Support the Web via Open RSS
I recently discovered Open RSS via an article on Lifehacker highlighting how the service can provide feeds for some services that don’t do it themselves. I clicked through and was delighted to read more about Open RSS.
Open RSS is a non-profit advocating for the use of RSS. I read their about page in detail and it strongly resonated with me. Open protocols like RSS are an enabler to the open web and a way to create connection without all of the downsides of consolidated media platforms driven by a desire for data and engagement.
Open RSS also provides capability to discover and bridge RSS feeds for different sites (this is what the article was about). I’ve already suggested connecting POAPs to RSS. 🤓
I’m a care deeply about the kind of work this organization is doing. It is super small and grass roots. I’ve already had a few emails with Mark, one of the founders. This is a great opportunity to donate to a cause that is focused on the open Web. I think I just found the next organization that Weekly Thing Supporting Memberships can support!
POAP + RSS = Awesome?
I’m a big fan of POAP, and I’m a big fan of RSS. Sadly, these two things don’t know about each other, yet! This blog post is my take on a great start for RSS and POAP. Maybe there is a chance that the amazing folks at Open RSS could bridge this gap in the meantime!
First, why should POAP add RSS? I think there are dozens of use cases, but some examples…
- As someone that issues POAPs a lot I would love to subscribe to the RSS feeds for each of my events and see via the feed when a new token is claimed.
- It would be powerful to use automation on claims along by connecting the RSS feed for an event to IFTTT or any of the hundreds of services to take an action when an RSS feed is updated.
- There are several friends that are active in the POAP ecosystem and I can aggregate a feed of all their claims in the POAP Home app, but I would rather subscribe to an RSS feed of each of their addresses and get updates that way.
There are two items that RSS feeds would be useful for: Events and Collectors. There is a POAP API that would make both of these pretty simple to get, and avoid any screen scraping. An API key would be needed but I think that would be easy to get. These use cases are all read only as well.
Events
Anybody can create an event the RSS feed would be specific to that event. Events have a simple ID, and there is a Token Event API method for /event/{id}/poaps that would get exactly what is desired. The URL’s for an event are https://poap.gallery/drops/{eventid}, my 53rd Birthday POAP is at https://poap.gallery/drops/183305 is an example.
In this case, the eventid is easily found and using the API could get the data to populate the RSS feed.
Addresses
Getting an RSS feed for new tokens that people claim is centered around a wallet address. Here we are looking for an address or ENS name. An example of this is my collection at https://collectors.poap.xyz/scan/0x111accebf9d70d9c06de2d38f9392522e82ecf29. This can also be accessed via the ENS name at https://collectors.poap.xyz/scan/poap.thingelstad.eth.
The Token Scan API method /actions/scan/{address} returns the list of tokens for that address and could build the RSS feed.
Shabby Road Orchestra at The Dakota
Tammy and I joined my Mom and Kurt tonight at The Dakota for Shabby Road Orchestra. The show was billed as “faithful performances of Beatles classics” and it delivered. The show was a Christmas present for my Mom who is a big fan of the Beatles, and really we all enjoy their amazing catalog.
We had never seen Shabby Road Orchestra, and I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but the show exceeded my expectations. It was a lot of fun, the performance was great, and it was overall just a great night. I recommend checking this out if you get a chance.
It was also the most people I’ve ever seen on the small stage at The Dakota. The 12-piece Shabby Road Orchestra is:
- Adam Levy (guitars, vocals)
- John Eller (guitars, vocals)
- Joe Carey (guitars, vocals)
- Brandon Sampson (guitars, vocals)
- John Fields (bass)
- Ken Chastain (drums, vocals)
- Tom Scott (keys, percussion, sound effects)
- Paul Scott (keys)
- David Foley (horns, woodwinds)
- Andy Nelson (woodwinds)
- John Sievers (trombone)
- Jacqueline Ultan (cello)
We see Ken Chastain play frequently with The New Standards. We’ve seen The Honeydogs a few times and seen Adam Levy with them. We weren’t sure of the show but know we’ve seen David Foley and Andy Nelson play before. They even had someone come out and play a Sitar for three of the songs.
First time at Le Burger 4304. We all agreed the fries were great. Burgers were very good with Jamie liking the most. We ordered doubles and should have gotten singles. Very busy. Will be back. 🍔
Trying to Clout Coffee Bourbon Whiskey barrel-aged espresso this morning. Strong Bourbon smell on the beans.
