Twiffid, the ultimate link blog?

Written on September 12, 2008 – 3:38 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

Remember those early days of blogging when people used blogs like link dumps? I don’t, ’cause I wasn’t even in highschool yet. Anyway, I did read the Wikipedia pages about blogging, so that’s how I know. These days, link blogs aren’t really popular anymore. People don’t need guides anymore. They have each other and share links on social bookmarking, social news sites, Friendfeed, Google Reader, and Twitter. But what if you combine all blog posts from Twitter contacts? Do you have a re-invented link blog then?

Belgian blogger Maarten Schenk probably thinks so, as he has built Twiffid. This is a Twitter mash-up that generates a list of recently shared published posts on the sites your friends link to in their profile. Thus you can see what your Twitter friends are blogging about. Actually, it’s more like a tiny blogosphere considering it consists of just the writings of your friends…

When you load the list feed in your RSS reader, Twiffid actually is a handy tool. But when you decide to use the service on Twiffid.com, you’ll have a hard time. The thing is, the user interface is horrible. It looks like a website from the nineties, just like those old-fashioned link blogs. If Schenk hired a designer, the whole Twiffid experience would be so much better. I mean, the concept just begs for a cool lay-out.

[WebTipr: David Petherick]

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design, maarten schenk, mash-up, twiffid, twitter

About the author: Ernst-Jan is blogger and co-organizer of BLOG08, who previously worked in New York to cover news at the United Nations. Next to writing, he's also a singer in the band Christina Five. Follow him on Twitter or read his personal blog Dutchproblogger.com .

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2 comments to “Twiffid, the ultimate link blog?”

By David Petherick on Sep 12, 2008

My god - I just realised a redesign of this site would probably win TC50 next year!

I’m off to brush up on my Photoshop…

[Reply]
By http://jaxtr.blogspot.com/ on Sep 12, 2008

I guess that’s an interesting idea. Perhaps, as Twitter gains more popularity, this might be a more useful tool.

[Reply]

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