reader industry after Google abandoned it. So I’ll continue to support them. But I wanted to test the waters to see what other options were available…
I eventually came across Inoreader, which thankfully does let you subscribe to OPML. I started by adding Chris’ OPML file of IndieWeb bloggers, then I began adding other current interests of mine. I created folders for Art, Scifi, Music, Diabetes/Low Carb, Bitcoin, Future Tech, and NBA. I’ll no doubt add more as I keep using Inoreader. So far I’m enjoying the way feeds are presented and the extra options (such as subscribing to a “feed bundle” or a twitter feed). For a full writeup of Inoreader’s features, check out Marjolein Hoekstra’s Inoreader Notebook.
Inoreader
Time will tell whether I stick with Inoreader, or go back to Feedly. There are of course many other options for feed readers. Some of the newer, more intriguing ones are:
Brent Simmons recently announced his latest app, called Evergreen. It’s an open source Mac app. Given that Brent was the developer of NetNewsWire, one of the best Web 2.0-era desktop feed readers, Evergreen is one to watch. It’s pre-alpha.
Dave Winer’s Electric River is a fine choice for river fans. It’s a Mac app too and worked well when I tested it. You can also click his menu on Scripting News to view a list of browser-based rivers, such as his NBA one.
Woodwind seems to be the choice of leading IndieWeb developers, like Chris Aldrich. It offers read/write support for IndieWeb formats, such as h-feed and webmention. It was a bit too complicated for this non-developer, but if you’re more technical you may like it.
Unicyclic is another IndieWeb option, by Malcolm Blaney. I’ve signed up, but have yet to play with it.
Reeder is a leading iOS feed reader app and several people have name-checked it to me recently.
Unread is another iOS app and comes recommended by AltPlatform’s Brian Hendrickson.
I’m not an Android user, so I don’t know the best app there – but check out this recent list.
Overall, the feed reader market continues to be niche – and quiet – ever since Google Reader quit on us. But as you can see above, there are pockets of innovation happening and that’s encouraging. If the indie blogosphere is to compete for attention with social media, then we need feed readers to thrive once more.
Let us know in the comments (or via webmention) what your favourite feed reader is.
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In my continuing 2017 project to IndieWebify my website, so far I’ve upgraded my WordPress site with IndieWeb plugins and then installed a blogroll. I also began to explore what the indie blogosphere is like nowadays. Not that I ever really left the blogosphere, but – like most people – much of my attention had drifted to social media over the past several years. So I wanted to re-engage with blogs in 2017 and subscribe to a bunch of new people. For that I needed a capable, IndieWeb-friendly feed reader.
I should mention upfront that different people have different needs for a feed reader. Some people prefer the river of news style, which outputs a stream of content ordered by freshness. Dave Winer builds these kinds of feed readers and has many fans who enjoy them. Personally, I prefer a different kind of feed reader. I need a reader that enables more granular control of the content; such as the ability to organize your feeds into folders, have different view options, create filters, and more.
My current feed reader is Feedly, which I began using in earnest once Google closed down its Google Reader in 2013. Before Google Reader I was a fan of Bloglines, which in many ways invented the browser-based feed reader back in 2003. Unfortunately Bloglines got sold to Ask.com in early 2005, and it struggled to keep up after that. Bloglines’s demise opened the way for Google Reader, which launched in October 2005 and eventually reached a position of dominance. Which made it even more galling when Google ditched the product in mid-2013, because by then there were few decent competitors. Anyway, enough of the past.
I like Feedly and pay for the Pro version each year. But the UI is need of a refresh (it’s difficult to re-arrange feeds and folders, for example) and it doesn’t yet offer OPML subscriptions. An OPML file is a way to subscribe to a group of feeds, such as Chris Aldrich’s blogroll of IndieWeb bloggers. While you can upload your own copy of Chris’ OPML file into Feedly, you can’t subscribe to the original file – which lives on Chris’ server. So any time Chris updates his file, which he is likely to do whenever he finds a new blogger to add, then your list in Feedly gets out of sync. So it’s a pretty important feature for a feed reader to offer, particularly as a way to subscribe to other peoples’ blogrolls.