All five of the Weekly Thing Christmas Blogs are now created!
- Phil Rodemann @See3p0
- Marcos D Alves @mdalves
- David O’Hara @davoh
- Jesse Lang @jesselang
- Eric Cohn @ercohn
Next step is to introduce each of these blogs to Weekly Thing readers over a few issues. Love that “new blog” smell! 😂
I’ve been sharing my 53rd Birthday POAP with friends and family all day today. I thought it would be fun to share a few with readers of my blog.
We had a fun visit to Bell Museum this morning. We saw Mars: The Ultimate Voyage in the Planetarium and then checked out all the dioramas.
It’s my birthday tomorrow! Noting my rings and version number the day before. 😊
I’ll be sharing my 53rd Birthday POAP. Want one? Just ask.
We watched Fly Me to the Moon tonight and I thought it was a great movie. Tammy liked it too and Tyler was a bit bored. Enjoyable movie with a fun story all in the context of the Apollo program and landing on the moon!
POAP Event Trends
It has become a tradition for me to create a POAP for my birthday. I’ve been doing it since my 50th Birthday and now have 51st, 52nd, and now my 53rd. Since POAP uses a simple sequential number for events I can easily see how many POAP events have been created for those years.
| Year (Approx) | Events |
|---|---|
| 2022 | 74,298 |
| 2023 | 71,285 |
| 2024 | 16,826 |
That is a big drop in 2024, however it is still 46 events a day. I love what POAP is doing and they are slowly getting their whole offering easier to use and more streamlined. My guess is that they are not actively pushing to create more events right now while they improve the product. I’m rooting for them to be massively successful. I think POAP could be one of the products that shows the path for blockchain adoption.
I’m “all in” on micro.blog collections. I have 61 collections with 936 images. My Collection Creator Shortcut was key to that. Nearly all Gallery posts have been updated. I migrated Adaptive Photo Layout posts to Collections.
Top feature ask: rename collections and modify order or images.
2024 in Blogging
With many thanks to Amit Gawande’s fun Post Stats Plugin and a recent discussion to add some more information to it — I’m sharing some perspective on my blogging from 2024.
In 2024 I published 701 posts with 51,905 words. Of those, 529 had photos and 157 of them had titles.
June had about triple the normal blogging activity which was from our trip to Ireland. Over the last few years I’ve done daily travel logs on those trips and usually write a blog post for each activity. It can be a lot, but I value what it creates and know that in future years I will revisit those posts with many fond memories.
Zooming out I now have a total of 9,111 posts containing 574,102 words! My blog posts have come along many migrations:
.Text → WordPress → SquareSpace → Pelican → Jekyll → micro.blog
On top of that I imported my Twitter archive and curated and improved that. Since April 2017 I’ve been publishing on micro.blog and you can see that it has enabled me to post even more. To me, this is one of the best ways to evaluate a blogging platform — does it enable you to “just write” on the web.
Happy 2️⃣0️⃣2️⃣5️⃣! 🎉🥂 Wishing everyone a great New Year!
It was Mr. Green with the Revolver in the Hall. Tammy won!
Enjoying one of our New Year’s Eve traditions, a delicious pot of fondue. So good.
We went to A Complete Unknown today at the iconic Heights Theater. I thought the movie was great and Timothée Chalamet did a great performance as Bob Dylan. Now I want to listen to Dylan music for the next several weeks. It was also great to hear a couple of Minneapolis callouts. Great movie! 🍿
Cool to see the new Mimi Uploader out with support for Micro.blog collections! This along with my Collection Creator Shortcut gives me a lot of options.
I’m still wondering how to name collections. It seems if you have 100 or more collections it is going to get unruly, similar to Pages. 🤔
I’m excited to welcome Jesse Lang @jesselang to Micro.blog! Along with Phil Rodemann @See3p0, Marcos D Alves @mdalves, and David O’Hara @davoh that is four of the Christmas Blogs. 🎄🎁🎁🎁🎁
The fifth winner changed their mind so I extended the offer to another. 🤞
The New Standards were at The Dakota tonight for their regular Preener’s Eve Show! We are fans of the band and of this show specifically. Tonight seemed even a bit better than they always are. Such a wonderful evening. 🎶
