In an effort to bring together our disparate postings from various corners of the Web, I created the IMAPgregator, a content-aggregation system that collates everything iMAP students, researchers and faculty submit to blogs, social networking sites and social media sites anywhere and everywhere. The IMAPgregator, located on the IMAP home page, displays all this material in real-time by tapping into the XML/RSS feeds created by the sites and services that students and faculty use to share thoughts, links and media. These feeds are then rendered as a chronological list of entries.
Why do this?
We decided that we wanted visitors to our site to be able to see what we were up to at a glance, rather than forcing them to hop around various external sites to get a sense of who we are. We also thought it would be a good way for everyone associated with the program itself to cross-pollinate sources of inspiration and knowledge. It’s how we’re grappling with the issue of distributed online identities — by “de-distributing” all the bits and pieces of our online existences and presenting them here in a linear flow.
Additional Information
The IMAPgregator is powered by the Wordpress plugin, Lifestream. Sorting functionality and dynamic display of feeds is enabled in part by the Custom Field Template plugin.