This entry was posted on
Monday, February 13th, 2006 at
4:27 pm and is filed
under BlogCode, Teh Interwebs.
OK folks, here it is… the Big Shiny New Thing I’ve been promising:
BlogCode.com – the weblog directory and recommendation tool
Blogcode.com is an initiative of StoryCode, the book-comparison project in which I have been proud to play a small role. The idea for BlogCode was cooked up by myself and Steve Johnston, and made real largely thanks to the excellent work of StoryCode’s lead developer Chris Russell.
Blogcode.com, not unlike its parent site Storycode.com, is designed to provide reading recommendations based on aspects such as style, delivery and content. We have, however, taken great care to make the coding process specific to weblogs, but universal enough to cover the typical aspects of most weblogs.
The result is a blog directory that lets you find blogs similar to the one(s) you enjoy, without limiting yourself to subject-based searches on Technorati or endless journeys through blogroll after blogroll.
Basically, it provides anyone who enjoys weblogs with a fast-track to similar reading experiences. It will also be useful to bloggers themselves, by helping them to attract a suitable readership and/or helping them to find other bloggers that they may wish to network with.
Take the excellent weblog Chicken Yoghurt as an example; over the past year or so I’ve found myself linking to what this blogger writes about on more key issues than any other blogger, as we have similar views and similar writing styles.
It took months – years, even – to establish this relationship and the synchronicity between our weblogs, but BlogCode established an 84% match within minutes:
Recommendations for Bloggerheads
How the system works
– The reader of any given blog evaluates that weblog at BlogCode.com
– 27 metrics allow for intuitive response via the use of sliders
– One code/evaluation is enough to kick things off, but the more people who code a weblog, the more reliable this collaborative evaluation becomes
– These 27 metrics intersect in what can best be described as a sphere; and where any given weblog is in this sphere is determined by the combined gravitational forces of all metrics
– Other blogs that are closest in proximity to this weblog within this imaginary 3-dimensional space are judged to be a good match (the strength of which is determined by a simple percentage… anything over 80% is a bloody good match)
How it can be used
As a reader: If you discover a blog that you love, you simply look it up at BlogCode to find others like it (and if that blog isn’t in the database, you simply create an entry and code it)
As a blogger: You can use BlogCode to find other people to network with and/or beef up your blogroll – there’s even a special tool available via the site that allows you to display a feed of current matches on your weblog (kind of like a miniature dynamic blogroll).
Beta-testing begins now
So, go forth, play, do and enjoy. Remember; the more blogs we have in the system and the more evaluations we have of each weblog, the better the system works.
:o)
Warm and fuzzy feelings of gratitude go out to all those who chipped in on the Alpha-testing and – in doing so – helped to build our initial weblog database:
Nick Barlow
BigDaddyMerk
Beau Bo D’Or
Toby Bryans
Chicken Yoghurt
Clive
Alan Connor
CuriousHamster
Dave
DoctorVee
D-Notice
Carl Eve
Peter Gasston
Guy Gooberman
Irritant
Jez
Martin Lloyd
MatGB
Shane McCracken
Annie Mole
Rachel North
Nosemonkey
Poons
Ringverse
Scaryduck
Andrew Seal
TalkPolitics
Dave Weeden
Wibbler
Tim Worstall
Richard Wilson
By davblog February 13, 2006 - 4:54 pm
BlogCode
You can never have too many blogs to read. BlogCode is a good way to find new blogs that are…
By Scaryduck February 13, 2006 - 7:34 pm
I am mostly loving the “blogcode matches for this weblog” tool. Good work there.
By Scaryduck February 13, 2006 - 8:30 pm
I also like the fact that the blog deemed most like mine is Belle de Jour.OK, I’ll confess…
By Manic February 13, 2006 - 9:59 pm
Heh. That caught my eye, too… but you two do have a lot in common in that you post light-hearted anecdotes about your lives and generally avoid discussing the minutiae of politics. That, and the rimming, of course.
By MatGB February 14, 2006 - 1:41 am
Scaryduck; it could be worse, my best match is Harry’s Place.My evil twin Tim?
By Murky February 14, 2006 - 9:02 am
I must admit that I like the interface and the idea (one extra question… variability i.e. How much does the topic of this blog vary from post to post… Lots… Not Much)I was unable to find the code which will allow me to put a ‘similar blogs’ thing into my site. I presume this comes once some sort of validation has been done on the account?The ideal thing to develop here would be a firefox plugin (or explorer bookmarklet) which one could easily click when reading a new blog. There would be an option for it to pop up automagically (without changing focus) when you read a blog you have not yet coded. This would be off by default.
