Welcome to the metaBlog features blog.

Ping Multiple Sites
This one will come later, but I wanted to get it on the list...

Eventually, metaBlog will be able to notify multiple sites when content has been updated.

Posted by Bryan @ 10:54 PM | Filed Under Implementing | Talkback (0) | #

Update Alert Service
I will be adding an update alert service to metaBlog in the near future. I've been thinking that there needs to be a way for the admin of a metaBlog site to be notified when someone leaves a comment at the site, then someone mentioned how they'd like to be notified when new content is posted.

Of course, I could have pointed them to something like BlogToaster, but what about sites that don't want to ping weblogs.com, but still want users to know of updates? Initially the notify feature will be implemented via email, eventually it will also be via IM.

Posted by Bryan @ 10:20 AM | Filed Under Implementing | Talkback (2) | #

Calendar Control
Yes, ASP.NET comes with a calendar control, so you could build your own - but wouldn't it be nice if a metaBlog specific calendar was already built?

I thought so.

Posted by Bryan @ 5:06 PM | Filed Under Implementing | Talkback (1) | #

Search Engine Optimization
I received an email this morning asking about the heavy use of querystrings to drive the display of content and how that affects search engine indexing. This is something I haven't give a lot of thought, but decided it needs attention.

Knowing that Google does index dynamic sites, I did a site search to see what sort of things showed up. I found links using every querystring value except archive=xxx. This got me thinking about some alternatives.

The first is to modify the content engine so that so that when entryid, daystodisplay, categoryid, and archive are all null, all entries for a blog are returned. This would allow a page such as archives.aspx to be created and by default list every entry. It would not prevent archive display by month or individual entry.

The other option is to create an HTTP module. This module would intercept requests run some code and redirect to a specified page. This would allow me to use URL's that don't physically exist, parse the URL to determine what needs to be display, and redirect to a real page for rendering the content. An example of this would be a URL such as www.metaapps.com/archives/022002.aspx. The file, 022002.aspx wouldn't actually exist, instead the http module would parse the URL and redirect to default.aspx?archive=2002.2. This concept could be extended to categories as well.

Not sure which way I am going to go on this. I have already created an HTTP module for just this sort of thing, so that might be it.

Posted by Bryan @ 11:14 AM | Filed Under sure would be nice... | Talkback (3) | #

Post From News Feeds
This is something that I've known needs to be done, but it has been on the back burner.

Everything else is complete with the News Feed Reader, except this.

Posted by Bryan @ 10:37 PM | Filed Under Implementing | Talkback (1) | #