There are several directories and bookmark sites where you need to submit your pages. I have been using Ycombinator.com lately for my techy stuff with some unexpected success. I might submit to Digg or Delicious for some things. Stumbleupon has been a source of traffic for me so I sometimes submit there.
Lately, BoingBoing.net has been one place that I always submit. I’ve had some pages referenced at BoingBoing and years later I’ve gotten hits from them.
BoingBoing has created a link list similiar to ycombinator called the BoingBoing Submitterator. It is a popular site and submitting there will get you at least a few hundred curious eyes and maybe more.
The interface is kludgy, however, so I wrote a bookmarklet that lets me submit to the site.
Before you do anything go over to the Submitterator page and get a login. You must be logged in for the bookmarklet to work.
Next right click the next line:
then click “bookmark this link” or drag the link to your bookmarks toolbar.
To test it, highlight this paragraph:
The Submitterator Bookmarklet lets you submit a web page to the BoingBoing.net Submitterator form with a few simple clicks. It makes the BoingBoing submission process simple and easy.
Then, from your bookmarks, click on the Submit to Submitterator entry. This will popup a form all filled in that lets you submit the page. Just edit the description if needed, select the category, and press submit.
BoinBoing’s Submitterator is probably going to change. They may not want it to be this easy to plug a url into their listings. If the submitterator stops working please let me know and I’ll try to hack out a new one.
Please excuse the kudgy interface. I needed to cut out all the fat I could to make this work. The form is the ugliest bare bones thing that I could come up with and still fit in IE’s incredibly small link entry.
Once you are sure that it is working you can wander around the net submitting anything and everything.
Fixed, I think
Just a note to ask how to view comments? It says there are 4, but none appear under the post!
If the captcha fails gracefully and asks me to try again there should be no problem, but if it requires filling out the form from scratch, then it is a show stopper.
If I were at boingboing I’d immediately implement the StopForumSpam api (with some sort of caching) to keep out the riffraff. I’ve been using this at several sites and it is effective at keeping out the bad guys.
Keith
Ycombinator.org (Hacker News) has perfected this kind of thing. You should go there for inspiration. There is also a ycombinator digest that is very useful to me. I can see the boingboing main page remaining as a hand picked list, but a submitterator list and/or digest giving delicious, digg, and ycombinator a run for their money.
What you really need is a form that can be popped up with the params passed with a GET (in the url followed by a question mark). Check out delicious’ bookmarklet interface. Then you could put your captcha and login checks, etc right on the page. It would put the bookmarklet back into your hands instead of some random blogger who likes to hack stuff.
Keith
Things to watch out for in the short term are anti-spam measures. Recaptcha, especially.
What a splendid idea. Thank you! It’s true that we’ll likely be changing Submitterator sooner or later. I’ll be sure to get in touch if we’re planning to do anything likely to break the bookmarklet.
When I have time, I’ll also look into having our installation of movable type not generate that dead-end error message when people try to use the bookmarklet but aren’t logged in. I imagine it would be best to redirect them to a bare-bones login page that will fit inside the popup the bookmarklet creates.
Rob of Boing