Feedly
As I say, I really like Feedly and they did a tremendous job shoring up the feed reader industry after Google abandoned it. So I’ll continue to support them. But I wanted to test the waters to see what other options were available…
I eventually came across Inoreader, which thankfully does let you subscribe to OPML. I started by adding Chris’ OPML file of IndieWeb bloggers, then I began adding other current interests of mine. I created folders for Art, Scifi, Music, Diabetes/Low Carb, Bitcoin, Future Tech, and NBA. I’ll no doubt add more as I keep using Inoreader. So far I’m enjoying the way feeds are presented and the extra options (such as subscribing to a “feed bundle” or a twitter feed). For a full writeup of Inoreader’s features, check out Marjolein Hoekstra’s Inoreader Notebook.
Inoreader
Time will tell whether I stick with Inoreader, or go back to Feedly. There are of course many other options for feed readers. Some of the newer, more intriguing ones are:
Brent Simmons recently announced his latest app, called Evergreen. It’s an open source Mac app. Given that Brent was the developer of NetNewsWire, one of the best Web 2.0 era desktop feed readers, Evergreen is one to watch. It’s still pre-alpha.
Dave Winer’s Electric River is a fine choice for river fans. It’s a Mac app too and worked well when I tested it. You can also click his menu on Scripting News to view a list of browser-based rivers, such as his NBA one.
Woodwind seems to be the choice of leading IndieWeb developers, such as Chris Aldrich. It offers read/write support for IndieWeb formats, such as h-feed and webmention. It was a bit too complicated for this non-developer, but if you’re more technical you may like it.
Unicyclic is another IndieWeb option, by Malcolm Blaney. I’ve signed up, but have yet to play with it.
Reeder is a leading iOS feed reader app and several people have name-checked it recently.
Unread is another iOS app and comes recommended by AltPlatform’s Brian Hendrickson.
I’m not an Android user, so I don’t know the best app there – but check out this recent list.
Overall, the feed reader market continues to be niche – and quiet – ever since Google Reader quit on us. But as you can see above, there are pockets of innovation happening and that’s encouraging. If the indie blogosphere is to compete for attention with social media, then we need feed readers to thrive once more.
Let us know in the comments (or via webmention) what your favourite feed reader is.
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I defy the world and go back to RSS by Bryan Alexander (bryanalexander.org)
Bryan, so much of what you’re saying is not only not backwards, but truly awesome and inspiring, and not just with respect to RSS.
I’ve lately become more enamored of not only RSS, but new methods for feeds including lighter weight versions like microformats h-feeds. A few months ago I was inspired to embed the awesome PressForward plugin for WordPress into my site, so I could have an integrated feed reader built right in. This makes it far easier to not only quickly share the content from my site, but it means I can also own archival copies of what I’m reading and consuming for later reference, some of which I store privately on the back end of my site as a sort of online commonplace book.
There also seems to be a recent renaissance with the revival of blogrolls. I’ve even recently revived my own to provide subscribe-able OPML lists that others can take advantage of as well. Like your reading list, it’s a work in progress.
On the subject of blogs not being dead and decrying the abuses of the social silos, you might be interested to hear about the Indieweb movement which is helping to both decentralize and re-democratize the web in useful and intelligent ways. They’re helping people to take back their identities online and let them own their own content again. They’re also using open protocols like Webmention (a platform agnostic and universal @mention) and Micropub or syndication methods like POSSE to make it easier to publish, share, and interact with people online anywhere, regardless of the platform(s) on which they’re publishing.