By Murky February 14, 2006 - 9:12 am
Also, I found that when I blogcoded a new site (okay, my own…) it did not appear in the search. I understand that this may be intentional (validation of data, waiting for minimum number of codes etc) – however there should ideally be a sentence giving some idea of the timing for this, otherwise the impression given to joe punter may be ‘broken’.One last thing…. can it cope with URLs of the formhttp://foo.barhttp://foo.bar/http://foo.bar/page.htmlor will these be seen as different sites?
By Manic February 14, 2006 - 9:13 am
Murky, I have no doubt that the magical mechanics will read your comments with interest.On variation, this will come up with existing metrics. If the answers on content suggest a little bit (or a lot) of everything, then…. well, I don’t need to finish this sentence, do I?The similar blogs thing is here:http://www.blogcode.com/blogtool_home.php
By Murky February 14, 2006 - 9:15 am
Oh… sorry… one more thing (doh!)Is there a ‘Blogcode me’ button… i.e. a one click thing that will go to blogcode.com with the title and URL of the site correctly filled out (going via account creation if need be).(Sorry for so many comments, but this looks like a really nice thing, and I figure that soon after launch feedback is a good thing)
By Murky.org February 14, 2006 - 9:30 am
Blogcode
Tim Ireland has been working on Blogcode. This is a weblog discovery tool, one simply rates sites on a series of metrics (this is done via a slider), and then a database is built which allows browsers to discover similar…
By Murky February 14, 2006 - 9:51 am
Eventually found the place to grab the code for my site (via the homepage).Ideally this would be clickable from the page for that blog (maybe after claiming a blog as ones own using a scheme similar to technorati?)Regards,
By Murky February 14, 2006 - 10:43 am
Manic: Suppose so… *shrug* just a thought. Anyways, thinking a little bit more it wouldn’t really be a useful metric for the purpose of the site.Thanks for the link (found it independently). It’d be nice to be able to tweak the colours, no of links etc – but it’s early days and it is working nicely. Thanks to all concerned.
By Manic February 14, 2006 - 10:45 am
Cheers, Murky. There was going to be a 'blogcode me' widget on the blog-matching tool, but it didn't make the first generation.We may integrate it, or simply produce it as a separate widget. I think the coding pages would need some explanatory copy first, though.
By Murky February 14, 2006 - 10:48 am
‘Ideally this would be clickable from the page for that blog (maybe after claiming a blog as ones own using a scheme similar to technorati?’Incidently, the reason that the link from the page for the blog did not work was because the website had not yet appeared in the search for some time – and the search was essential to get the code.I shall try to stop commenting now. Honest.
By Murky February 14, 2006 - 12:46 pm
I wanted to stop… I really did.. but there is one more question. Why is it that the ‘match score’ for two sites can be different depending upon whose list you look at? Surely if A matches B to 78.4%, be should also match A to 78.4%….?(Of course, with a more detailed analysis than seems possible with the metrics given a discrepancy like the above could be possible with one site matching part of another)
By Manic February 14, 2006 - 1:13 pm
It’s something to do with your individual location in the 3-dimensional space. It was explained to me once, but now it appears it should have been explained to me twice.
By Murky February 14, 2006 - 1:18 pm
(Grin)By the way, have made a (very quick) icon for you – use it as you will (please don’t link to the original!)
By Murky February 14, 2006 - 1:18 pm
Ah, the html got stripped…. here it is:http://www.murky.org/graphics/codemenow.png
By Manic February 14, 2006 - 1:19 pm
Ta, Murky.
By The Green Ribbon February 14, 2006 - 3:31 pm
Blogcode recommends
Tim Ireland of Bloggerheads has produced an interesting new blog recommendation tool at Blogcode.comFor every blog entered it will produce a list of similar sites. The criteria don't include politics, so you might find an 'evil twin.' Here are the re…
By Murky February 19, 2006 - 9:33 am
By the way, the blogcode box for site does not validate.One simple thing is that there are one too many < /a > tags in the code. This was the full report:line 1 column 1 – Warning: missing declarationline 14 column 60 – Warning: unescaped & or unknown entity “&js”line 14 column 1 – Error: is not recognized!line 14 column 1 – Warning: discarding unexpectedline 13 column 98 – Warning: isn’t allowed in elementsline 18 column 1 – Warning: discarding unexpectedline 13 column 98 – Warning: isn’t allowed in elementsline 13 column 98 – Warning: isn’t allowed in elementsline 51 column 1 – Warning: discarding unexpectedline 54 column 190 – Warning: missingline 57 column 171 – Warning: discarding unexpectedline 2 column 1 – Warning: inserting missing ‘title’ elementline 6 column 1 – Warning: inserting “type” attributeline 13 column 1 – Warning: inserting “type” attributeline 56 column 29 – Warning: lacks “alt” attributeline 60 column 19 – Warning: lacks “alt” attributeline 13 column 98 – Warning: trimming emptyline 55 column 19 – Warning: trimming empty