FIRST Blogs Rumours

[Timothy D. Ginn]

The following is reproduced from my blog (and therefore also appears on FIRST Blogs):

Some of you may have heard rumours that there's something big happening with FIRST Blogs soon... let me confirm that this is true. I'm in the process of putting the finishing touches on something that I (and the others who I've let have a sneak peek at) think will be a great improvement to the way the site works now. Well I won't say what is coming publically e.g. here at the moment (some of you can probably guess anyway) I will go into a few details about what isn't going to change.

1. The RSS feed which combines all of the blogs listed on FIRST Blogs will still continue to exist.

2. There will continue to be a page that lists all entries from the recent past (though the interval will likely be reduced from 2 weeks to 1 week and possibly shorter).

3. The API functionality as it exists now will not be changed in such a way that forces people to upgrade immediately (or indeed at all).

4. There will still be a way to easily find and subscribe to different people's blogs (like the current listing on the right side of the site).

5. We'll still be allowing people to add blogs that aren't limited to FIRST-only subjects (who would want to loose the conversational atmosphere, anyway?).

That being said, expect some very nice improvements in the very near future :-)

[Ryan M.]

And I've had a chance to see some of it... looking good.

[Timothy D. Ginn]

Said website has now been released. Wohoo :-)

[Timothy D. Ginn]

There have now been more updates (FIRST Blogs syndication of my blog). If you're wanting to be notified first about updates to FIRST Blogs, I usually mention them in the FIRST Topic of my blog.

Thanks to those who have made suggestions and I definitely welcome more of them.

[Timothy D. Ginn]

Of interest to those who haven't registered for FIRST Blogs:

http://blog.openfirst.org/add/quickreg/

is a quick registration system (all it requires is your username and selecting whether you're using LiveJournal, Blogger, or Modblog). If you're using something other than those for your blog, you can still add it using the regular add process at:

http://blog.openfirst.org/add/

If anyone has any suggestions for other popular blog services which quick registration could be implemented for I'd be glad to hear them.

Edit: Now Xanga is supported for quick registration, too.