Now, it’s been nearly a year since I added the feature, and I’ve added a total of 69 entries in the sideblog. I’ve posted updates about downtime, plugins being added to the WordPress/Extend respository, XKCD comics, links of interest, etc there. However, my postings there have slackened over the past months. I’ve been using my Twitter account for what I originally intended.

EDIT: What…? This post was originally three times this length! The majority of it is gone! I doubt I have a backup of it, but I’ll check…

EDIT: No, no backup. The post wasn’t saved properly because my internet connection was interrupted while writing. I’ll try to boil down my long-winded article into a few bullet points, since there’s no replacing the lost data. I doubt it will have the same impact as the full article though.

• I use Twitter a lot.
• I rarely update the sideblog.
• Few people (like 3, to be exact) subscribe to the sideblog feed, but I have 420+/- followers on Twitter.
• I’m planning a redesign of Webmaster-Source. Is it worth filling up a bunch of space just for the sideblog? Between Twitter and speedlinking with my BlogBuzz posts, is there really justification for it?
• Why not have a small Twitter box in the footer or sidebar (like many other bloggers have) instead?
• I wouldn’t delete the old posts from the sideblog, but I’d stop cluttering up the sidebar with them.

EDIT (AGAIN): Here’s my attempt at a re-write of the post. It’s not as good as the original, but better than a few bullet points.

Around November 2007 (about a year ago), I added a “sideblog” to Webmaster-Source, where I could post “asides” — short updates that were, well, not long enough to merit an entire post. These little postings appear in the sidebar, as you can see (as of this writing).

Now, it’s been nearly a year since I added the feature, and I’ve added a total of 69 entries in the sideblog. I’ve posted updates about downtime, plugins being added to the WordPress/Extend respository, XKCD comics, links of interest, etc there. However, my postings there have slackened over the past months. I’ve been using my Twitter account for what I originally intended to use the sideblog for.

Kind of odd, seeing as I’d previously made some slightly disparaging remarks about Twitter. Then I realized that you don’t have to “tweet” about what you’re having for lunch. You can post anything to Twitter. Links of interest, thoughts on current events, etc. And you can also chat with other bloggers like you. Cool.

As of this writing, Webmaster-Source is 370+/- subscribers strong. Only 3 people subscribe to the sideblog feed though, while 420+/- people follow my Twitter account.

This brings up an interesting question. Should the sideblog stay in the upcoming redesign of Webmaster-Source? Between speedlinknig with my BlogBuzz posts and tweeting on Twitter, is the sideblog really necessary?

Would it be better to have a small Twitter box somewhere in the template, such as the footer or sidebar, rather than the sideblog? I wouldn’t end up deleting the old sideblog posts, but would simply remove the sideblog itself from the sidebar. The entries would assume the guise of “ordinary” posts, and would still be available via their permalinks, and in the blog archives.

Twitter also has a nice advantage that the sideblog doesn’t: It’s not hosted on my server. If Webmaster-Source goes down for some reason (server issues, cyber vandalism, etc) the Twitter page doesn’t. That means I can still tell a good portion of you what’s wrong, even though the site is otherwise inaccessible.

What’s your opinion?

Speedlinking is a method of posting. When you Speedlink, you round-up a collection of links to other blogs’ posts that you think would be interesting/useful to your readers.

The question is: Which is better for you?

Sideblogs

• Sideblogs are quick to update
• Sideblogs are instantaneous. You see something, you add it to your sideblog, and it’s out there for everyone to see. With speedlinking, you round-up your links then publish them all at once every week or so.
• Sideblogs allow you to post other things besides links.

Speedlinking

• Speedlinker posts show up in you main feed. Sideblog entries generally don’t.
• Speedlinker posts tend to get a lot of views and linkbacks. Also, everyone likes a big list of links.
• Speedlinking gives you a break. It’s real easy to write a short list of links, and a few notes about them.

Personally, I like both. I speedlink and I have a sideblog. I use the sideblog for timely links that can’t wait until the end of the week, as well as for quick updates and things that can’t be expanded into a full-blown post. My speedlinker posts, known as “BlogBuzz,” handle the rest of my linking needs.

Have you just hit the Digg.com main page? Give your readers a heads up. Did you just think of an idea your users may want to here? Sideblog it! Sideblogs are great for sharing links as well as posting updates. If you need more convincing, read Why You Should Use A Sideblog.

Let Michael Martin convince you to use a sideblog. This post is about setting one up.

The Plugin

1. Download and install the WordPress Sideblog Plugin.
2. Create a new category called “Sideblog” or something of the sort.
3. Login to your WordPress Admin and go to Options -> Sideblog.
4. Check-mark the Sideblog category and check the box marked “Exclude from feeds.” Set the number of entries you want displayed, then click “Update Sideblog Options”.
5. Add <ul><?php sideblog('categoryslug'); ?></ul> to your sidebar template where you want the sideblog to appear.
6. Style the sideblog however you want, and making use of the “Display Format” box on the Options -> Sideblog page and CSS if necessary.

Functions.php

WordPress themes are allowed to have a cool little file called functions.php. I could rave about it for hours, but I doubt you want to stick around for that. If you don’t know what functions.php is, read about it at WordPress.org.

