Nilesh.org Notes on technology and everything else

Presenting, hum*blog! Phew! Atlast, here’s a rough layout for the Indian blog home that we are planning to put up. I got stuck in some work yesterday. Anyway, read more for the explanation of the bloghome. And please put in your suggestions / criticisms / raves / rants on it »»

Click here to see the
page.

Points:

1. The idea is to have a webhome for Indian bloggers with write-ups
   on Indian bloggers, blogger meets and putting the spotlight on
   deserving blogs.


2. There should be a blog where everyone can post and discuss various
   things. It should be moderated.


3. As a plus point, the site will also provide XMLRPC ping services,
   a most popular links service (like Blogdex), a Recently
   Updated listing of Indian blogs like (blo.gs) and a Find
   your blog neighbour feature (like nycbloggers).


4. Do not go on the design. It looks somewhat dry. A photo or a
   collage will liven up the site. What we need is a photo collage
   representing India. I tried to create one but
   couldn’t do because of lack of good photos of people. Vikas, can
   you help out? You are the most experienced photographer among
   us. Can you make up a nice collage for the front page?


5. I’ll give some explanation for the page –
   
   
   
   1. Spotlight: Will focus on current hot ongoing blogging
      events, on Blogger meets and some well-deserving blogs.
   
   
   2. Fresh Curry: Will show the last five newly added
      blogs.
   
   
   3. Blox Populi: You can suggest a better name if you
      have something in mind. This is a blogdex clone with a difference.
      It will have some subjective points also. We’ll have a bunch
      of bloggers who will look at the most popular blogs and push
      them up or down manually according to their `real’ value.
      This should have some human touch to it.
   
   
   4. About: You know what. This will also have credits
      to the original guys who brought us all together.
   
   
   5. FAQs: regarding blogging in general.
   
   
   6. The hum*blog: This will be a moderated blog on
      the site itself. It will have news and interesting tidbits
      posted by members.
   
   
   7. Blogs from A to Z: The bloggers’ list in alphabetical
      order.
   
   
   8. Blog Density/Blogmap: This will have a map of India.
      The locations of bloggers will be marked on the map. In future,
      we may extend it to the states and metros also. Relatively
      easy to make than what it looks like, although not too easy.
   
   
   9. Add your blog/search: needs no explanation
   
   
   10. Most Recently updated: copy and paste the blo.gs
       system here. :-)
   
   
   11. Notify Me: keep all bloggers (and other people
       too) posted about new things on Indian bloggers.
   
   
   12. An RSS aggregator should also be there
   
   
   13. We should put up a Forum for helping new bloggers, say using phpBB
   
   
   14. Anita’s indianbloggers ring suffices for the weblog ring

6. Ok, now for some suggestions from your side.
7. We need a good name for the site. Anand had
   thought of humblog and I found it cool enough. Still anyone
   can suggest a new one. Then we need to register a domain for the
   site.
8. Next, we need webspace for the site. Where do we host it? We’ll
   need about 50MB space to start with. The ability to run Perl/PHP
   scripts, about 2GB in bandwidth per month.
9. We need to allocate work amongst ourselves to complete the site
   fast. But, that will come as soon as we all approve the site contents.
10. First, your views on this design/site layout/content/etc…
11. Go, shoot!