Is Social Networking Really Anti-Social? [link]

January 16, 2008

Is Social Networking Really Anti-Social?
Rob May debates whether social networking really is socializing—or if it’s just an excuse to never leave your house.

Written by nhgnikole · Filed Under Links | Leave a Comment

New Things: Links Feed, WordPress, Facebook, Twitter, Feedburner (and some geek code)

January 14, 2008

I wanted a better way to showcase the really great stuff that I come across by other blog authors. I had been using my shared items feed from Google Reader, but I’m not the biggest fan of Google Reader and the options for display were very limited. (I’ve been trying Google Reader for nearly a month, but I think I prefer NewsFire more.) So, in this post, I am going to attempt to describe how I made a links feed, split WordPress to make that links feed appear in the right sidebar, changed my WordPress templates to exclude that links feed, changed my FeedBurner settings to reflect those alterations, used a new Facebook App to display my new combined links + site feed on my Facebook profile, and carried that all over to Twitter. (Phew!)

In English: I can now share links to quality content from other blogs on my site, and combine those links with my own feed on my Facebook and Twitter profiles. This serves multiple purposes: to add value for my readers, and to increase my reach both through my blog and other social media sites. I will start with an explanation of the whys, and then get into the code in a stepwise fashion.

Written by nhgnikole · Filed Under NHG News and Projects, Technology and Websites | 1 Comment