All About Sideblogs

I've been running the sideblog (on the left sidebar) for about a month now—what do you think? Do you find it useful, or annoying, or simply irrelevant? It took me a couple of tries to get the coding right, but the slick layout comes by first setting up an entirely separate blog under the Typepad domain (see Dave's Sidenotes), then bringing the body of the short posts from that site into my sidebar using a snippet of pre-formed Javascript code. Well, I like it anyway. As for content, I've settled down to just using it to post pointers to good posts at BT, at other Bloggernacle sites, or sometimes for a nice post elsewhere. It's nice for links worth highlighting but that aren't worth a full blog post.

I set up two other sideblogs last month: First, the sideblog at By Common Consent, which couldn't be done the way I outlined in the first paragraph (because BCC uses its own domain name), so I first set up the BCC sideblog site, then ran it through a site called RSS Digest in order to produce a feed that would display on the sidebar. Surprisingly, regular RSS or Atom feeds won't display on weblogs without some technical tweaking.

Second, I set up an LDS headline sideblog at The Bloggernacle Times, using the LDS news feed from Topix.net, then running it through the RSS Digest service just like with the BCC sideblog feed.

Upside: Sideblogs are a slick way to put "mini-posts" on the site and are a better use of sidebar space than endless lists of links.
Downside: extra work, it's like running two blogs in one.
Other Bloggernacle sideblogs I'm aware of:

• "Notes from all over" at T&S
• "A Look Around" at Explorations (using the Sideblog site to create the feed)
• "Subsidiary Thoughts" at Gordon Smith's The Conglomerate site, which just gives links to his sideblog site; he hit the same Typepad domain name problem I did with the BCC sideblog, but he opted, it seems, for using just links rather than running through a site like RSS Digest to get a text feed on the sidebar. Funny, I searched the whole Internet for resources trying to explain why I couldn't get the Typepad sideblog to work at BCC, and Gordon's comments at The Conglomerate were the best explanation I found -- thanks, Gordon!

Comments

[Steve Evans]

Dave, your sideblog is the best, because your content is best. BCC's would be nice if everyone contributed to it. T&S's is just silly.

[Dave]

Yes, I subscribe to the quaint notion that the sideblog should bear some discernible relationship to the main blog. T&S seems to have liberated itself from any such restriction with "Notes From All Over." That is no doubt a function of their pool of eclectic, open-minded readers.

[Ann]

BCC's sideblog hasn't been updated in at least a week, I think. It's kind of like my own blog...if it's going to be updated so rarely, why bother?

And their Mormon News sideblog, on the right, has a marriage announcement for a couple of kids at BYU-Idaho...what the?

I'm so glad you asked about this, because I was wondering where I write critically of BCC's sideblog, and now you have thoughtfully provided a place that is just perfect for it.

[Steve Evans]

Ann, the sideblog is something of a novelty and an experiment. Like anything else at BCC, it's impermanent and may not last for long.

[Darren]

Ann - The mormon news headlines from the topix.net feed basically display search engine results from news sources...it doesn't weed out the very minor news stories (obits, wedding announcments) from the stories with broader appeal. This limits its appeal, IMO.

Dave, I like the sideblog, since I don't frequent many other blogs. I click on a link about once a week or so.

[Dave]

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. As for the LDS headlines feed, you have to just skip the headlines that don't interest you ... just like the newspaper, I guess. I like the Topix.net feed because it's a fairly neutral selection. And personally, I like the wedding announcements. They remind bloggers there is a real life out there beyond the blogosphere.

[Clark]

I kind of like T&S'. In fact I've been toying with one on my own site modeled after T&S' eclectic mix.

[Heather P.]

I agree with Steve that your sideblog is the best, Dave.
I ran across sideblog.com when I was working on another project (watch for something new and exciting!). I was trying to figure out how to make a sideblog on a free blogger.com blog. This is the only (fairly simple) solution I could come up with, aside from manually adding a link to the top of the list and deleting one from the bottom - not very convenient. sideblog.com will give you a piece of javascript to insert in your code. It's ugly but functional. It is nice to have a place for shorter notes.

[Mark N.]

I like the sideblog, so long as one is able to comment on the stories found there. Too often, however, I find that comments have been turned off on a specific item I'd like to comment on. In those cases I can't help but wonder, why did anyone bother to put it there in the first place?

[J. Stapley]

...looks like BCC has put their side blog down. Their perma bloggers couldn't even do that :)

[Steve Evans]

Dave, this new banner of yours is not a step in the right direction. Prepare for a scathing review, Zeitgeist-style!

[Dave]

Steve, I'm crushed. If you only knew how much trial and error effort went into its creation!

[Stephen M (Ethesis)]

I actually have been using your side blog and consider it a strong plus to your site.

[Dave]

Thanks for the comments, everyone. I'm pleased that some people find the sideblog entries useful. I decided to go with no comments on the sideblog site, idea being that people should generally go to the original site and join the conversation there. I always feel bad when a small solo blog puts up a good post and gets 3 comments, then some big group blog poaches their post and gets 75 comments. In the unusual event that there is a post that I think requires a separate comment thread here for some reason, I'll put it in a regular post.