Up until recently I maintained the "news" page on Euro Crime fairly faithfully but it does take quite a lot of time. I have just been dabbling with setting up a page ("room") on FriendFeed to do the same thing. It's much quicker for me to update and it allows readers to comment in that room on the articles. Another difference is that the articles won't particularly be listed in date order. You don't need to be a member of FriendFeed to view the links, only if you want to comment. (Joining is not onerous.)
Maxine at Petrona has set up a Crime and Mystery Room in FriendFeed which has proven popular and addictive.
So please have a look at the options and let me know in the comments which is preferable, or whether it's even needed at all...
Existing Option (bit out of date)
Test Friend Feed Group (April's reviews from Guardian & Independent)
Karen, the existing format is a straight forward, unadorned list and quite functional. Personally, I like the more friendly aspects of FriendFeed. The ability to comment and "like" a post are pluses for me. Using the "share on friendfeed" bookmarklet makes it very easy to add a link. My vote would be for a FriendFeed room but only if you are comfortable with comments and likes breaking up the flow.
ReplyDeleteI like the friend feed option myself and if that's easier for you I say go for it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Mack that the ability to ´like´ a post is a good option. Quite often I am too busy/tired/ stupid/uninspired or whatever to say something sensible, and then ´I like´ is a good way to let people know I am there and follow their blog.
ReplyDeleteI also like friendfeed, and regularly look at it from eurocrime and click on links, so if it's easier for you to do updates that way, then go for it!
ReplyDeleteI like the friend feed option personally, but there are a couple of downsides for you:
ReplyDelete(1) some people don't like the hassle of registering at a new site, learning how to use it, remembering passwords and so on. Therefore you might not find many more readers of the Eurocrime news room than there are of the crime and fiction room.
(2) So far as I know (but have not really looked) you can't tell much about the traffic to Friend Feed.
(3) if you add four or more links over a time period, they do not all display separately but you get "see 16 more like this" - so users have to click on that to see all the links. Regular users will know to do this, but new users won't, I suspect.
The three of us who have answered so far are all friend feed users already, so it would be nice if you get some responses from regular Euro Crime users who aren't also Friend Feed users.
I do think it is fun to comment on the links, which you can do at FF but not directly at Euro Crime.
FriendFeed has less users today than it did last October, according to Comscore. Co-founder Paul Buchheit says that isn’t accurate (and I believe him), but it’s clear that the service hasn’t grown much in the last few months.
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