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MSDN Social Bookmarks: FeedBurner Flare

Posted by Dan Rigsby on 11th September 2008

MSDN Social Bookmarks is now up and running. Previously I had asked if someone could write a FeedBurner Flare item and IE 8 Accelerator for this site.  Well, Katrien De Graeve beat me to the IE 8 Accelerator, but I think I am the first to have a FeedFlare item built…

REST API format for adding a new Bookmark

 
QueryString Parameter Description
url The url to the bookmark
ttl The title of the bookmark
d The description of the bookmark
 

MSDN Social Bookmark FeedFlare

Here is what I have so far for a FeedFlare item for MSDN Social Bookmarks.  As the REST API opens up more, I will try to add more to this.

 
Source:
<!DOCTYPE FeedFlareUnit SYSTEM "FeedFlareUnit-1.0.dtd">
<FeedFlareUnit>
    <Catalog>
        <Title>Bookmark on MSDN Social</Title>
        <Description>Add a link as a bookmark on MSDN Social.</Description>
    </Catalog>
    <FeedFlare>
        <Text>Bookmark on MSDN Social</Text>
        <Link href="http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/action/create/s/E/?url=${link}&amp;ttl=${title}&amp;d=${title}"/>
    </FeedFlare>
</FeedFlareUnit>
 
Note:
You can adjust the URL in the link node to hit any of the 4 Microsoft bookmark sites:

How to use the FeedFlare

To use the FeedFlare item, you need to have a FeedBurner account.  This account is free and easy to setup, just register here: https://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/register.  Once you have your account, add your feed to the list.  On the main feed page click the “Optimize” tab and select the “FeedFlare” link to the left:

FeedFlare1
Once you have done this you can select which items you would like to appear at the bottom of each feed item (blog post) or at the bottom of each blog post on your site by selecting the corresponding checkboxes.  If you choose to add this to your blog site, you will have to setup your blog to pull the flare.  Documentation for this is provides on Feedburner’s site.
 
To add the MSDN Social Bookmarks FeedFlare item, you will need to add a custom flare.  If you scroll down this page you will see a textbox where you can enter in a link to a FeedFlare xml file.  Just copy in the url: http://www.danrigsby.com/Files/MSDNBookmark.xml and click “Add New Flare” button.
FeedFlare2
Once this is done, you will see the new FeedFlare item in your list, and you can check the corresponding checkboxes to display it on your feed or site.

FeedFlare3

What it looks like

If you add the FeedFlare to your blog site, this is what the link looks like:

FeedFlareBlog

If you add the FeedFlare to your feed, this is what the link looks like in Google Reader:

FeedFlareGoogle

When the link is clicked the url of the bookmark is set and the title and description are prepopulated with the feed item’s name.  You can modify these values and tag the bookmark before saving it.

FeedFlare4

Enhancements

I would love to see the following features added once more of the REST API is opened up (or revealed) for MSDN Bookmarks:

  • A count of how many people have bookmarked the same link.
  • A list of the tags used to bookmark the link. (ordered by most used tag)

The enhancements would have the link look a lot like the Delicious FeedFlare item.  Here is an example of what it would look like on the site:

FeedFlare5

DotNetKicks Image

Posted in Community, MSDN | 4 Comments »