Ticks a lot of boxes in my book.

Simple concept, appealling to bloggers they'll get more views and appealling to advertisers location targetting.

Good idea, already have the picture for the site. But I think that you can mash blogs worldwide not only in the States.

Thanks for the votes of support. I think it's a pretty simple concept to get going. I'm about to turn it into a project and start building it.

I'm currently considering building it on top of Wordpress MU which would allow people interested in creating a blog to host it on our website. Or if you already had a blog, then you could just create a username with your blog info and have it placed on the map.

I also think the third phase of the site will be to integrate a blogger's posts with an open source "Digg" style system like Pligg - http://www.pligg.com/ Essentially determining the best blog posts in the system.

I just want to mash blogs up in every way possible to drive traffic to blogs and create a large community of bloggers.

David,
Of course this would be international. The more people and diversity the better. The view the map starts with could possibly be localized, but anyone around the world could put their blog on the map.

I should also mention that I'm a prominent member of a network of 40,000 bloggers so when this site launches, I could get it populated with bloggers rather quickly.

Yup. See that working. Wonder if you'll see community blogs then (rather than city blogs). Bet unexpected behavior will come from that.

great idea.

GordonMcDowell,
I expect it will turn into community blogs (groups of blogs with similar interests) and city blogs. By aggregating the blogs you could really do some interesting things with both.

I understand the idea of finding or promoting blogs based with tags, since tags can cover the full spectrum of interests.
But geography ? Is that relevant to most blogs ?

I like the localized blog feeds linked to local newspapers. But again, what fraction of all blogs is about local interests?

On a related note, I love the approach taken by findory.com: suggest new blogs based on what the user has read in the past. No active tagging needed. I am still waiting for bloglines or others to come up with something equally good.

It's a fun idea, though I have reservations. I'm certain I've seen a site doing exactly this, but I can't bring the name to mind.

And I can't say I really see a compelling use case. The people who are aggressively seeking out new sites to promote their blogs aren't the friendliest or most community-oriented (and that's excluding the sploggers, who will show up en masse). Lastly, advertising is better than nothing but not a business model.

Great idea 5*'s

I think this idea has a good chance of succeeding, because you obviously know your target market and have come up with a product that will appeal to them. I'd advise you to consult with other bloggers as you go along and produce something that's really what's wanted.

The other advantage you have is that a site like this only becomes useful when it reaches a certain critical size - it sounds like you're part of a network that can make this happen. Go for it!

mash with concept maps

love the geog idea but you can take it further

One quick comment, and I'll comment more tonight.

The revenue model isn't just advertising. Although, I would suggest that there are a ton of interesting advertising models not just on the site, but also the bloggers sites in some sort of profit sharing option.

A few other ideas of revenue is selling local feeds to newspapers or other sites. Or some sort of profit sharing with them. I think you could also offer a premium service for bloggers.

I think it's also important to point out that while many local bloggers don't blog about the same topics, there is still something very interesting about reading a local blogger blogging about any topic. Maybe this applies to more general bloggers, but I know that I love knowing that someone lives in the same city, comes from the same perspective as me.

I like the idea. The only drawback I see is that you are broadcasting your exact location to everyone in the world. If you say something objectionable, you might end up with some crazy person cutting down your front door with a chainsaw. I want to trust the internet with all my heart, it's just hard.

As usual Techguy, you mind is a useful tool. I'm upvoting this one...I think you have something here. The simplicity of using the site, I think, will do more than anything else for making it a real rocket.

What are the Google TOS for using there maps and there code. Because I know there are legal restrictions to what you can and can't do.

Next, what keeps slammers or bad users from just posting where ever on the map or flooding the map with posts and redirect sites.

Jill,
We'll be mashing up blogs every way possible. I guess I see the Google Mashup as an interesting interface that attracts bloggers. Then, we expand from there.

thestarwheel,
I think that in most cases it wouldn't be people's exact location. It would be the geocoordinates of the center of your zip code. I think we'll have the option to put a street, but even then I don't think we'd even want to accept street number. In some cases, I think we'll even have it just be the city center. We'll obviously work with making it as private as possible while still getting close to the local.

