I’ve made an additional update to this site, adding headlines from my Newsgator Online feeds to the sidebar at the far right. Adding headlines is quite easy, and builds on the procedure I described in my article Creating a Semi-Automatic Newsgator Blogroll on Your WordPress Blog.

Instead of selecting the “Blogroll” function for the locations you have created in Newsgator Online, you select “Headlines.” On the Headline settings screen, you activate the headlines script with a click for “Check here to enable Headlines settings for this location.” You can then specify the number of posts to be displayed by the headline script and the maximum number of characters for each headline. I currently have mine set for 7 headlines per location, with 50 characters each, which I may tweak a little for appearance or clarity. Note that you can also alter the layout of the headlines by removing or rearranging individual elements, such as the date and time.

This will probably be the last significant change to the layout of my site for a while, since — as I mentioned here – my classes begin again in a few days, and I’ll want to shift my focus to writing content related to that experience rather than spending time on technical changes. But I did want to send out a little credit and thanks, once again, to Lorelle VanFossen: the idea of adding options for readers to leave my site while still following my interests came from a comment she made on Dawud Miracle’s article Why You Want To Link To Other Blogs. Lorelle wrote:

I love the fact that blogging is the only industry in which you get more readers by sending them away from your business…. If they like what they find when you send them away, they come back for more, and bring their friends.

Incredible. We’re changing the whole concept of marketing.

This observation has stuck with me since I read it, especially because I’m so fascinated by the ways in which blogging, social networking, and technological change in general are affecting individuals and their lives, opening up significant opportunities to pursue their passions in ways that were not available a few short decades ago. In addition to changing the whole concept of marketing, every time a blog writer posts a new article or opens another part of their life to their readers, they’re contributing to the radical cultural and social changes we’re all living in right now … and adding this new out-links to my site is my way of going along for the ride.


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