How to have a Book Review Blog without having one
I'm a lousy blogger and I'm always frustrated by how pubs don't value GR reviews as much as they do reviews on low traffic blogs. Seems counterintuitive.
Lately though I've been working on a solution using hacker darling ifttt
It's actually really simple:
1) Sign up for a Tumblr or Wordpress account (your choice)
2) Sign up for a ifttt.com account
3) Grab the RSS feed of your Read shelf (to do this pull up your read shelf and scroll to the bottom, you will see the RSS logo right next to the pagination links)
Ifttt stands for If This Then That and it's a website that basically lets you set up useful triggers automatically. For example I can tell Ifttt IF I tweet a photo THEN save a copy of that photo to another service (thereby backing it up automatically)
In this case you want to tell ifttt IF there's a new item in the RSS feed THEN create a new post on Tumblr (or Wordpress) using the RSS data. Tumblr used to have a built in feature for this but (it was lousy) they've discontinued it.
Bingo, instant blog :D
Lately though I've been working on a solution using hacker darling ifttt
It's actually really simple:
1) Sign up for a Tumblr or Wordpress account (your choice)
2) Sign up for a ifttt.com account
3) Grab the RSS feed of your Read shelf (to do this pull up your read shelf and scroll to the bottom, you will see the RSS logo right next to the pagination links)
Ifttt stands for If This Then That and it's a website that basically lets you set up useful triggers automatically. For example I can tell Ifttt IF I tweet a photo THEN save a copy of that photo to another service (thereby backing it up automatically)
In this case you want to tell ifttt IF there's a new item in the RSS feed THEN create a new post on Tumblr (or Wordpress) using the RSS data. Tumblr used to have a built in feature for this but (it was lousy) they've discontinued it.
Bingo, instant blog :D
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Calathea wrote: "Um... doesn't GR have this function where you can decide to post all your reviews (that you write here on GR) to your blog? At least that's what I do with my reviews. ;) Or were you talking about s..."....Do they? XD I don't know I always find looking for GRs features like a giant scavenger hunt of annoying. Things are never really where they should be. For example why do I have to go to the friends section, click 'edit friends' and then go through the whole list to remove a friend?
I know they autopost to Twitter and Facebook, but I didn't think Tumblr too :/
Isa wrote: "Do they? XD I don't know I always find looking for GRs features like a giant scavenger hunt of annoying."Yes, yes. :)
I found the function by chance. ;)
When you go to 'Edit your Profile' --> tab 'apps' --> scroll to the bottom --> find 'autopublish to your blog' on the right side.
I don't know if it works with tumblr. I use blogger.com and it works okay. You can also decide for every single review if you want to post it to your blog. When you finish a review and click 'save' this (slightly) annoying gimmick with thousands of options appears. There in the upper right corner you will find 'publish to blog'.
I wish they had somebody responsible for usability on their staff here on GR. ;)
Oh neat! :D Not often I'm happy about someone coming along a making an entire blog post obsolete hahaha XDCalathea wrote: "I wish they had somebody responsible for usability on their staff here on GR. ;) "
Oi, as a tech person you do not even want to get me started on GRs staffing needs *lol*
Isa wrote: "Oh neat! :D Not often I'm happy about someone coming along a making an entire blog post obsolete hahaha XD"I'm sorry?
But you told us about this ifttt, which seems to be a cool thing. I just had a look at it and am now plotting where to use it. ;)
Oi, as a tech person you do not even want to get me started on GRs staffing needs *lol*
And that's why I "only" mentioned usability.
Isa wrote: "Oh neat! :D Not often I'm happy about someone coming along a making an entire blog post obsolete hahaha XDCalathea wrote: "I wish they had somebody responsible for usability on their staff here o..."
I tried to use it with wordpress.com. The stupid auto-publish thing doesn't work. -_-;
So I'm looking into that ifttt thing - or maybe I'll resurrect my blogger blog.
Will check out this iftt-thingy! Thanks for mentioning it! :)