Merman,
Thanks as always for the kind comments.

Kevin_Cox,
Google TOS isn't an issue at all. The only issue we'll face is that if we get over a certain number of queries to the Google Map API, then we'll have to sign up for an enterprise level account. That level is really quite high and so it won't be a problem for a while. However, that's a problem that I'd love to have.
To prevent spammers/slammers and other evil people, each blogger would only have one dot per map for all of their blogs. If they want to have a list of spam blogs, then I think most people won't listen. Over time we could consider doing a rating system or pulling the blogs PR rank, etc and provide filters that help to filter out the spammers.

I love this idea. I am sort of into blogging and would love to be able to get mine out there more. That would help me to write alot more, if other actually were able to read them!

How does differ from say, internationally oriented sites and blogs?

Good Idea. I am new to blogging but totally addicted to it. I think this will work great considering you already have a pilot in place. Keep us posted on this one.

Voted, good idea, and good luck!

Sounds like a very good idea! Go for it! =D

cool!

get goin man!

I can see the relevance of geocoding a blog that contains content of related to a particular location but if there is not direct relationship between the blog content and the location of the blogger, I must admit I'm not seeing the relevance.

I think Outside.in is a great site because it meets the first criteria, searching for localised content.

Maybe I am missing the point altogether. Can you explain these relationships a little more? I am also a blogger but the content of my blog does not relate to where I live. Can this service still help me to promote my blog?

It's a good idea that can take off because of your reach to your existing blog community.

So what are you waiting for TG, you don't need any more Cambros... just build it:)

Hey John

Good stuff! I think there is a great market for this.

I like it.

Part of the intrigue of tieing a blog to their location isn't necessarily that I would want to find bloggers that are local. Sure, sometimes I might find it interesting to hear what a local blogger is saying. Possibly we could create connections and local blogger groups.

However, the bigger part about tieing blogs to locations is that I find it interesting to read blogs from all over the world. I personally love to see what a blogger in Italy says. Or I love to read bloggers from Hawaii or Texas, 2 places that I've lived previously.

One other idea is after something like Hurricane Katrina, wouldn't it be interesting to read bloggers that were from Louisiana or Mississippi. Just another example of why geocoding a blog is interesting.

are you planning on using that logo commercially?? enlist a graphical designer for it

Hi Tech

A great idea for sure. Are you familiar with Twingly? It is a screensaver which does exactly what you are talking about with worldwide geotagging, but the downside is that there are so many posts coming through that it is hard to do much but marvel at the visuals. If you can find a way to strike a keen balance between information overload and the ability to quickly find what we want, then you will really have a good concept rolling. I think it would be important to implement a filter system which would prioritize content based on your link following history or on your manual entry of subject tags that you want to see come up, so basically, it would be more filtered than just everything to be useful to me.

5 stars, buddy!

I agree with bliss. There are so many blogs in the world that it would be a challenge coming up with a was to manage and deliver information effectively. Challenges are good, though :)
4

hi TC,

how does this diff to current round
Mashup Browser
# Submitted by: GlobalCK...

"... would require a plug-in that integrates into browsers that allows drag down the specific site into a specific partition and zoom into the interested area..."

isnt anotating blogs by location something that well expose one self more than www intends to? (same as thetarwheel comment)

Nice one...just do it man!

We will definitely enlist a commercial graphic designer to do the logo. Any offers? The current logo is just a placeholder for sure.

Finding a way to filter will be important, I can see eventually implementing a stumbleupon type system that learns which type of blog posts you prefer to read. They sold for $75 million if you remember.

Saigon, I don't think this idea is anything like GlobalCKs idea. The only comparison is it uses maps. I don't think we're really exposing much more than bloggers expose on their blogs regularly anyway. I think that the majority of bloggers talk about where they live too. It's pretty hard to blog and not mention the city you live in. So, it doesn't really expose much more than they've exposed already. Plus, we will allow the user to expose as specific as they would like.

