Special Announcement:
blogScream release 1.0 Now Available for Subscription
Several blogs have been running the pre-release version of blogScream. In particular, the Big Brass Blog (a great site, by the way, even without blogScream on it) features the white screen version, and the eternally helpful Shakespeare's Sister has the black screen version on her site, as does the pleasantly refreshing blog of the Left Behind Child.
Other copies may already be floating around out in the Blogosphere, but it's important that anyone now running blogScream read the Technical Notes to see how their version of the code must now be slightly altered for the general release version of blogScream. This is entirely due to the site feed location now being in the subdomain of blogScream rather than pulling from a sub-directory of the parent domain at dark-wraith.com.
If you are a new subscriber, you will need a space on your blog that is at least 200 pixels wide. Most blog sidebars can accommodate this, but there are a few out there that have considerably narrower sidebars. Future releases of blogScream will provide more flexibility in width requirements. Although the syndication rule is that your blog must register, install, and show blogScream for your blog headlines to be considered for inclusion in a blogScream news cycle, some accommodation will be made for blogs that cannot present the service because of width problems.
Release 1.0 uses the IFRAME command, which is not supported in some older browsers. Release 2.0 will be a javascript applet that will overcome this limitation, at least to a significant extent. Release 2.x will also give bloggers more options in terms of screen colors and fonts. No further announcements will be made about the second release until it is actually available for download, given the maddening delays that have accompanied the release of this initial version. As it turned out, perfecting the code for this service was an awful lot like work.
As much as anything else, blogScream is an effort to overcome the enormous drawing power of the giant blogs by essentially putting visitors to one site on all of the sites in the syndicate. In some ways, it is not much more than services like Blogrolling or Bloglines; but in other ways, by presenting dynamic content, updated daily, it goes beyond merely posting the names of and links to blogs on a roster. It remains to be seen whether or not the news wire will be popular both among bloggers and their visitors. It is, however, far better than merely lamenting the dominance of huge blogs that, by their sheer numbers of visitors, now effectively control the information stream coming out of the Blogosphere.
If you are a blogger, give it a try. If it doesn't make you happy, delete the code for it you put into your template. If it does make you happy, then for God's sake keep it on your site and tell other bloggers about it.
From the Second Wave, the Answer to Empires
The Dark Wraith has provided.
Published 3/19/2005 02:47:00 PM
<< 22 Comments Total
It was the very, very, very least I could do for you in return for the help you've given me. :)
Yep.
Any minute, now, the crowd's going to be pouring through the doors, here, for the launch of the distribution version of blogScream. Lucky for me I bought the extra two dozen doughnuts.
Yes, indeed.
The Dark Wraith checks the front doors to make sure they're unlocked.
Good evening, Shakespeare's Sister. I was in the back room checking the circuit breakers to make sure the OPEN sign was working when you came in.
At least I can say one person showed up for the grand opening. Grab a doughnut. Maybe if people see the two of us in here eating, they'll think there's a hot item being handed out for free.
I probably should have rented that
Elvis suit so I could have done some improv for the older folks.
The Dark Wraith tries to salvage the marketing plan.
I've dropped by a couple times, but really had no comments at the time-you didn't notice the missing donut or the cup of coffee I snagged?
But since you seem to be downhearted that no one has posted, I shall...congrats on launching Blogscream. I would subscribe, but AFAIK, I'm the only visitor to my blog, so it would be kind of wasted.
Good evening, Wild Clover. I completely forgot that you have a blog, now.
Believe it or not, something may come of that. Even if you don't use it for something like this blog, many people find the blog a good place for other purposes. You wouldn't believe all of the uses to which blogs are being put, these days.
I am trying to make arrangements for this Summer to run a full-blown, two-week, on-campus mini-class for kids between 11 and 14 years of age to learn blogging. I'll be showing them everything from blog code architecture to how to keep weirdos from showing up on the blogs.
The major hurdle right now is that I have a whole lot of kids who want this camp (instead of the Mega-Math Camp... go figure), but I have these school administrators, one of whom came right out and said something like, "I really haven't heard much about this 'blog' thing you're making such a fuss about. Isn't that more of a thing for politics kinds of adults?"
Sigh. I even volunteered to do it without charge. (The difference between doing it for standard pay and doing it for free wouldn't be all that noticeable, anyway.)
Well, I shall stop by your blog sometime tonight or tomorrow.
The Dark Wraith likes to try out new places to haunt.
Mmmm...doughnuts.
Personally, I always thought your Don Ho was superior to your Elvis. The sight of you doing "Tiny Bubbles" always brings tears to my eyes.
Good evening, once again, Shakespeare's Sister.
The tears in your eyes are because I use real soap to make the tiny bubbles...
... in the wine.
And the Elvis gig has gotten a bit rough, of late. That pelvis thing nearly tore a disc last Saturday night at the Sunnymort Retirement Home during You Ain't Nothin' But a Hound Dog.
