Via library stuff this post from Blogging Roller [nice, subscribed!] is worth a look on the community aggregator front.
"A new type of web site is becoming popular in the weblogging world: the Community Aggregator. A Community Aggregator is a portal-like web application that displays weblog posts from a group of closely related but separately hosted weblogs and provides synthetic newsfeeds so that readers may subscribe to the group as a whole."
Also there are some great links to community aggregator sites ands software.
However, I'm confused. Well, not really confused as much as I think I'm seeing the light!
What's the attraction of a community aggregator, well, according to Dave Johnson (of Blogroller)"
"Features useful in a Community Aggregator:
- Allow users to mark weblogs as favorite-blogs or ignored-blogs.
- Count clicks on each weblog entry.
- Allow users to design their own synthesized feeds.
- Allow administrator to "pin" weblog entries to the top of the page.
- Download subscription list as OPML
- Weblogs.com API RPC interface
- Search API RPC interface
- Portal-like web UI"
...but isn't that all true of an individual one, like the Userland one I use? I mean, I like things like Stephen Downes' Edu_Rss as much as the next educational technologist ;o) BUT... besides from archiving, searching and introducing newbies to the edublogging world it doesn't do a hell of a lot for me (well, OK, that's already a lot but y'know ;o)
Because:
-If I want to subscribe to someone I'd rather subscribe to them myself... in my aggregator linked weblog too thankyou v. much!
-I'd much rather have one client on my desktop that works well for me than a web-based one with all the associated issues (logging in, cookies, access speeds etc.)
-I don't want to read everything there, or even scan it. I think Stephen's got an amazing range of blogs but it wouldn't be (and isn't) my choice (as would be the case with anyone's aggregator).
-What I want to read is what I want to read... as of when a community decided what it's individuals wanted to read is a bit beyond me.
I reckon that basically, community aggregation is nice. It does 'bond', it also allows me to scan a whole lotta blogs at once to see if there are any which I don't subscribe to that I might like to. New to the game it's also very useful (although a blogroll does pretty much the same!). But, the answer to many things it is not, which is a shame as I've been selling RSS as a community aggregation tool for discipline specific content... whoops!!!
2:35:29 PM 
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