Chip Rosenthal
<chip@unicom.com>
 
18 October 2003
JournalCon 2003, Tech Talk

• Tools that expand the functionality of your blog or journal, like: counters, comments, notify lists, blogrolls.
• Can be hosted through third-party services.
• For more info, see the Accessories Resources at Blogroots: http://www.blogroots.com/resources.blog [local]

Counters

• Insert a small image to track visitors.
• Example: http://www.sitemeter.com/ [local]
• Demo: insert image (maybe script) to get visitor stats
• Full site stats give you more information.
• Referrer - pages that are linking to you.
• Search queries - always tons o' fun.
• Demo: my September stats [local]

Comments

• Feedback from your fans and stalkers.
• I like comments. [local]
• Most blog systems (other than Blogger) provide this.
• Example: http://www.quicktopic.com/ [local]

• Rich Site Summary, Really Simple Syndication, or RDF Site Summary.
• Makes it easy to follow a large number of blogs.
• RSS is an XML presentation of your blog or journal content.
• Typically linked to an button.
• Author: RSS automatically generated by most blog software.
• Demo: my RSS feed [local] is linked from my blog [local].
• Reader: Use an aggregator to subscribe to RSS feeds.
• Demo: snapshot of my aggregator

• Designed to link discussion across blogs.
• Open standard, supported by Movable Type.
• Works like so:
• Aaron blogs an article.
• Beth blogs a response.
• Beth transmits a trackback ping to Aaron's blog.
• Aaron's blog displays a link to Beth.
• Also being used for aggregation.
• Example: Austin Bloggers Meta-Blog [link]