Lord knows, I didn't let on, though. If the staff is good enough to let me have the left-over Jello from the Friday night Bingo Brawl, then by golly I need to give those good senior citizens a show they'll remember. Old Mrs. Hangfloss certainly did enjoy the sentimental numbers; and I thought Mr. Forkenkeister was going to break down and cry during the 1971 version of Blue Seude Shoes.
It's all in a night's work.
The Dark Wraith peels off the sequins.
So I assume you have code buried in the program that allows blogScream to act as an emergency broadcast system. Maybe with an icon on your desk top that you can quickly click, thus sending a predetermined message to the other subscribers that replaces the linked thread.
Help! I'm out of Spam. Mr. Goat has cleaned me out!
Mr. Goat enjoys the thought of five seconds of fame. Now what to do with all that Spam....
Ah, yes, let's try the Wraith's recipe for snot stickers.
Good Morning, Mr. Wraith.
Just thought I'd drop by to congratulate you on the release of your BlogScream project - a truly cool gizmotron.
Now, where are those donuts...?
Good morning, Mr. Shakes. Thank you for the compliment and congratulations. Only time will tell whether or not blogScream becomes widely distributed. Shakespeare's Sister has done me the enormous favor of featuring it and pointing it out to her visitors; so if this thing flops, I cannot claim it was for lack of other bloggers promoting it.
Now, about the doughnuts. Lord knows, there were plenty remaining when I retired to my crypt last night. The only thing I can figure is that the disappearance of the leftover delicacies is, in some mysterious way, related to the goat hoofprints all around the outside of this hotel. It's probably just a coincidence, I suppose; but still, one has to wonder.
The Dark Wraith orders an extra dozen.
The new routine to Elvis' little-known "I Got Stung" is shaping up nicely, though.
It's one of my favorites, since by Christian name (as they say) means honey bee.
(Off you go amateur etymologists.)
Shakespeare's sister,
From what I remember reading name cards at Walmart, I'm going to take a wild guess and say your name is Melissa. Am I right?
wiseguy
You don't have to tell me what your name is. I'm just being a wiseguy. In my hometown, I'm affectionately known as "Trouble" even though my name means something quite the opposite.
wiseguy
Anon,
You got it! Although as BlondeSense's Missouri Mule will attest to, I also answer to "Hey You."
Good evening Dark Wraith. Rook here.
I have tried to install the black background version of blogscream. Yet, it always comes up white. When I realized that both links for black and white background where the same, I manually replaced white with black in the URL, re copied and pasted, and yet am still looking at a very white blogscream ad.
Am I doing something wrong?
Oh, the doughnuts are all gone!
Good evening, Guy Andrew Hall.
I swear, I should not be allowed anywhere near Webmastering duties. The link is repaired now. For your convenience, you can click here to open it. From there, you should be able to copy and past according to the instructions indicate.
I shall check your blog in a while, and I'll be online here until late. If you want to post a question on this thread, I'll see it within a short amount of time and answer you.
The Dark Wraith keeps watch.
Good evening, once again, Guy Andrew Hall.
I just went over to your site and nearly passed out. You got it installed and running perfectly!
I am so grateful to you for telling me about that improper link. I wonder how many bloggers took the black-screen code and ended up installing a white-screen version.
Gawd. I don't deserve to walk among normal people.
The Dark Wraith just shakes his head at his own incompetence.
[And the saddest part is that I am allowed to teach college students subject matter they might actually use later in their lives.]
Your welcome Dark Wraith. I end up with improper links quite often myself. However, I have to admit, I didn't think I had it fixed. After getting to the proper page, I changed the code and yet still ended up with the white background.
So, I figured I come back later and see what I did wrong, only to discover I now have the black background. Go figure.
Good evening once again Dark Wraith. I have a question. Does clicking on the blog scream ad result in a hit being registered from your site?
I am asking because I have noticed a dramatic increase in hits from http://dark-wraith.com/.
Good evening, Guy Andrew Hall.
Yes, clicking on a headline records a hit from dark-wraith.com because the news feed (with all of the embedded links) is coming from the server that carries the site on which dark-wraith.com and its subdomain, blogscream.dark-wraith.com, reside. On my end, I can tell from what blog the hand-offs are occurring: so far, and not surprisingly, the hand-offs are happening in direct proportion to the popularity of the referring blog. I would be surprised if this were not the case, although some small deviations from this pattern could yield interesting insights about the readership of the referring blogs.
By the way, I hope you didn't mind the mini-logo I created for your headliners. I'm trying to get this done for each blog that has an identifiable graphic of some sort, but it's taking a bit of time with some of the blogs that have logos because of their shapes.
Also, if I didn't do so already, I want to thank you for putting blogScream on your site.
The Dark Wraith grinds into the night.
Actually, I was think of making a mini lable for you, but you beat me to it. I love it, btw!