Continuous Learning

This is the fourth post in the series - you can read what experts say about this particular topic, my experiences so far, and my thoughts on alternative approach.

In the last post I describe a different way to think what compelling contents are:

• I do not have to write all of the compelling content
• Just about all of top blogs are journalistic (i.e. link to other’s contents)
• Google, Del.icio.us, Digg, Reddit are all alternative models to content generation
• Research & organizing relevant content has value to readers

Of course, no one qualifies Google, Del.icio.us, Digg, or Reddit as blogs, but they offer values to readers regardless.

My goal is to experiment with the above concept to generate content quickly and almost effortlessly

A Bit of Bookkeeping

From here on out I will talk about the journey to achieve the above objective. It will follow the Ready, Fire, Aim principle. We will try multiple solutions and see how well they work out, what the gaps are, and how to close the gap.

It means I will spend quite a bit of time researching and developing solutions, and the posts will reflect the journey. It also means that I might not be able to post as frequently as I’d like, so going forward my postings will be a bit sporadic, but hopefully I can still achieve my monthly posting quota (for this month the goal is a minimum of 12 posts).

Anyhow - let’s get started

First Idea - Republishing

The quickest way to generate content is not to generate the content at all, but rather republishing other’s content. In the blogosphere this can be achieved through republishing other’s feed.

For some, republishing other’s feed is a taboo. Some people have bad experiences with others republishing, and I can certainly understand why. My research on the web yields some findings:

• It is not illegal to republish, but content authors might not like it
• Republishing excerpts can fall under fair use, but republishing full feed is murky at best
• It is considered a poor taste to modify the content to add links, especially in the feed

So, anyone wanting to republishing other’s feed should make sure to stay clear the murky side

• Publish only excerpts feeds (this appears to fall under copyright fair use rule, although IANAL)
• If you must publish full feeds, do so with author’s permission
• Do not modify content to inline ads into the texts (something such as intelliTxt probably will cause controversy; YMMV)

Republishing other’s feeds can be mutually beneficial. On one hand, you can provide valuable content to your readers, and the author gets recognition and traffic. It is a pity that some people misappropriate the concept.

My personal view is that republishing is an interim solution. It does not add all the value I like to have. As I go through the journey, I will talk about other ways to enhance republishing.

First Attempt @ Republishing

So, how can we achieve republishing? Let’s try a very simple solution and see how it works.

WP has built-in capability for RSS via RSS Widget through Widget-capable themes such as Cutline, Kubrick, Silver Lexus, Anaconda, etc (you can find widget-capable themes here). To use the widget is easy:

1. Add the RSS widget to the sidebar via Admin > Presentation > Sidebar Widgets
   
   
2. Modify the widget by inputting the URL of the RSS feed
   
   

Once you have done so, you will see the RSS feed showing up on your sidebar! (See lower left & lower right corner on my page - I have syndicated two different RSS feeds - one from Digg home page & one from Reddit home page).

Gaps

While this approach is simple, it does not really address what we need and has the following limitations:

• RSS Widget only works on the sidebar and does not create posts - this means you are not really republishing other’s content on your blog
• RSS Widget is also limited - it only display the title of the posts and provides no excerpts or other meta information (such as URL & author name) for republishing. This certainly also does not do what we want

We will talk about how to solve these problems in the next article. Stay tuned.