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New Homepage and Friendfeed

Post author By griffey
Post date August 6, 2008
3 Comments on New Homepage and Friendfeed

Yesterday, in a fit of frustration at MPOW (well, not really MPOW, but the larger University), I started poking around some feeds, and found someone who had made their FriendFeed into their homepage.

“How did they do that?” I asked myself. Turns out that it’s an embed feature of FriendFeed that doesn’t look like it’s particularly well documented.

The code for the embed is:

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://friendfeed.com/embed/widget/USERNAME”></script>

There are at least two variables that seem to work with this string: ?num=VALUE after the username, where value is the number of entries you want to show up, and ?source=VALUE, where value is the source of the feed in your FriendFeed account (Twitter, Last.fm, etc).

So I decided to redo my own homepage, and do something similar, where the FriendFeed just fills the page, with navigational links to my other, more robust online presence. I’ll probably convert it into a two column layout at some point, but for now, it’s a nice lifestream that’s always active and gives a decent accounting of my day-to-day online.

By griffey

Jason Griffey is the Director of Strategic Initiatives at NISO, where he works to identify new areas of the information ecosystem where standards expertise is useful and needed. Prior to joining NISO in 2019, Jason ran his own technology consulting company for libraries, has been both an Affiliate at metaLAB and a Fellow and Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, and was an academic librarian in roles ranging from reference and instruction to Head of IT at the University of TN at Chattanooga.

Jason has written extensively on technology and libraries, including multiple books and a series of full-periodical issues on technology topics, most recently AI & Machine Learning in Libraries and Library Spaces and Smart Buildings: Technology, Metrics, and Iterative Design from 2018. His newest book, co-authored with Jeffery Pomerantz, will be published by MIT Press in 2024.

He has spoken internationally on topics such as artificial intelligence & machine learning, the future of technology and libraries, decentralization and the Blockchain, privacy, copyright, and intellectual property. A full list of his publications and presentations can be found on his CV.
He is one of eight winners of the Knight Foundation News Challenge for Libraries for the Measure the Future project (http://measurethefuture.net), an open hardware project designed to provide actionable use metrics for library spaces. He is also the creator and director of The LibraryBox Project (http://librarybox.us), an open source portable digital file distribution system.

Jason can be stalked obsessively online, and spends his free time with his daughter Eliza, reading, obsessing over gadgets, and preparing for the inevitable zombie uprising.

3 replies on “New Homepage and Friendfeed”

Jason thanks so much for this! My personal blog has been rather neglected lately with 3 other blogs clamoring for my attention, so I’m going to use my FriendFeed as my personal home page with a link to the blog. It’s a much better option.

Neat idea – like lifecasting without the video 🙂

[…] that long ago, I decided that I wanted a homepage that more accurately tracked me online, and so I posted about hacking together a FriendFeed widget that fed my […]

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