Blog-Support
Linkblogs
posted Thursday, 1 March 2007
Every blog now has its own LinkBlog. A linkblog is like a mini blog, but focused around links (as opposed to entries). If you find a useful link, you can blog it in your LinkBlog, tag it and give it a small comment describing it. People can view your linkblog by visiting http://YOUR.BLOG.URL/linkblog/ and may also subscribe to a RSS feed specifically for your linkblog.
To make adding linkblogs quicker and faster, you can easily drag a small LinkBlog Bookmarklet to your browser's toolbar and when you find a page you want to include, the URL and the pages TITLE will be automatically filled in for you. You can place linkblogs in your gutter, and for those of you using a custom home page, you have much greater control over how you display your latest linkblogs on the home page. It is a very useful way for collecting and organizing large collections of links and sharing them with your own blog community.
Useful links
Managing your LinkBlog
Creating a new LinkBlog entry
The bookmarklet
To manage your LinkBlog, login to your Administration interface, and select LinkBlog under the Entries tab.
To make adding linkblogs quicker and faster, you can easily drag a small LinkBlog Bookmarklet to your browser's toolbar and when you find a page you want to include, the URL and the pages TITLE will be automatically filled in for you. You can place linkblogs in your gutter, and for those of you using a custom home page, you have much greater control over how you display your latest linkblogs on the home page. It is a very useful way for collecting and organizing large collections of links and sharing them with your own blog community.
Useful links
Managing your LinkBlog
Creating a new LinkBlog entry
The bookmarklet
To manage your LinkBlog, login to your Administration interface, and select LinkBlog under the Entries tab.
On the right pane of this page, you will see three very important links of your LinkBlog. The first of these is the URL to your main LinkBlog; this is exactly like your main homepage, but it only displays LinkBlogs, instead of regular blog entries. The second is the URL to your RSS newsfeed; visitors can subscribe to your LinkBlog, so as to be notified in their news reader every time you post a new link. And third is the URL to the tags used in your LinkBlog entries, allowing visitors to browse through them in a much more intuitive way than classic chronological browsing.
In the left pane of the page, there are four submenus, which open to four different pages. The first one, LinkBlog, is the one which opens by default, i.e. the one described in the above paragraph. The second one is the LinkBlog Archives, which allows you to edit any previously-created links. The fourth submenu is LinkBlog Statistics, which shows the most read LinkBlog entries for both the past 28 days, and for all times.
The third submenu is LinkBlog Entry. Here you can create new entries. Clicking on it will present you with this dialog:
In the left pane of the page, there are four submenus, which open to four different pages. The first one, LinkBlog, is the one which opens by default, i.e. the one described in the above paragraph. The second one is the LinkBlog Archives, which allows you to edit any previously-created links. The fourth submenu is LinkBlog Statistics, which shows the most read LinkBlog entries for both the past 28 days, and for all times.
The third submenu is LinkBlog Entry. Here you can create new entries. Clicking on it will present you with this dialog:
Link Title - Here you can give a name to your link, for example, "Blog Support Homepage".
Link URL - This is where you insert the actual link, for example, "http://www.blog-support.com".
Comment - A description of the link goes here, maybe something to let your visitors know what the link is about, or maybe even your personal thoughts on the page you are linking to.
Tags - Here you specify the tags which will be attached to your LinkBlog entry. If you've used flickr/del.ic.io.us, or other similar online tools, you already know what tags are. Either single words or entire phrases, they allow quick organization of the material. If in the field above we were to enter, "fish", then, once the LinkBlog entry is published, it will show the tagword "fish" at the bottom of the post. A simple click on that word, will produce a list of all blog entries having "fish" as a tag word. Think of them as a more flexible kind of categories, which you don't need to set up in advance, but that you can create on the spot, as you write your LinkBlog entry.
LinkBlog Bookmarklet
In the lower-right side of the main LinkBlog page, you will see the words Drag this link to your toolbar. Click on that link with your mouse, and while keeping the left mouse button pressed, drag the link all the way to your browser's toolbar and release, thus creating a new button there. This bookmarklet can be a very useful tool, as it makes creating new LinkBlog entries much easier. Simply click on the button whenever you visit a webpage that you wish to add to your LinkBlog, and you'll be presented with this popup dialog:
Link URL - This is where you insert the actual link, for example, "http://www.blog-support.com".
Comment - A description of the link goes here, maybe something to let your visitors know what the link is about, or maybe even your personal thoughts on the page you are linking to.
Tags - Here you specify the tags which will be attached to your LinkBlog entry. If you've used flickr/del.ic.io.us, or other similar online tools, you already know what tags are. Either single words or entire phrases, they allow quick organization of the material. If in the field above we were to enter, "fish", then, once the LinkBlog entry is published, it will show the tagword "fish" at the bottom of the post. A simple click on that word, will produce a list of all blog entries having "fish" as a tag word. Think of them as a more flexible kind of categories, which you don't need to set up in advance, but that you can create on the spot, as you write your LinkBlog entry.
LinkBlog Bookmarklet
In the lower-right side of the main LinkBlog page, you will see the words Drag this link to your toolbar. Click on that link with your mouse, and while keeping the left mouse button pressed, drag the link all the way to your browser's toolbar and release, thus creating a new button there. This bookmarklet can be a very useful tool, as it makes creating new LinkBlog entries much easier. Simply click on the button whenever you visit a webpage that you wish to add to your LinkBlog, and you'll be presented with this popup dialog:
The fields are exactly the same as in the LinkBlog entry editor, with the only exception being that the Link Title and Link URL fields are automatically completed for you, thus making the entire process even quicker!
Have fun!
Have fun!