Introducing TroppoSphere

TroppoSphere

TroppoSphere is a project I’ve been working on for quite a long while on and off.  It’s intended as a feed reader for people who don’t want to use a feed reader! A gateway to a world of news and expert opinion and analysis for those with feedreader phobia.

I suspect there are quite a lot of casual blog readers who would like to check out a wider range of blogs, but can’t be bothered learning how to install or use a feed reader (or don’t even know what one is).

Essentially I’ve created a “hard-wired” online feed reader here at Club Troppo, featuring carefully selected news feeds along with feeds from the best or most popular Australian and some international blogs in a wide range of categories.  The blogs whose feeds I’ve included here are those most commonly featured in Missing Link editions. In my judgment they fairly consistently publish interesting posts, at least as judged by the Missing Link editorial team.

Feedback is welcome.  I’m happy to add additional feeds to those already featured here, but there are limits imposed by the need to ensure that the pages load in a reasonable time.  Accordingly at this stage I have limited the selections to 5-7 blogs or news sources in each category, with each subscription displaying extracts from the most recent 5 stories in the case of blogs and 10 in the case of news outlets.

News

Opinion

Specialist

Alternative media

About Ken Parish

Ken Parish is a legal academic, with research areas in public law (constitutional and administrative law), civil procedure and teaching & learning theory and practice. He has been a legal academic for almost 20 years. Before that he ran a legal practice in Darwin for 15 years and was a Member of the NT Legislative Assembly for almost 4 years in the early 1990s.
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Jason Wilson
13 years ago

Hi Ken – great initiative. Very useful aggregation for those with or without Feeds. Just one question, though – how did you decide which blogs were left and right leaning? LOL just kidding.

jen
jen
13 years ago

So that was behind the cat’s got the cream expression before you left for work today! Found it sooner than you thought I bet!
Congrats o great silent one.

Guido
13 years ago

What a great service!

I was wondering whether you may consider sport blogs in your ‘specialist’ section, I always click on the ones included in the missing link posts.

As a soccer nut I was initially disappointed that there was no soccer feeds in the sport news section. But then going to the sites of the FFA and A-League I saw there was no RSS facility. Rather poor really.

I emailed the FFA and they told me that it was to be included soon.

Graham Bell
Graham Bell
13 years ago

Ken Parish:

As a hard-wired Luddite and long-time gobblidygookaphobe …. you’ve got my interest. :-)

Shaun
13 years ago

Ken,

As for music blogs, May I recommend my own Rock’n’Roll Damnation? On a highway to Oahu with matters rock’n’roll and starting to do a little more on Hawaiian music. Even the odd guitar lesson.

Guido
13 years ago

Ken I am at work at the moment, but I would be more than happy to find good sport blogs that Troppo readers may find interesting.

John Quiggin
John Quiggin
13 years ago

It looks nice. Of course, no classification scheme is perfect, but I think of my blog as more “left-leaning general interest” than “specialist economics”

skepticlawyer
13 years ago

This is terrific, Ken – well done! Although I have to note that – once again – access to Andrew Norton’s blog appears to be broken.

trackback

[…] Ken Parish has had the same inkling. Over on Club Troppo he’s unveiled the Tropposphere, which is, as he puts it, a “‘hard-wired’ online feed reader’ hosted by […]

Liam (Bring Back Punster Paxton)
Liam (Bring Back Punster Paxton)
13 years ago
Pollyanna
13 years ago

Liam, you are Bad.

Liam (Bring Back Punster Paxton)
Liam (Bring Back Punster Paxton)
13 years ago

If enjoying hostility, harsh criticism and unsolicited snark is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.

Guido
13 years ago

OK here are some sports blog that may be interesting.

http://beerandsport.blogspot.com/
Light hearted blog written by a Rugby fan

http://www.grods.com/category/sport/
You may already know about GrodsCorp. They deal in many subjects, and I like the way they look at sport and society.

http://www.owatalk.com/
Oatwalk is pretty down the line. But it is about sport and kept pretty up to date.

http://sidelined.com.au/
Good honest commentary about sport, but NRL in particular

http://aussiegolfer.blogspot.com/
Golf bores me to tears. But then again to many people so does soccer and I love it, so I can’t complain.

http://www.cricket-blog.com/
About cricket. See Golf comment.

http://www.mushroomandrooster.net/category/Sport/
I like the attitude of this blog. It is about a variety of subjects. Pity they don’t talk about sport enough.

http://greenandgoldrugby.blogspot.com/
Need I say more

http://bigleaguelittleleague.blogspot.com/
Blog about the AFL

http://www.theserve.com.au/
Very professional looking blog/website. Contains all latest news about all the major Australian sports.