Once the Sideblog Plugin is installed, open-up your theme’s functions.php file. If there isn’t one, create it. Just name a plain-text file functions.php and add the “begin/end PHP block” tags:

<?php

?>

Once you have your functions file ready, add the following code between the PHP tags. Be sure to replace 75 with the id for your Sideblog category.

function killAsides($query) {
if ($query->is_archive) {
$query->set('cat','-75');
}
return $query;
}
add_filter('pre_get_posts','killAsides');

What does it do? It makes sure your Sideblog entries don’t appear on date-based archive pages (the plugin removes them from the index and RSS feed). You don’t want all your short, two-sentence posts cluttering them up, do you? If you do, you can skip this step. It’s a matter of preference.

Customize Single.php

Your sideblog entries are puny. Do they really need an entire permalink page all to themselves? If you want, you can remove parts of the single.php template for sideblog entries. Suppose you want to take the comments and comment form out. All you have to do is take the line

<?php comments_template(); ?>

and change it to

<?php if (!in_category('cat_id')) { ?><?php comments_template(); ?><?php } ?>.

You need to replace cat_id with the numerical category id, of course.

Stop the Bots

Google doesn’t like pages with “little original content.” Basically the post pages of the sideblog entries have a couple of sentences of content…and the rest is the blog template. You end up with the header, sidebar, and about ten words of original content. The header and sidebar appear on every other page on your site…not good.

What can you do? You can tell search robots to ignore the sideblog entry pages using this code (thanks to Michael Martin):

<?php if(is_category('75') || in_category('75')) { ?>
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">
<? } ?>

Just add it in to your blog’s header, replacing 75 with your category id again.

Search engines will totally ignore the sideblog permalink pages. Note that search engines will still follow sideblog links as your Sideblog appears in your sidebar, and in the category archives (www.yourblog.com/category/sideblogcategory).

Add a Feed

You’ll probably want to offer your readers a feed for the Sideblog. WordPress generates one automatically (even if it doesn’t advertise it). It’s accessible at www.yourblog.com/category/sideblogcategory/feed/. If you’re not using “pretty permalinks,” then you may append ?feed=rss2 to the category URL. Feel free to use Feedburner with the RSS feed.

Enjoy your sideblog!

If you use the Loop/Category approach, you end up with tons of short, two-sentence posts. That means each of your 347 sideblog entries has it’s own permalink page where 97% of the page is just the single.php template. Google doesn’t really like pages with little “original content,” so you could potentially have a problem on your hands. Even if you’re not that worried about what Google thinks of your blog, you still have 347 permalink pages, which could get in the way.

Here’s my solution:

1. Create a new Tumbleblog using Tumblr.com.
2. Use the SimplePie WordPress Plugin to easily put the Tumbleblog feed’s contents in your blog sidebar.

Simple (pun unintended). Now you can post your sideblog entries to Tumblr, and they will appear on your blog.

The SimplePie plugin has a directory full of templates that decide how your sideblog feed is displayed. The included templates don’t work well for a sideblog, so I’m including my custom template as well as the function call required to display the sideblog.

Sideblog SimplePie Template:

{ITEM_LOOP_BEGIN}
<li>
<strong><a href="{ITEM_PERMALINK}">{ITEM_TITLE}</a></strong> <small><i>{ITEM_DATE}</i></small><br/>
{ITEM_DESCRIPTION}
</li>
{ITEM_LOOP_END}

Copy/paste the template into your favorite text editor and save it as “sideblog.tmpl.” Upload it to www.yourblog.com/wp-content/plugins/simplepie_plugin/templates/. Now that you have the plugin installed and the template updated, paste this code into your blog template where you want the sideblog to appear:

<ul>
<?php
echo SimplePieWP('http://feeds.feedburner.com/wsc-sideblog', array(
'items' => 5,
'cache_duration' => 900,
'date_format' => 'n/j/Y g:i A',
'template' => 'sideblog'
));
?>
</ul>

And your done!

Sideblogs.

Microblogging.

Whatever you want to call it, there are many ways to implement the idea. There are different methods of displaying the asides, and there are different methods code-wise of setting them up. Let’s take a look at both.

Styling Asides

“Asides” is a broad term. I think it’s possible to separate them into two types. Type 1 asides act like the ones on Matt Mullenweg’s blog, which intersperse regular posts within the loop. Type 2 asides are displayed separately from the main content, often in a sidebar.

Both types have their own advantages. Type 1 asides are easily noticeable, and are great for those (like Matt Mullenweg) who tend to take more of a “tumbleblog” approach, highlighting links more often than writing lengthy posts.

Type 2 asides are better for those who blog “normally,” but want to add asides as “additional content.” If you have plenty of room in your sidebar, then type 2 will work well. Personally, I think type 2 asides are the best option for most people.

Whichever method you choose, I highly recommend keeping your asides out of your main RSS feed. Normally I subscribe to a blog for it’s original content, not for it’s frequently added links. To me, asides are a bonus. I may check on them when I visit your blog, but I don’t want them in the feed.

Setting-Up Asides

I’ve separated these resources into two types, like mentioned above.

• Easy Asides For WordPress (type 1)
• Sideblog Plugin (type 2)
• Simple Asides (type 1)
• SimplePie (type 2) – Using SimplePie, you can parse the RSS feed from Tumblr, another WordPress installation, Del.icio.us, a category of your blog, or another source into a sideblog.
• Speedlinker Box, or asides via the Blogroll (type 2)

Of course you can come up with your own way of adding asides if you prefer.

Wait, There’s More…

There’s yet another way to implement asides. You could add a “static” page to your blog (use an url like www.yourblog.com/tumbleblog/ or www.yourblog.com/asides/) and put your asides there. Sort of like a blog within a blog. I’m sure you can figure out how to do this yourself (just take a look at the resources above).