A few readers have asked so let me clarify why the web site looks a little different: a change in how the New Ro Buzz is displayed and a bunch of new logo/links replacing the list of most recent articles. That last change will be reversed in the coming days so that the recent articles is back at the top but I wanted readers to see that we had set up the links to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.
New Ro Buzz
The New Ro Buzz section in the middle of the home page looks different because I got rid of the animated version because for some visistors it was slowing down their viewing experiencing on the site.
The New Ro Buzz is the result of some very sophisticated programming. Without getting too technical, it is a very complex amalgam of hundreds of thousands of sources (if not more) of information on the Internet. I sort them using a special service that mashes up the content and allows me to filter out specific sources or block by keyword. Basically, the New Ro Buzz is checking every single thing on the web every 15 minutes and then pulling anything that mentions “Newro” or “New Rochelle”. The effect is that any time New Rochelle is mentioned on the web somewhere, it is pulled into the site and displayed as a headline with a link back to the source.
From time to time I need adjust the filter to deal with some new source or new content type if such adjustment is, in my view, worth the time and effort.
If there is some problematic item — bad language, spam, etc. — I will check it out and determine how it could be blocked and whether I feel that effort is worthwhile. Sometimes I cannot simply filter a problematic item because the keywords along are not a problem but a particular combination of them is a problem.
At the same time, I cannot pull one item out of what is a fire hose of information to get one “bad” item out of the relatively small number of items that mention New Rochelle (relative to the entire internet) which means I also cannot delete a single item without major programming issues.
It is the nature of things that no matter how much I filter I cannot block every permutation of items someone might find offensive. If a particular web site or blog or Twitter account were to become a regular source of questionable content I would block that individual source but even to do that ex-post facto will not remove it from the current list of items. The dilemma for me is that I do not want to feel compelled to rush out and deal with every individual “naughty” item so unless it is a seriously bad item I prefer to leave it and let it “roll off” on its own.
We added an image/link to the Talk of the Sound Twitter account. If you are a Twitter user you might prefer to follow Talk of the Sound via Twitter. You will also find that items appear in Twitter that are not posts as blog posts so you get bonus material that way (note: it will show up in New Ro Buzz eventually as well but not a blog post per se).
Facebook Fan Page
We added an image/link to the Talk of the Sound Facebook Fan Page. If you are a Facebook user you might prefer to follow Talk of the Sound via Facebook. The Facebook fan page includes a feed of items posted to Talk of the Sound plus some occasionally unique content.
You Tube Account
We do not currently upload a lot of video, we are mostly playing around with it but when we do have video we put it in YouTube. If you have an account with YouTube you can subscribe to our channel and be notified when we upload new videos.
RSS Feed
This is how I follow the site. There are dozens of RSS feeds for the site. Two that I look at regularly are for all of the blog posts (not just the ones promoted to the front page) and all of the comments. I am a big mobile computing user and would recommend if you have an iPhone, Blackberry, Android or similar device that you use an RSS reader and add our feed to your RSS reader account.