I'm new to the world of blogging so I have no idea if what I'm about to describe exists or is even possible but it seems like some of the features ought at least to already be implemented. Here's the brief summary first:
Basically what I want to do is setup an identical blog on 2 totally different sites/servers and have the content bi-directionally mirrored. So if a post is made on a blog it will be mirrored to the other and, more importantly, if a comment is made on a post on one blog, it automatically gets added to the other, so they're always in sync.
The second part of this, which I am guessing already exists, is some kind of web-based blog aggregator that will essentially be a "blog of blogs" - a date-sorted headline-and-story-intro display of the most recent entries in whatever blogs I choose.
On the off chance that my reasoning for this will help understand my need, here's the full story (note that I repeat most of what I said above in a different way
):
I just put up
http://terrain.cg-arts.org/forum/ It's a forum for people in the terrain industry to talk about their work, tools, workflows, etc. We're inviting a bunch of terrain program developers, which is what brought up the idea.
One of said developers recently put up a blog
http://www.world-machine.com/blog/ which has been rather successful and I've really enjoyed the info he's posted there as well as the discussion that has resulted. However it's really only immediately visible to the people who were already in the World Machine community. I think it should have wider exposure. More than that though I think other devs should strongly consider having such a "development diary" blog.
So I figured hey, why not provide them a free, easy blogging service. Setup a wordpress (or whatever) site for them with their own subdomain or subdirectory (
http://l3dt.cg-arts.org/blog for example) then give 'em access to it and set 'em loose. Here's where the rest comes in...
I figure some devs, like Stephen (of World Machine), wouldn't want to *only* have their blog on our site. The only way they'll even bother is if we make it super easy for them, like if the one on our site is a direct mirror of theirs or something. This would be optional, since some devs would *only* have their blog with us.
Furthermore I would want one central home page for all the blogs which would show in order of most recently updated all the various blogs. Sort of like a blog of blogs, but maybe color coded or with very obvious author/application titles so people don't get confused. Basically there would be headlines on this main page with snippets from the latest post, and it would say "Latest from Stephen Schmitt's World Machine Blog: "Alpha-2 went out to the testing group late last week. The GUI is getting closer to final quality, although theres still a few huge things left to get done. Click here to read more." And if that was the latest entry updated across all the blogs on the site/group, it would be at the top of the list. As soon as someone else updated, that one would be at the top. And so of course clicking on each entry would take you to the full blog of the person/program.
And of course all of it could be RSS'd - both the individual blogs as well as the aggregator/home page. Or "meta blog" as it might be called.
The intention is basically to provide a central location where people can find out about the latest developments in terrain apps. Probably not of interest to most of you, but it's a small obsession of mine.
If this kind of functionality doesn't exist I do think it could have wider appeal. Although there are already existing "meta blog" sites out there, it might be cool for basically anyone to be able to create their own customized meta blog. I am thinking there must already be some way to do this, but it is probably tied in with personalized home pages or something along those lines and I need something that doesn't require a login.
- Oshyan