As an example of what they’re doing, I’m publishing this comment on my own site first, and only then sending it as a comment to your post. If you supported Webmention, this would have happened seamlessly and automatically. I’ll also syndicate it as a reply to your tweet, and if you reply on twitter, the comment will be pulled back into my comment stream at the original.
As you may expect, some educators are also using some of these tools and specs for educational reasons.
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Setting up a Feed with Feedly by Meredith Fierro (Meredith Fierro)
If you want to take it a step further, you could consider making an open OPML file of the people you’re following from a conference like Domains ’17. Much like Twitter lists, these are sharable (so others don’t need to build them by hand), or more importantly for Feedly importable! Some RSS readers will also allow dynamic updating of these OPML lists so if someone is subscribed to your list and you add a new source, everyone following the list gets the change. I’ve written some thoughts relating to this with respect to the old school blogrolls and included an example here: http://boffosocko.com/2017/06/26/indieweb-blogroll/
If you do set up an OPML file for your Domains ’17, let me know. I’d love to subscribe to it!
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Replied to Setting up a Feed with Feedly by Meredith Fierro (Meredith Fierro)
If you want to take it a step further, you could consider making an open OPML file of the people you’re following from a conference like Domains ’17. Much like Twitter lists, these are sharable (so others don’t need to build them by hand), or more importantly for Feedly importable! Some RSS readers will also allow dynamic updating of these OPML lists so if someone is subscribed to your list and you add a new source, everyone following the list gets the change. I’ve written some thoughts relating to this with respect to the old school blogrolls and included an example here: http://boffosocko.com/2017/06/26/indieweb-blogroll/
If you do set up an OPML file for your Domains ’17, let me know. I’d love to subscribe to it!
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You’ve hit the nail on the head there, Greg! That’s one of the hardest problems – finding time around family, kids and school events.
One day I’ll figure out the best timetable…
This Article was mentioned on kimberlyhirsh.com
Replied to My Human Readable OPML Blogroll by Ton Zijlstra (zylstra.org)
Ton, this is great! Though perhaps you’re reinventing the wheel a bit more than you may have needed to?
I’ll see you your blogroll and add in images and descriptions as well! https://boffosocko.com/about/following/
A while back I did something similar to what you and Peter have done, I just did it with the old built in Link Manager feature of WordPress. The primary difference is that I’ve got some meta data about what the site/feed is about in addition to an image. I left out the feed in the human readable version as it’s less likely to be used, while it’s more valuable to the computer readable version. I’ve also figured out the a URL query parameter for breaking my blogroll up by category, so that folks can copy smaller subsections of it.
Another added bonus is that I’m using Inoreader which supports OPML subscriptions so that any time I update my OPML file, my feed reader auto-updates for me without needing to manually upload the new OPML file! This means I just add the follow in one place and everything else follows without any additional work.
Here are the details for how I did most of it:
The beginnings of a blogroll
A Following Page (aka some significant updates to my Blogroll)
OPML files for categories within WordPress’s Links Manager
Perhaps what we really need is to give some love to that Link Manager in core to update it to OPML v2 and add in the rel attributes from XFN microformats to the links?
When you have a moment, be sure to add your example to the OPML and blogroll pages on the IndieWeb wiki, where you may find some additional inspiration.
Thanks for experimenting to bring back the blogroll! (And thanks for sharing, there are a few of your feeds I see that I ought to be following and I also recognize those we have in common of many educators I already do follow.)
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I’m still tinkering away at pathways for following people (and websites) on the open web (in my case within WordPress). I’m doing it with an eye toward making some of the UI and infrastructure easier in light of the current fleet of Microsub servers and readers that will enable easier social reading without the centralized reliance on services like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Medium, LinkedIn, et al.
