Blogroll

Exploring the World Beyond Tech

August 26th, 2007 | 1 Comment | Posted in Blogroll, Blogs

My Google Reader is chock-a-block with tech blogs - the obvious ones such as TechCrunch, Mashable, A VC, GigaOm; those written by friends such as Mathew Ingram, Rob Hyndman and Aiden Henry; and a bunch of Apple blogs such as The Unofficial Apple Weblog and A New Mac Tip Every Day.

But as the past few weeks, I’ve started to diversify my feeds into other areas - some related to specifics interests, and some just because they’re really interesting. Here’s a mini-list of some recent finds:

1. Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools, which covers a variety of cools things such as books, gadgets, software, videos, maps, hardware or Web sites.

2. Wisebread, which is devoted to “personal finance and frugal living”.

3. Commute by Bike, a new favourite since I’ve started to bike to work again every day.

4. Four Reasons Why, a recently launched blog devoted to providing four reasons for a variety of things (e.g. Why James Bond Will Never Die; Why You Shouldn’t Drink Bottled Water)

5. Spacing Wire, an excellent city blog about Toronto.

6. PlanetEye, which launched last week. Note: I work for PlanetEye so it’s a must-read.
Meanwhile, I’ve also been pruning back the number of feeds in my reader. While Scoble can go through 622 feeds a day, I can realistically check out 20 to 30. (Speaking of Google Reader, just wondering why hasn’t the official Google Reader Blog been updated since June 22?)

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TheGoodBlogs Deserves Some Love

August 10th, 2007 | 1 Comment | Posted in Blog Services, Blogroll

I had lunch yesterday with Vernon Lun, one of the two programming wizards behind TheGoodBlogs.

For those of you not familiar with TheGoodBlogs, it’s a really cool widget that helps bloggers promote their own blogs and those of others. TGB has been available for about a year, and it now has more than 2,000 bloggers on board, which is pretty good given Vernon and his partner, Tony, are far better programmers rather than marketers.

While TGB has enjoyed some success - and generates about 80,000 pageviews a day for its users - it probably hasn’t received as much love and attention as it deserves given it’s a tool that adds value to a blog and, at the same, encourages bloggers to build a community.

Maybe it’s a marketing issue or not being at the right place at the right time but it does seem strange that non-descript tools such as Pownce get thrust into the spotlight while TGB quietly toils away in the background. Of course, it helps that Digg.com’s Kevin Rose is involved with Pownce but you what I mean.

If you get a chance, check out TGB. It’s easy to install and the kind of tool that you and your blog readers will find useful.

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