I read about nearcircle at Rebecca’s beautiful Faerie School blog and couldn’t resist popping over to check it out. It’s pretty cool, I must say. Nearcircle takes the old webring concept and improves on it in a big way—it’s like a webring, a blogroll, and a feed reader all in one. With chat thrown in!

A webring, as you know, is a group of topic-related blog all linked together with a bit of code. You can click your way from one link of the chain to the next, all the way through the ring; this has long been a good way to discover new blogs on topics that interest you.

Well, nearcircle is like that, only better. You can join circles that interest you—I joined Rebecca’s Waldorf Homeschooling circle, for example, and I set up circles for Charlotte Mason Homeschooling and kidlitosphere blogs.

When you join a circle, you can enter your blog’s URL, and after that, every time you post on your blog, the people who visit that circle will see a link to your new post. You can put a circle’s widget into your sidebar if you want (see down there on the right, under the list of ClubMom blogs?) and new posts in the circle will automatically appear as they come in.

What’s the point? As with a webring, it’s a way to encounter new blogs on topics that interest you. It’s also a way to keep up with reading your favorite blogs (if they’re in a circle)—a kind of topic-focused feed reader.

Both on the circle’s individual pages and in the sidebar widgets, there’s a chat box. You can disable this in your widget if you choose, but it’s fun to be able to say a quick hello to your friends.

Nearcircle is very new, so there aren’t many circles set up yet, and the ones that are there don’t have many member blogs. I imagine that will change quickly. This technology is a HUGE improvement on webrings. I’ve maintained webrings in the past (and am still a member of many), and running one can be a pain in the neck: so much code to manage. What I’m seeing with nearcircle is that it’s easy-peasy and has more functionality. Coolio, as my hubby would say.