originally posted Monday, May 21, 2007 -- updated --

OK, I like the blogroll concept and Google Reader doesn't have that (it does now). So I just wasted a few hours coding the capability in PHP of a Google Reader "live" blogroll. I am not the only person in the world who would like that feature. I have even seen a few people say that is the only thing keeping them on Bloglines. **Thats a hint Google Reader development team.

"Freshness" is defined as "in the last 25 pages of my favorites" which appears to be in the last 4-5 days ... maybe a week. Also it is only as live as Google deems it live ...

There are two Feed URL's. One is a PHP script that generates the RSS feed information when it is accessed. I subscribed to that one with Google Reader so that Google would hit the feed on occasion. That link takes about 10 seconds to run. Google is patient so I am letting them hit that feed. That script also generates a file which I can also access. It returns nearly instantly and is much better for use as a blogroll.

The "live" blogroll is on the right. If anyone is interested in the junk PHP code I wrote leave a comment here or use the Contact me feature of the blog and I will post it here.

Google has implemented a blogroll feature on Google Reader making this code nearly obsolete, that is, except for the "freshness" of it. I am including two feeds below so you can compare the differences. My feed will be the first, the second will be Google Reader.

You will notice that the first column only has a subset of the Google Reader blogroll. The ones in that list which are not in the first you will note have either ceased updating or have not been updated in a while. If I put my own blog on my blogroll it would fall off occasionally. I consider it a feature so I will stick with mine until Google adds a similar control feature.