November 11, 2009:
Sidebar links
For a long time, I’ve visited GoMotoring a few times a day, to keep an eye on new MINI blog posts, recent forum discussions, etc. MotoringFile has a similar feature (the News Room), but for whatever reason I never remember to go there.
GoMotoring for a while now (since Robert’s last site update) has no working link to TwistyBitz, and a number of the other sites linked there are dead, or almost. Other MINI blogs are not listed (neither on GoMotoring nor the MotoringFile News Room).
DB has a great list of MINI blogs on his site, but of course no indication there of any updates; I also tried to maintain a list of MINI blogs that interest me, on my sidebar but again, they are only links with no way to see new posts unless you visit the site.
People have told me to use a “reader”; I tried Google Reader before but it didn’t work well for me – it swamped me with forum updates and made it impossible to see other MINI blogs. But I looked again this weekend – and found that it’s possible to categorize the feeds in Google Reader (maybe it always was, or maybe it’s new …)
So I was able to create a couple of Google Reader categories for me – “Forums” contains feeds from MINI forums such a NorthAmericanMotoring, MINI2, Motoring Underground and others – I also put MotoringFile in there since it posts pretty regularly and often has (to me) less interesting stuff.
A second Google Reader category (“Blogs”) contains all the MINI-related blogs I could find, after checking links from DB, my old links, and the Motoring Underground Yellow Pages; I included apparently inactive MINI blogs, but omitted those that were dead, or clearly not MINI related any more.
I also replaced my links section on the right of GBMINI, with code to “embed” the Google Reader feed list – so on the right now under “BLOG LINKS” and “FORUM LINKS” are all the links I put in to Google Reader – and at the bottom of each is a “View All” that takes you to a Google Reader page listing all recent activity in the relevant category.
Maybe not the greatest layout (there doesn’t seem to be much way to customize Google Reader), but certainly a nice easy way to check all recent MINI activity in just a couple of clicks. And I get to see activity on Robert’s site (such as the very important new GP shirts post!)
Feel free to visit View All Blog Links, or View All Forum Links – or let me know if there’s something really great that I have missed!
RB (2009/11/11 @ 1:12 pm)
Hum… I just use the RSS feed that my Apple Mail offers. Comes right into that mail page. I get the latest, not that many any more, updates to the blogs I still go to. Of course it’s not a GoMotoring or MF NewsRoom but I now never go to them unless I want to see if they have anything new.
As far as GoMotoring… I used to go there but since MC2 bought it I stay away and have asked them to pull the dead feed they have there, it makes it look like Twisty is dead. They seem to be a headless operation now.
One thing… you have my link miss named. It’s TwistyBlitz not Twistybitz that my store.
The GP survey was a kick. Lotsa good feedback. Now the design forum of choices is going pretty well. Had one GP guy not happy with the design choices and needed to tell me so… I voted him off the island!…
Some peoples kids. Don’t like what you see go elsewhere why be so mean… ah the internet, everyone is Superman.
GBMINI (2009/11/11 @ 1:29 pm)
I’ll fix TwistyBlitz right away
db (2009/11/11 @ 1:31 pm)
What’s even cooler about that list you made Ian is that anyone else can subscribe to it. Very cool and nicely done!
FYI – The News Room has been bugging me lately and as soon as I have the time I’m going to be doing some clean up. I wish there was something I could do about GM, but that’s completely out of my control. I don’t even think Mark has access to it anymore.
GBMINI (2009/11/14 @ 9:23 pm)
Considering how few MINI E’s there are, there’s a lot of blogs about them – I separated them out to their own group, here