qubox blog

Blogfeed from qubox - get the latest from like-minded bloggers

We've added a new feature to qubox.com to help you discover and keep up-to-date with interesting blogs.

The qubox blogfeed works like this:

• bloggers register their blogs with qubox.com (there's a shortcut for this: www.qubox.com/bloggers) and complete one or more quboxes
• We monitor the RSS feeds for the blogs to spot new posts
• We use the qubox information to merge and prioritise the different blog feeds based on the degree of like-mindedness between the blog author and blog reader

The resulting merged feed shows you all the latest posts from blogs registered with qubox that are written by people with a degree of like-mindedness that you choose.  So for example, I can choose to see recent blog posts by authors who are at least 90% like-minded about Love.

If you want to read blog posts you don't need to do anything special to set up this new feature - just log in at www.qubox.com and you'll see the blogfeed widget on the home page.  The widget looks like this:

On the left are the most recent blog entries.  You can scroll down this list with the buttons on the top right.

The other controls on the right let you choose how like-minded the blog author needs to be.

Once you have the controls set to filter blog entries the way you want, click "get this as RSS" and qubox will give you a link to an RSS feed that you can monitor with your feed reader of choice.

If you write a blog and want to see it appear in the blogfeed, go to www.qubox.com/bloggers to register your blog.  And remember, the more quboxes you do, the more people will be able to find your blog!

RSS feeds on qubox.com

In a previous blog entry I hinted at a new feature that we snuck in a few weeks ago: RSS feeds.  With our beta launch just around the corner I wanted to highlight how they work - they are a great way to keep up with new things on qubox.com.

If you are RSS-aware you may have spotted the feeds already.  If you have RSS myopia (like me! I had to have David, our development team leader, explain this very patiently to me...) then here's how to find them.

1. First off log in to qubox.com and go to someone's profile page (for example http://www.qubox.com/me/john).  Or go to your own profile page if you prefer.  It's important that you are viewing a profile page, as that's the only place we link to the RSS feeds at the moment.
2. Your web browser should automatically discover several RSS feeds.  The way this works (this is where RSS myopia may strike...) depends on your browser.  In Internet Explorer 7 the "View feeds on this page (Alt-J)" icon lights up on the toolbar.  In Firefox it's a "Subscribe to this page..." link at the right of the location bar.  In both cases you'll see the orange RSS icon.  (If you are a Safari user you are on your own here.  If you work it out, let me know!)
3. Pick a feed you like the look of and you are away.

The feeds we offer at the moment include:

• new people registered, by qubox - so for instance I can keep an eye on "new people who are likeminded about Love"
• new bookmarks and other links - so I can see new links that like-minded qubox users have chosen to share

Note that the feed looks at like-mindedness with the person whose profile you are viewing when you get the feed.  So if you view my profile page at http://www.qubox.com/me/john and grab an RSS feed from there, you'll get updates about people who think like ME, not people who think like YOU!  That might be interesting for you, but most of the time you'll want information about people who think like you - so go to your own profile page and grab the RSS feeds from there.

We'll be adding more RSS functionality to qubox.com in the future but we think this is a good start and a great way to see new like-minded people as they arrive.

Another way to link to qubox!

If you want to let your friends know about qubox and find out if they think like you, but you need something quicker and easier than a qubot widget - for instance, something that you can easily paste into a plain text email - then how about our new link format:

http://www.qubox.com/doyouthinklike/john/about/Celebrities

Intuitive, eh?

All you need to do is sign up with qubox.com and do a qubox.

Introducing qubox widgets: qubots!

One of our goals for qubox.com is to allow you to embed qubox's measurement of likemindedness into your own pages: profile pages on social networks, your blogs, anything.  Our vision is that the people reading your pages will be able to tell how like-minded they are to you - which will help them understand how they might relate to your opinions.   Plus, it's fun!

So we've built a widget.  Here's an example: the widget below will let you find out if you think like me about TV shows.

(If you DO think like me... you might be interested to know that my favourite TV shows at the moment are Battlestar Galactica and The Green Wing!)