When you visit your WordPress.com Dashboard you’ll see a new link on the menu called “Friend Surfer”. This handy little tool is where you can keep track of what your friends, acquintances and enemies are saying from the comfort of one single page.

There’s a small textbox on the left hand side of the page where you can add new contacts. If you’re not familiar with anyone here on the site, try any or all of the following for a good read: scobleizer, donal, lorelle. It’s important to realise that you’re adding usernames, not blog addresses. “donncha” will work, but “donncha.wordpress.com” won’t!

Since it’s impossible to subscribe to private blogs through a regular RSS aggregator you can view the private blogs you’re a member of on this page too. They’re listed separately from your contacts for ease of use.

Shortcuts

There are a few shortcuts you might like to know about.

  1. Click on the number next a username and the page will only display posts from that user. Click the number again and the page returns to the full posts display.
  2. You can use the ‘j’ and ‘k’ keys to skip forwards and backwards through the posts on your friend surfer. Press ‘i’ to jump right up to the top again.

Give the Friend Surfer a spin and remember to leave some feedback if you have a great idea to make it better!