https://brainbaking.com/post/2022/04/cool-things-people-do-with-their-blogs/ skip to main content Brain Baking navigation toggle * Brain Baking * Archives * Subscribe * About * Links Cool Things People Do With Their Blogs 27 April 2022 | webdesign blogging Small and independent blogs are always full of surprises. The more blogs I stumble upon, the more genuinely surprised I am by the things people do with their blogs. It seemed like a good idea to summarize highlights here. I hope it might inspire non-bloggers to blog and bloggers to tinker more with their site--because obviously the tinkering never ends! I randomly selected blogs for each thing. There are ample other sites that use that particular feature, but I had to start somewhere. Some blogs appear multiple times, probably making them even funkier! This list is incomplete, I'll try to periodically update it as I encounter more cool stuff. Enjoy! Content related * Publish reviews of books/music/... in a cool sortable grid: Chris Burnell's Music * Hack together your own last.fm to scrobble music to your own site: Jan Boddez' Owning My Scrobbles * Sync your laptop battery, local weather, and current location with your site: Aaron Parecki's homepage * Publicly display global website statistics: Luke Harris' stats page * More stats: game playtime, AWStats server data: Roy Tang's stats * Create and regularly update a "uses" page: Ru Singh' uses page * Create and regularly update a "now" page: Derek Sivers' the /now page movement * Auto-import game metadata from How Long To Beat and others: Jefklak's Codex games page * Use your own site to publish checkins instead of Foursquare: Henrique Dias' checkins * Regularly publish week reviews or link bundles: Stefan Imhoff's Link Bundle #15 * Have an "on this day" page that displays posts from previous years: Frank Meeuwsen's on this day archive * Group multiple posts into series: Amos' long-form series * Group multiple posts into research questions: Emmanuel Quartey's questions section * Syndicate the HTTP blog to a Gemini capsule: Brain Baking Gemini (defunct) Design related * Create an official coat of arms as the logo of your site: Marijn Florence's heraldry adventure * Design your site around ever-evolving note-taking systems: Andy Matuschak's Evergreen Notes * An audible frequency graph that determines posting activity: Chris Burnells' All posts archive * Write a custom dynamic blog engine from scratch, because we can: Jan-Lukas Else's blog * Implement a simple client-site search using lunr.js: Brain Baking archives * Show articles from others blogs you read below your own articles: an article from Drew DeVault * Use a public inbox as a commenting system: an article from Drew DeVault * Implement reaction buttons for each post: Jan-Lukas Else's thoughts on reactions * Emulate the multi-pane layout of an e-mail client: Brian Lovin's writings * Each post has a unique HTML design/layout: Aegir's Words IndieWeb related * Have a guestbook page where people can send Webmentions to to sign it: Ana Rodrigues' guestbook * Collaborative pixel-art that gets saved every five minutes: Aaron Parecki's IndieWebCamp Pixel Art * Publish replies to others' sites using Webmentions: James' Coffee Blog, Replies * Post Tweets on your own site first, then syndicate to Twitter: Sebastiaan Andeweg's tweets * Summarize all IndieWeb-based RSVP events in a calendar: Jamie Tanna's RSVPs * Work together on MicroPub/Sub as a new social reading protocol: Neal Mather's blog * Join the IndieWeb ring to promote own and others' sites: Horst Gutmann's blog * Build a custom Webmention receiver/sender: IndieWeb examples RSS related * Provide multiple RSS feeds for notes, articles, etc: Ton Zijlstra's feeds * Add query capabilities to RSS feeds: Eli's RSS navigational tips * Automatic publishing of favorites from an RSS reader: Peter Rukavina's favorites * Styled OPML Blogrolls that can be imported into your reader: Ruben Schade's Omake OPML * Styled RSS feeds to better explain what a web feed is: Matt Webb's RSS feed * A "Reply via email" link in each RSS post to encourage interaction: Mike Harley's RSS feed * Secret RSS-only posts that do not appear on the website: Ton Zijlstra's RSS feed * Send out newsletters based on your RSS feed: Kev Quirk is newslettering again (defunct) * Add the location from where you write to your RSS feed: Ruben Schade's RSS feed --------------------------------------------------------------------- Addendum 29th April: I never thought to receive that many positive feedback! This article is suddenly one of the most popular I recently wrote, made it to Lobste.rs and Hacker News, and was boosted over eight times on Mastodon. Funny, the more meta a blog article is, the more popular it is. Bio and Support A photo of Me! I'm Wouter Groeneveld, a level 36 Brain Baker, and I love the smell of freshly baked thoughts (and bread) in the morning. I sometimes convince others to bake their brain (and bread) too. If you found this article amusing and/or helpful, you can buy me a coffee - although I'm more of a tea fan myself. I also like to hear your feedback via Mastodon or e-mail. Thanks! JavaScript is disabled. I use it to obfuscate my e-mail, keeping spambots at bay. Reach me using: [firstname] at [this domain]. Mentions and Replies Liked a post on brainbaking.com Today | by Henrique Dias Henrique Dias Cool Things People Do With Their Blogs - OasisNews Today | by https://weboasis.digital/info/2022/04/28/ cool-things-people-do-with-their-blogs/ https://weboasis.digital/info/2022/04/28/ cool-things-people-do-with-their-blogs/ I do from time to time forays through the Internet and like to visit cool blogs. Wouter has created a list with a few examples and even mentioned my blog in it. Small and independent blogs are always full of surprises. The more blogs I stumble up... Today | by Jan-Lukas Else Jan-Lukas Else @roytang Great article, it's cool seeing what everyone's made 1 day ago | by Anonymous Anonymous Anonymous liked this post. 1 day ago | by Anonymous Anonymous Chris Burnell liked this post. 1 day ago | by Chris Burnell Chris Burnell Recommended read: Cool Things People Do With Their Blogs | Brain Baking https://brainbaking.com/post/2022/04/ cool-things-people-do-with-their-blogs/ 1 day ago | by Jamie Tanna Jamie Tanna Related Articles None Of My Best Friends Are Content Creators 11 Apr 2022 | Kid Koala released a superb album in 2003 called ... A Triumph For Blogging 13 Oct 2021 | Since taking blogging a bit more serious a few ... --------------------------------------------------------------------- | Top Brain Baking. No (c) and no tracking.