If you haven’t been following along, here are some relevant pieces for background:
The beginnings of a blogroll
A Following Page (aka some significant updates to my Blogroll)
OPML files for categories within WordPress’s Links Manager
Was WP Links the Perfect Blogroll All Along? by Ton Zijlstra
Generally I’ve been adding data into my Following Page (aka blogroll on steroids) using the old WordPress Links Manager pseudo-manually. (There’s also a way to bulk import to it via OPML, using the WordPress Tools Menu or via
/wp-admin/import.php?import=opml). The old Links Manager functionality in WordPress had a bookmarklet to add links to it quickly, though it currently only seems to add a minimal set–typically just the URL and the page title. Perhaps someone with stronger JavaScript skills than I possess could improve on it or integrate/leverage some of David Shanske’s Parse This work into such a bookmark to pull more data out of pages (via Microformats, Schema.org, Open Graph Protocol, or Dublin Core meta) to pre-fill the Links Manager with more metadata including page feeds, which I now understand Parse This does in the past month or so. (If more than one feed is found, they could be added in comma separated form to the “Notes” section and the user could cut/paste the appropriate one into the feed section.) Since I spent some significant time trying to find/dig up that old bookmarklet, I’ll mention that it can be found in the Restore Lost Functionality plugin (along with many other goodies) and a related version also exists in the Link Library plugin, though on a small test I found it only pulled in the URL.Since it wasn’t completely intuitive to find, I’ll include the JavaScript snippet for the Links Manager bookmarklet below, though note that the URL hard coded into it is for
example.com, so change that part if you’re modifying for your own use. (I haven’t tested it, but it may require the Press This plugin which replaces some of the functionality that was taken out of WordPress core in version 4.9. It will certainly require one to enable using the Links Manager either via code or via plugin.)javascript:void(linkmanpopup=window.open('https://exanple.com/wp-admin/link-add.php?action=popup&linkurl='+escape(location.href)+'&name='+escape(document.title),'LinkManager','scrollbars=yes,width=750,height=550,left=15,top=15,status=yes,resizable=yes'));linkmanpopup.focus();window.focus();linkmanpopup.focus();Since I’ve been digging around a bit, I’ll note that Yannick Lefebvre’s Link Library plugin seems to have a similar sort of functionality to Links Manager and adds in the ability to add a variety of additional data fields including tags, which Ton Zijlstra mentions he would like (and I wouldn’t mind either). Unfortunately I’m not seeing any OPML functionality in the plugin, so it wins at doing display (with a huge variety of settings) for a stand-alone blogroll, but it may fail at the data portability for doing the additional OPML portion we’ve been looking at. Of course I’m happy to be corrected, but I don’t see anything in the documentation or a cursory glance at the code.
In the most ideal world, I’d love to be able to use the Post Kinds Plugin to create follow posts (see my examples). This plugin is already able to generally use bookmarklet functionality to pull in a variety of meta data using the Parse This code which is also built into Post Kinds.
It would be nice if these follow posts would also copy their data into the Links Manager (to keep things DRY), so that the blogroll and the OPML files are automatically updated all at once. (Barring Post Kinds transferring the data, it would be nice to have an improved bookmarklet for pulling data into the Links Manager piece directly.)
Naturally having the ability for these OPML files be readable/usable by Jack Jamieson’s forthcoming Yarns Microsub Server for WordPress (for use with social readers) would be phenomenal. (I believe there are already one or two OPML to h-feed converters for Microsub in the wild.) All of this would be a nice end -to-end solution for quickly and easily following people (or sites) with a variety of feeds and feed types (RSS, Atom, JSONfeed, h-feed).
An additional refinement of the blogroll display portion would be to have that page display as an h-feed of h-entries each including properly marked up h-cards with appropriate microformats and discoverable RSS feeds to make it easier for other sites to find and use that data. (This may be a more IndieWeb-based method of displaying such a page compared with the OPML spec.) I’ll also note that the Links Manager uses v1 of the OPML spec and it would potentially be nice to have an update on that as well for newer discovery tools/methods like Dave Winer’s Share Your OPML Subscription list, which I’m noting seems to be down/not functioning at the moment.
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