How to get your article onto the popular list on myScoop

I’ve received a few enquiries lately about how myScoop determines which articles are “popular” and which are not. The simple answer is to make use of the shortened URI of the article that myScoop generates once it has fetched and processed your latest article. This shortened URI is a basic “pointing system” that when clicked on, myScoop will record certain information and then redirect you to the correct article post linked to the shortened code. Follow these steps after logging in to get your myScoop shortened URI:

Go to “My Page” and scroll towards the bottom where your latest articles are shown, click the “More” link next to the article of your choice.

myscoop-shortened-uri

Copy the “Short Link” given on the page and use that for your twitter updates or facebook updates. By making use of the myScoop shortened URI, myScoop will record how many people click on the link and rank your article accordingly. myScoop tries to to exclude all bots and crawlers that add no value to the statistics, although every now and again one or two may be missed.

The “Popular Articles” are kept for a maximum of 48 hours, thereafter the article will fall off the popular article list and be replaced by a new popular article.

I hope to see more people making use of this system, after all, being on the front page has its benefits such as getting some of myScoop’s PageRank which in turn will help your blog do better. There is method in my madness after all.

Open Flash Charts and other changes installed on myScoop

I’m sure you agree, the old Google charts that myScoop was using looked quite plain and tacky. I recently installed Open Flash Charts and what a difference it has made to the look and feel of the site.

The “Live Stats” section has been modified to remove the popup window. A graph that displays the hits to your blog for the past 30 minutes and your last 20 visitors now displays in a new page. More statistics will be displayed soon. Your thoughts and suggestions here would be great.

Another new addition to myScoop, is the “Total recorded blog traffic” graph on the home page and on the blogs page. This is a global representation of the hits to blogs myScoop has recorded for all registered blogs within myScoop that makes use of tracking badges. More on this will be added to the FAQ section soon.

Known bug fix: The search bar’s width has been fixed for IE7

As always, your comments and suggestions are important to me and the development of myScoop so please keep sending them in to nick@myscoop.co.za. You can also find me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

New “Rank” Badge Available

I received some great ideas from Galen the other day. In one of his ideas, he suggested letting users have the ability to install a “Rank Badge” on their blogs in order to let their visitors know where the blog stands in terms of the myScoop ranking system.

This is what I came up with:

You will be able to find the code snippet once you click “Manage my Blog” in the control panel after logging in. However, please note that this badge does NOT act as a tracking badge.

More badges of this nature will be added soon.

New Badges Available on myScoop

There are 3 new (2 new and 1 replacement) badges now available on myScoop. As you know these badges are required to track visitors to your blog and rank your blog accordingly. Previously we only catered for blogs with a white background and this has now been changed as we have created 2 more badges that blend in rather well with the darker backgrounds that some blogs have.

These are now your current badge options available on myScoop:

Where do I get these badges?
Simply log in to myScoop and click on the “Manage my Blog” button located in the control panel in the top right of the page. From there you will be able to get the code for the badge you have chosen.

myScoop changelog Dec 2009

I was getting slightly irritated with the old layout of myScoop and decided enough was enough. After a few hours of messing around and some help from Bonita, I managed to come up with the current “cleaner” look and feel. I’m sure you will agree , it looks a hell of a lot more professional.

myScoop Transformation

On another note, myScoop.co.za has reached a PageRank™ of 3, which means that if you’re article is mentioned on the front page, that link juice is sent directly to your blog.

Change log:

– Fresher cleaner look.

– Added the Latest and Popular articles to the front page.

– Auto correct functionality for incorrectly inputted RSS feed locations when adding a new blog.

– Blog address validation when adding a new blog.

– Increased security measures.

– Increased speed of all functionality.

– Overall better functionality for posting articles to twitter. The current most non-tweeted popular article gets tweeted, this is an ongoing function that loops every 30 minutes.

– Popular article tag cloud installed. This is a global representation of the most popular unique tags from every article fetched.

– Top30 (month & day) blogs on front page for better exposure.

– “More” link on each article to provide the shortened URI for that article as well as let the user have the ability to share the article on Twitter of Facebook.

– “Monthly Reach” and “Todays Reach” added to the blog page. This is a percentage of tracked unique visitors your blog is receiving compared to the overall number of unique visitors myScoop is recording for all registered blogs.

Until the next update, I hope you are enjoying the functionality that myScoop offers and as always, if you have any comments and/or suggestions, please don’t hesitate to send and email (nickduncan.sa @ gmail.com ) or simply leave a comment below.