A reading list is the organised list of all feeds that a person reads using their feed reader. There are two primary file formats for reading lists, XOXO and OPML (see What is XOXO?). Reading lists are popularly used as an import/export format for moving subscriptions between feed readers. If they are made available online they can also be used as dynamic reading lists.
Dynamic reading lists are reading lists that are aggregated by a feed reader. One folder or module is always updated to contain the most current subscriptions from the reading list. This allows users to subscribe to other users’ reading lists to see what other’s are reading, for example. Directory sites like Share Your OPML (which, as the name indicates, is anti-XOXO) also allow users to share their subscriptions en masse.
Feed readers currently supporting the dynamic reading list concept are:
Dynamic reading lists can be previewed or included as a widget in a webpage using Grazr. Grazr currently only supports OPML, but XOXO is on the todo list.
If you know of any other programs that support dynamic reading lists or other interesting uses for reading lists, please leave a comment below.
If you have any suggestions on how this introduction to reading lists could be clarified, please leave a comment below.
It is reccomended that you use the new del.icio.us, pinging, AND trackback script. This one may still work, but I no longer actively support it.
Blogger has no native trackback capabilities. While trackback is a wonderful tool, it can sometimes just be too much of a pain for Blogger users. After all, you just went to the work of writing a wonderful post, who wants to bother making a hop over to Haloscan afterwards to send trackbacks to others? With the advent of the semi-automatic Backlinks we seem to be ever less inclined to make the extra hop.
Now, the extra hop can be a thing of the past. Install the Blogger Trackback Userscript and get trackback functionality directly from your Blogger dashboard! Every time you publish a post, the script harvests the title, permalink, and post excerpt (as well as blog title) and then displays a form on the ‘post complete’ page for trackbacks. Enter the trackback URLs one at a time and hit enter. The trackbacks will be completed AJAXially.
Much thanks to Johan’s Blogger del.icio.us helper script which facilitated much of the code for this script.
Possible Future Features
- Support for autodiscovery trackback RDF so that one can enter simply the post URL for a trackback and not have to use the full trackback URL
- Optionally try auto-trackbacking to all posts linked to from the post