Introducing a Taiwan Blog Directory on a Google Map

A recent discussion with some Taiwan bloggers about the state of the Taiwan expat blogosphere resulted in an idea to try and build a comprehensive Taiwan blogger directory that would allow bloggers to get to know each other and potentially bring in new readership. Sure, we got the “Bloggers in Taiwan”, “Taiwanfeed” and Michael Turton’s list, but when I show those to some of the potential readers as the best resource I can think of for Taiwan they usually claim, and probably rightfully so, that it’s not very friendly and they can’t find any useful information in all that mess. That is really a shame, as I really do believe that some of the best Taiwan info in English is only to be found on Taiwan blogs.

Can we do any better? I think we can.

To show how – I set up a Taiwan blog directory on Taiwanderful , which has the following features :

1. Blogs appear on a Taiwan Google map so you can see where every blog is located.
2. Blogs enter “general location” for northern, central, southern and eastern Taiwan. Potential readers can filter blogs according to general location.
3. Blogs enter blog category (photography, politics, etc.). Potential readers can filter blogs according to blog category.
4. Blogs have some general information to help potential readers to better understand what the blogs are about.
5. Blogs that have an RSS feed added are aggregated, sortable by blog. Similar functionality to the older Taiwanfeed.
6. Bloggers submit (and remove) their blogs, rather than someone having to find and add them.

To see it in action just go to the main Taiwanderful page  and look at the Google map with the two registered blogs. Click on one of the pointers to see which blogger is located where. Also, after registering or signing in with your Facebook/OpenID accounts, you can add your blog to the Taiwanderful blog directory. Check out what the Taiwanderful blog directory looks like when it’s not on a map. There’s also the Blog group aggregator | RSS feed and the Latest items by blogs.

If this works out, once we have a directory, we can even run fun projects like “Best Taiwan blogs” with a friendly competition to create awareness, we can get some stats in (Google Pagerank, Alexa) to show the Taiwan blogs Internet presence etc. etc.

It’s mostly set up, I’d be interested in your feedback, any bug reports and suggestions for things to add (features, categories, views… ).

If you like this initiative, I’d be happy if you would somehow let your fellow bloggers know that it’s out there. If not – please let me know why.

 
tags: blogs, directory