One other thought is an enterprise version of the site which we license to blogger communities that would like to use our geocoding, tagging and digg like mashup capabilities with just their community of bloggers.

got my vote.

You are so very talented and this idea is awesome. I hope you do get started on it because I think once in motion it will be a hit. God Bless.

Fantastic idea. I would love to see this implemented to allow me to get to know other 'cancer bloggers' in my area. (I've just started a cancer blog, not a sad and poor me one, more of a WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?? one--my body has betrayed me, and it gots a lot of 'splainin to do...) Being able to read other LOCAL cancer bloggers would give me a chance to access the resources THEY know about!

I like your idea. You would have to enable layers somehow, so that people could search by geography, interests, single/married, etc.

I have a map by MapLoco at the bottom of my page on Texas RV Travel blog (usaer.blogspot.com). I love how it looks and it does give me the location of people that have visited; but, no way to connect.

I would vote for a title like "Its a small world," "Act globally, interact locally," "Like minds in like places," etc. BlogMashing just doesn't do it for me.

BTW, outside.in is misspelled in your post, so it does not go through to the site.

Hi TG, voted for ya....great idea!

'''i like the concept but I think you need to revisit the name/logo to find a single word ...

Thanks for the support. I agree that the name and logo are not final. They are just placeholders for now. Any suggestions are appreciated.

I dunno, i have some feeling about this idea that there are currently better ideas in the current round that deserve tobe on top. Though this one is a nice Idea i feel this would not served much of the humanity than the other great ideas here.

3 stars for you Techguy.

PS. yeah Better change the name into shorter one.

Hey Hi Tech Guy = I want you to know I think this is an AWESOME and well needed product for the site. I support you 100% and hope others from the RHF site follow and do the same! thanks for your hard work and effort!

Not that I want to steal any thunder, but I thought about this idea a while back and would love to see it being implemented. I think it has tremendous opportunity, even around the world.

My input? Create a website where people can list their blogs, and categorize them based on the content, demographics*, locale and other criteria for organization. Have them add tags to shed light on the uniqueness of their blogs, and what exactly they talk about. Then promise them increased traffic.

After you generate the traffic for both you and the blogging partners, add a new feature that partners with online ad companies to deliver advertising to these blogs and get your cut.

As for the map, I don't believe its really necessary. It might be distracting, and I see it not being as useful as I think it can.

Ciao,
K'

as they say...Just do it !

there are other ideas that have the more needs to get the community approval, than this...

at any rate this is a nice one but t not as great as your other ideas i read.

Thus, i cant give you my 5 stars ;-)

-donna

Nah...

I can't vote to something that would shift my couch potato husband and kids to another way by burining my keyboard whole day for something like this.

diMa_doNna,
I'm glad you can see that this idea could be pretty easily executed and is simple to understand. I think those are some of the best ideas. Something that can be summed up in a few words. I'm not sure why you think because it is easily described that other ideas could use the funding more. I also don't personally look at this as a comparison of ideas, but a rating of the quality of ideas. You can support more than one idea if they are both great. That's what makes the community better</rant>

jingle,
Thanks for describing the fact that this idea could be viral and that people would spend a lot of time on the site. I agree completely.

Dearest One we really really need your help
please We are expecting your responds soon,

Dearest One
I know this mail may come to you as a surprise, since we have not known or written before. I am Frank Mark, 25 years old, I am contacting you on behalf of myself and my younger sister Christine, We are an orphans.

Nationality: Ivorians. Our late Father Mr Lawrence Mark was a successful business-man whom before his untimely death , was a Cocoa and Diamond Merchant based here in Abidjan, Cote d'lvoire.Both our Father and Mother were poisoned at a party organised by one of his business associates. Before he died in a private hospital here, my Father called me and told me that he deposited the sum of US$12.5m (Twelve Million Five Hundred Thousand American Dollars), in a bank here which he used my name as next of kin to deposit the funds as the only son.Due to the problem that have arised in our family between my late Father's brothers over who should control his wealth and subsquent death in the family, I have decided with my younger sister to transfer this funds overseas for future investment after we finish our education.