Of course you have the professional blogs such as those at the fox website
http://www.foxsports.com.au/blogs/

And of course Association Football (soccer blogs) not trying to be biased here!

The round ball analyst – http://www.roundballanalyst.blogspot.com/

The Football Tragic – http://thefootballtragic.blogspot.com/

La pila di Pippinu – http://pippinu.blogspot.com/

I’ve asked some bloggers I know if they know others that they like. If they tell me of some I will post again!

Cheers

John Greenfield
John Greenfield
13 years ago

Ken

This is a fantastic innovation. Good on you! You could become THE blog portal of choice. You should patent it. I can already feel a frisson of gatekeeper potential and filthy lucre! :)

Helen
13 years ago

Thanks, Ken.

An extra page? They don’t call us Lefty luvvies the chattering classes for nothing! :-)

skepticlawyer
13 years ago

How about a specialist feminist category? Legal Eagle and I don’t strictly fit into the ‘law’ category, but it still works. How about putting PC, the Hoydens and Helen Smart together that way?

Guido
13 years ago

Sorry Ken….I forgot After Grog Blog which is an excellent one (but I suspect you may know of it already)
http://aftergrogblog.blogs.com/agb/

Other two cricket ones suggestions from Tony of

Cricket With Balls.
http://cricketwithballs.blogspot.com/

It’s by a young bloke, which is reflected in his… errr, young bloke style, but he’s dead set keen and knows the caper.

A female journo from Perth runs Miss Field’s Cricket Blog. Once again, it’s young, but it’s not dreadful.
http://miss-field.blogspot.com/

Pavlov's Cat
13 years ago

SL, I dunno, I think classifying blogs under ‘feminist’ might be counterproductive. Think of all the people who automatically wouldn’t read them. :-) It would have a ghettoising effect that’s probably the opposite of what I, at least, am trying to achieve in a general way, viz a sort of gradual consciousness-raising by stealth.

And I’d be stuffed coming and going if classified under ‘feminist blogs’, because many real full-on hard-core feminist bloggers would be deeply shocked by my frivolity and levity, particularly at the moment when I’ve no time to write considered posts on deep subjects. I too prefer ‘left-leaning general interest’ or something of the sort. But I take the point about page loading and so on.

pommygranate
pommygranate
13 years ago

Ken – nice intiative. Thanks for being included but i sadly dont get to post much on my own site anymore.

John Greenfield
John Greenfield
13 years ago

In light of Miss Hathaway’s illumination the feminazi mind, I BEG you to have a separate category for them. Watch the fur fly.

Pavlov's Cat
13 years ago

Keep it up, JG — I await the moment when you finally figure out that every time you trash a blogger, everyone else’s support and affection for the trashee increases — and right across the political spectrum too, which is an astonishing achievement, however inadvertent. But I don’t expect you to figure it out any time soon, and in the meantime most of the flying fur I see in Ozblogistan is coming in rather icky chunks out of your own hide.

Liam (Bring Back Punster Paxton)
Liam (Bring Back Punster Paxton)
13 years ago

It wouldn’t be so bad if he was any good at it, but the way it stands it’s like watching someone play the dozens with himself.

Fyodor
13 years ago

I dunno, Haiku – Mr G’s pretty good at playing with himself. The problem is that he thinks it’s an interesting spectacle for others.

Liam (Bring Back Punster Paxton)
Liam (Bring Back Punster Paxton)
13 years ago

I think it might have been Nabs who described him as the Australian blogosphere’s premier public flasher. That was a good line, whoever it was.

Jason Soon
Jason Soon
13 years ago

await the moment when you finally figure out that every time you trash a blogger, everyone elses support and affection for the trashee increases

Even JG’s powers have their limits, pavlov. They wouldn’t work on Niall for instance. But otherwise you’re correct.

Jason Soon
Jason Soon
13 years ago

Can I nominate Graeme Bird’s blog for the left wing category? He is now proposing that CEO salaries should be capped at $200,000

http://graemebird.wordpress.com/2008/06/12/so-how-ought-ceos-be-paiddeflating-book-value-increase-by-nominal-gdr-growth/

John Greenfield
John Greenfield
13 years ago

PC

Darl, when are YOU going to learn I do not “trash” you! Please point to a post where I have “trashed” you. Yes, I “play” with you, but I do not “trash” you. In fact, if you are honest, I think you will find I am actually quite respectful and deferential towards you.

FDB
FDB
13 years ago

‘Trashing’ implies a degree of success to me. PC, you have quite uncharacteristically failed with terminology here. For the life of me though I can’t think of the right word for chucking snotty tissues at someone across the classroom while humming the chorus from I Was A Teenaged Marxist.

David Rubie
David Rubie
13 years ago

The word you’re looking for FDB is “Fuqtard” – spelling optional.
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