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Google's Adsense With Websearch

Google now allows web publishers to earn money from the searches done from their site. I figure that little "search this site using Google" phrase to be plastered all over the blogosphere now, just like adsense ads are. And that's not a bad thing.

This service is win-win for everyone. Of course Google expands their brand in a smart way. Web publishers get another opportunity to monetize their content, which further supports their sites. And advertisers get better rates of returns, because users are more apt to buy something from a adwords ad on a search listing rather than a webpage.

Display Feeds Using Javascript

A cool tool for turning webfeeds into javascript for diplaying on a site is Feed2JS. As soon as I can get the styling to the look of my site I'll start using it.

So that may be a while from now. I know very little about CSS and all that. The best I can do is look through stylesheet for something that makes *sense* and then tinker with it until I either improve it or break it. All trial and error. But it ends in mostly error for me.

Colleen, help!

Bloglines Wishlist

I use Bloglines as my webfeed reader. I love it for the same reasons Jeremy does. Also, like him I have some suggestions for improvements to their service.

Here we go:
1. Notification of another user adding a new feed. Right now I can read other user's subscription list, like Metalface's. However, it would be really useful if I can be notified when Metalface, who shares many of the same interests as me, finds a new feed and adds it to his subscriptions.

2. Subscriber count. When viewing a feed I can check to see who else subscribes to it. Half of the time no one else is subscribed to the feed I'm using, which wastes another click for me. I wish the link to the subscriber list would include a count of how many other subscribers there are.

3. Suggested blogs is buggy. The suggested blogs list always includes blogs I'm already subscribed to. That doesn't help me at all.

4. Blog this. Currently Bloglines let's me easily save or email a post I'm reading. I would love to also be able to start a blog post from it using some sort "blog this" function. I don't totally understand how this could work but I have a feeling they can do it.

5. Explaination of webfeeds. Most geeks don't think this is neccessary but it would be helpful if they had a better explanation of what a webfeed (RSS, ATOM, etc.) is, how to recognize them, and where to find them. Also, a "starter kit" of popular feeds that match a new user's interest would be great. Kinja does this with their editor digests.

UPDATE

6.The ability to create subfolders within folders would be very useful.

Site Search

The "search archives" tool provided by Google site search is fixed. Previously it was giving results from the whole internet instead of just Hip Hop Blogs.

I'm not sure why it wasn't working in the first place. The code was confusing so I scrapped it and went by the model Mena posted.

Before that I tried Feedster's version of site search that uses our atom webfeed. I didn't like the fact that once a user got to the results page and types in another search term they will get results from all blogs, not just this one. It's a flaw I hope they fix.

I'm also looking into Picosearch. The service sounds good but I'm wary about the page limit and the ads that will be displayed with the search results. If they are text ads that's fine. Pop-ups definately are not. I'll come around to testing it later. For now we'll use Google.