![\"New](\"https://harper.blog/2025/01/12/new-media/L1060869_hu_91c8085aa1d455bb.jpeg\")
tl;dr: I added a media section to my website to track and display what I’m reading, listening to, and bookmarking online through automated data collection. visit it here
\nRecently I spent a few hours hanging out with my friends Claude, Aider, and ChatGPT and added a media section to this site. I really enjoy AI-aided development (maybe a post for later).
\nThe media section has a log of all my books read (tracked from Goodreads), my recently saved tracks (tracked from Spotify), and my links (tracked from feedbin/netnewsreader).
\nI started posting my links a month or so ago. I wanted to see how the workflow felt. I think it is important for these types of things to just work, without a lot of BS or additional interactions from me. After a month or so, it was fun to see the links that I was saving show up on the site. Like magic.
\nI did this partially cuz I miss my websites of the past where I manically tracked everything. It was so much fun to see a daily log of everything I consumed and participated in. However, time passed and everything kind of fell apart (mostly my crons).
\nThe other reason I did this was inspired by my friend Simon and his project dog sheep beta. I wanted a robust way to track a bunch of data and save it. I thought about just putting it in sqlite and stuffing it away in a corner of my GitHub to forget about. That is boring tho. I want to force all y’all to see it all in its glory.
\nInstead of SQLite, I ended up making just a handful of scripts that grab the entities, drop them as YAML files and generate entries for my Hugo blog. The result is ultimately the same - but now I get both the data and the posts.
\nI love this cuz I can see my media consumption, force you to see it, and store this for later!
\nYou can check out the feeds for the individual sections quite easily:
\n\nI use NetNewsWire, and feedbin and it works great. Highly Recommended them.
\nI will post most about RSS at a later date!
\nI love hacking on Hugo. It’s fun and super limited. I find the best things are those with fewer options. I don’t want to have to deal with unlimited optionality and magic - just a bit of magic.
\nWith Hugo, I can just jam a bunch of markdown into a folder with proper front matter, and then it kind of just works.
\nBeautiful.
\nIf you want to do something like this yourself, I would recommend checking out micro.blog. It’s awesome and can do similar things. The new micro.one service is a good, cheap way to get started.
\n![\"New](\"https://harper.blog/2025/01/12/new-media/harper-politics.jpeg\")
Unrelated to anything: When I worked in politics years and years ago, the generalized term for tech folks, etc., was “new media.” I always found it funny because from my perspective it wasn’t new, it was media.
\n", "content_markdown": "*tl;dr: I added a media section to my website to track and display what I’m reading, listening to, and bookmarking online through automated data collection. visit it [here](https://harper.blog/media/)*\n\nRecently I spent a few hours hanging out with my friends Claude, Aider, and ChatGPT and added a [media section](https://harper.blog/media/) to this site. I really enjoy AI-aided development (maybe a post for later).\n\nThe media section has a log of all my books [read](https://harper.blog/media/books) (tracked from Goodreads), my recently saved [tracks](https://harper.blog/media/music) (tracked from Spotify), and my [links](https://harper.blog/media/links) (tracked from feedbin/netnewsreader).\n\nI started posting my links a month or so ago. I wanted to see how the workflow felt. I think it is important for these types of things to just work, without a lot of BS or additional interactions from me. After a month or so, it was fun to see the links that I was saving show up on the site. Like magic.\n\n\\\nSufjan Stevens, Leica Q, 7/17/2016\n\n## Why Track?\n\nI did this partially cuz I miss my websites of the past where I manically tracked everything. It was so much fun to see a daily log of everything I consumed and participated in. However, time passed and everything kind of fell apart (mostly my crons).\n\nThe other reason I did this was inspired by my friend Simon and his project [dog sheep beta](https://github.com/dogsheep/dogsheep-beta). I wanted a robust way to track a bunch of data and save it. I thought about just putting it in sqlite and stuffing it away in a corner of my GitHub to forget about. That is boring tho. I want to force all y’all to see it all in its glory.\n\nInstead of SQLite, I ended up making just a handful of scripts that grab the entities, drop them as YAML files and generate entries for my Hugo blog. The result is ultimately the same - but now I get both the data and the posts.\n\nI love this cuz I can see my media consumption, force you to see it, and store this for later!\n\nYou can check out the feeds for the individual sections quite easily:\n\n- [Full Media RSS](https://harper.blog/media/index.xml)\n- [Books RSS](https://harper.blog/media/books/index.xml)\n- [Music RSS](https://harper.blog/media/music/index.xml)\n- [Links RSS](https://harper.blog/media/links/index.xml)\n\nI use [NetNewsWire](https://netnewswire.com/), and [feedbin](https://feedbin.com) and it works great. Highly Recommended them.\n\nI will post most about RSS at a later date!\n\n## Simple Tools Are Better Tools\n\nI love hacking on Hugo. It’s fun and super limited. I find the best things are those with fewer options. I don’t want to have to deal with unlimited optionality and magic - just a bit of magic.