The Hindu : Business : ReBlog: a new trend in world of weblogs

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Monday, Apr 05, 2004

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Business

ReBlog: a new trend in world of weblogs

THIS TIME NetSpeak brings to your attention the concept of reBlog or filtered blog, a new trend in the world of weblogs.

The availability of an information generation tool that can be operated with ease by anyone with average skills will result in an information explosion through mass participation. The popularity of the Web and the current widespread acceptance of the blog technology by netizens from all walks of life attest to this observation.

From just being an on-line diary tool, where a blogger posts his thoughts on to a web page, `blogging' has become a serious endeavour, done quite carefully by professionals and business people. In fact, like other Net-based sources such as Web and newsgroups, blogs have become a major source of information for netizens.

But this spectacular growth of blogs is creating an information overload problem for netizens. Catching blogs with relevant content or with minimum junk is becoming a formidable task. Of course, as all blogs come equipped with RSS feeds, one can minimise the severity of this task with the help of news aggregators to some extent.

Need for filtering blogs

A newsfeed contains the headline details of the latest postings on a blog/site and using a news aggregator you can go through each entry from all the subscribed feeds through a single interface. However, in this process you may come across many useless threads, quite naturally. Now, if you can select the relevant threads (from the listed ones) and post all of them together on to another blog, you can have a new filtered blog with more appropriate content. The people behind the `reBlog' technology aim to build such a blog.

ReBlog

reBlog is a blog with filtered content. The developers have created a reblog tool by combining two open source technologies_the blog creation tool `MovableType' and the PHP-based server-side news aggregation tool `Feedon Feeds' (http://minutillo.com/steve/feedonfeeds/) discussed in this column long ago. If you have an Intranet or access to a web server with PERL/PHP/MySQL support, you can easily implement a reBlog.

Installation process

Download the archives, reBlog (http://www.reblog.org/) and Movable Type (http://www.movabletype.org/) from the respective web sites. The reBlog archive comes bundled with the PHP-based server-side news aggregation software and other necessary tools that enable you to connect the MT blog with the news aggregator. As the installation instructions are clearly mentioned on the reBlog's install page (http://www.reblog.org/INSTALL), we will not go further on the installation steps.

If your installation went on successfully, you will have a blog and a web-based news aggregation service running on your server. First, access the news-aggregation service by pointing your browser to its URL (for example, http://your-site-name/reblog/feedonfeeds). Here, you will see a control panel with options such as `Add feeds', `View new items' and so on. Using the `Add Feeds' option, subscribe to your favourite newsfeeds and click on the `view' option to get the feeds' items displayed on your browser. With each posting, alongside the title, you will find a menu with such options as `Publish' and `Delete'. If you want to keep an entry, click on the `Publish' button.

Repeat this process for all the items and when you are done with the item selection process, click on the `Publish reBlog' button so that all the selected entries will get automatically posted on to your MT blog (reBlog). Now, move on to the reblog's admin area and rebuild the files. Once you have finished these steps successfully, the selected entries will appear on your filtered or reBlog. This way, you can instantaneously generate a filtered blog with a few mouse clicks.

E-mail Alert services

On the Net you will find several alert services that e-mail you the latest information on a specified subject periodically. The Google alert service (http://www.googlealert.com/) (mentioned some time back in this column) that daily runs a customised search and e-mails the new search results connected to your query is an example. In this regard you may try out the alert service `Wisdom Change' (http://www.wisdomchange.com) that can be used to watch your favourite web pages for tracking the changes in its content. The service will send you an e-mail alert as soon as the page is changed.

If you are a regular newsfeed reader, the RSS alert service `MyRSSAlerts' (http://www.myrssalerts.com/) that sends an e-mail alert while the specified RSS feed's content changes, is another product of this type that deserves attention.

Ithaki: A metasearch engine

It is known that a metasearch engine scans several search services simultaneously, compiles the output from each and presents the collected results together through a single web page. Ithaki (http://www.ithaki.net/indexu.htm) is one such metasearch service that lets you invoke a customised search process. For example, you can start a search that scans only search directories such as Yahoo and Open Directory Project. Or you can invoke a search process that scans such search channels as search engines and news groups. Ithaki also lets you narrow down the search to specific subjects and issues. For example, if you want to get the latest news on a particular issue, you can use the Ithaki's news search service (http://news.ithaki.net/). Likewise, if your query is related to a subject like Linux, try out Ithaki Linux component at: (http://linux.ithaki.net/).

On-line WorldNews network

Want to have a look at the various developments across the world on diverse fronts such as politics, business, culture and technology from a single Web interface? Then access the news portal, WorldNews (http://www.wn.com/s/sitemap/index.html), which can be used as a launching pad to move over to such regional/subject-specific sub-portals as WorldNews Africa (http://www.wnafrica.com/), WorldNews Asia (http://www.wnnasia.com/), World Sports News (http://www.sportsnews.com/), World Business Daily (http://www.businessdaily.com/) and World Economic News (http://www.economicsnews.com/).

J. Murali

Email the author at:

murali27@satyam.net.in

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