\n\nWith Hugo, I can just jam a bunch of markdown into a folder with proper front matter, and then it kind of just works.\n\nBeautiful.\n\n### YOU IN THE CORNER!\n\nIf you want to do something like this yourself, I would recommend checking out [micro.blog](https://micro.blog). It’s awesome and can do similar things. The new [micro.one](https://micro.one) service is a good, cheap way to get started.\n\n\\\nMy very serious office, unknown camera, 11/8/2012\n\nUnrelated to anything: When I worked in politics years and years ago, the generalized term for tech folks, etc., was “new media.” I always found it funny because from my perspective it wasn’t new, it was media.\n", "dateCreated": "2026-09-27T19:29:15.293681927+00:00", "date_created": "2025-01-13T01:59:59+00:00", "date_modified": "2025-01-13T01:59:59+00:00", "date_published": "2025-01-13T01:59:59+00:00", "description": "tl;dr: I added a media section to my website to track and display what I’m reading, listening to, and bookmarking online through automated data collection. visit it here Recently I spent a few hours hanging out with my friends Claude,…", "external_url": "https://harper.blog/2025/01/12/new-media/", "git": { "commit": "ebb0941c5c06a2ab2377342d607535262a3e969e", "path": "items/harper-blog/2025/01/2025-01-13-new-media.md", "permalink": "https://github.com/aymericbeaumet/aggr-instance/blob/ebb0941c5c06a2ab2377342d607535262a3e969e/items/harper-blog/2025/01/2025-01-13-new-media.md" }, "id": "urn:aggr:item:1dc81218f2eab3dbe70a571cc2f27a8d0d498c6c", "isBasedOn": { "@id": "https://harper.blog/2025/01/12/new-media/" }, "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://harper.blog/2025/01/12/new-media/", "@type": "CreativeWork", "archivedAt": { "@id": "https://aggr.aymericbeaumet.com/items/harper-blog/2025-01-13-new-media/#webpage" }, "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Harper Reed" } ], "dateModified": "2025-01-13T01:59:59+00:00", "datePublished": "2025-01-13T01:59:59+00:00", "headline": "New Media", "timeRequired": "PT3M", "url": "https://harper.blog/2025/01/12/new-media/", "wordCount": 538 }, "name": "Archived snapshot: New Media", "preview": null, "reading_minutes": 3, "replicated_at": null, "source": "harper-blog", "source_name": "Home on Harper Reed's Blog", "summary": "tl;dr: I added a media section to my website to track and display what I’m reading, listening to, and bookmarking online through automated data collection. visit it here Recently I spent a few hours hanging out with my friends Claude, Aider, and ChatGPT and added a media section to this site. I really enjoy AI-aided development (maybe a post for later). The media section has a log of all my books read (tracked from Goodreads), my recently saved tracks (tracked from Spotify), and my links (tracked from feedbin/netnewsreader). I started posting my links a month or so ago. I wanted to see how the workflow felt. I think it is important for these types of things to just work, without a lot of BS or additional interactions from me. After a month or so, it was fun to see the links that I was saving show up on the site. Like magic. Sufjan Stevens, Leica Q, 7/17/2016 Why Track? I did this partially cuz I miss my websites of the past where I manically tracked everything. It was so much fun to see a daily log of everything I consumed and participated in. However, time passed and everything kind of fell apart (mostly my crons). The other reason I did this was inspired by my friend Simon and his project dog sheep beta. I wanted a robust way to track a bunch of data and save it. I thought about just putting it in sqlite and stuffing it away in a corner of my GitHub to forget about. That is boring tho. I want to force all y’all to see it all in its glory. Instead of SQLite, I ended up making just a handful of scripts that grab the entities, drop them as YAML files and generate entries for my Hugo blog. The result is ultimately the same - but now I get both the data and the posts. I love this cuz I can see my media consumption, force you to see it, and store this for later! RSS Feeds You can check out the feeds for the individual sections quite easily: Full Media RSS Books RSS Music RSS Links RSS I use NetNewsWire, and feedbin and it works great. Highly Recommended them. I will post most about RSS at a later date! Simple Tools Are Better Tools I love hacking on Hugo. It’s fun and super limited. I find the best things are those with fewer options. I don’t want to have to deal with unlimited optionality and magic - just a bit of magic. With Hugo, I can just jam a bunch of markdown into a folder with proper front matter, and then it kind of just works. Beautiful. YOU IN THE CORNER! If you want to do something like this yourself, I would recommend checking out micro.blog. It’s awesome and can do similar things. The new micro.one service is a good, cheap way to get started. New Media My very serious office, unknown camera, 11/8/2012 Unrelated to anything: When I worked in politics years and years ago, the generalized term for tech folks, etc., was “new media.” I always found it funny because from my perspective it wasn’t new, it was media. Thank you for using RSS. I appreciate you. Email me", "tags": [], "temporalCoverage": "2026-09-27T19:29:15.293681927+00:00", "title": "New Media", "url": "https://aggr.aymericbeaumet.com/items/harper-blog/2025-01-13-new-media/", "word_count": 538 }