We want to leave here and come over to your country to live and continue our studies, because our lives is no longer safe here. We have heard from a reliable source that they are planing on how to retrieve all the documents concerning the funds from us, so that they can claim the funds.

Before contacting you, we have spoken with the local bank manager and worked out modalities on how to transfer the funds to your country.
Please, we humbly seek your assistance in the following ways:

1- To assist us in transferring this fund quietly into your account in your country.
2- To serve as the guardian of this funds since I am still in the university and my younger sister is still in the college.

3- To make arrangement for me and my younger sister to come over to your country to further our education and to help us secure a residential permit in your country. Moreover, we are willing to offer you any agreed (percentage) out of the total funds as compensation for your efforts/input after the successful transfer of this funds into your nominated account overseas, while some percentage will be set aside to offset any expenses we may incur.

4- Furthermore, you can indicate your option towards assisting us as I believe that this transaction would be concluded within the shortest possible time.
NB: Please, if you are interested to help us, contact me immediately after you read this proposal so that I may give you more detailed information how this transfer could be carried out.

However, I wish to hear from you to know your decision concerning this proposal.
please We are expecting your urgent responds.

Yours Sincerely,
Mr frank& christine
frank_mark_j14@hotmail.fr

A spam comment? lolz :D

Wow this is a very good idea that it can even invite such ***bots!

Techguy,

Congratulations you are way up there, ahead in all fronts (total, ave., number of votes)
.. am only ahead in comments hahaha! (my 1st 100+ )

Good work, am honored to play second fiddle =)

-saigon

sounds like a great idea to me. I think a way of organizing blogs would be a good thing.

Just a short update.

I'm moving forward with the development of the google mashup. I've begun discussions with a company that has 50,000 bloggers to see if they will do some sort of partnership and their initial reaction has been good. I've started looking into using Wordpress MU so I can host new blogs and use it's authentication system for those who have an existing blog. I also have been researching and I think I've found the technology I can use to create a google map widget for bloggers.

I'll be posting the following jobs in the bazaar if people are interested in helping me on this project:
-Google Map Mashup master (basically javascript skills)
-Wordpress MU ninja (basically PHP and mysql skills)
-Widget Princess (ruler of all things widgetry)

Let me know if you're interested in helping.

I'm not a blogger myself, but I can imagine the appeal of geotagging blogs. Even the ability to browse blogs by country would be useful - particularly to those of us privileged enough to live outside the US and who want to find something a little more local than the internet norm!

On the business side, it sounds like things are progressing well and that you have the experience and drive to get it done - good luck!

I'm new to the site and don't know a damn thing about blogs, bloggers and blog sites, but if you're a central point for bloggers, you could post daily, weekly, monthly topics that bloggers can choose to write about. Whatever is interesting in the world, US, their count, city, etc. You come up with specific topics/questions for people to write about. You could also post topics that your advertisers/local government may want to know more about. That could be used by them for market research, behavior analysis, etc.

I realize a lot of bloggers are going to write about current issues, but there may be ways where you can guide the blogger content to 1) get more participation, 2) assist the advertisors/government and 3) generate overall participation by having "assignments" for everyone.

Another trick to generate activity is to have regular staff bloggers and guest bloggers who post blogs designed to capture customers attention/tug at heart strings/rile them up/etc.

I may be off base with the premise of the business idea, but if not, hopefully these are ways to generate interest, advertising dollars and whatnot.

fritzlanham,
I think you're a little off on the idea, but the idea of creating a topic that many members of the community blog about is an interesting idea.

I could see there being a pretty cool charity arm for this website where we encourage the network of bloggers to all blog about some cause and generate some major traffic for that charity. Might be kind of interesting.

However, the core of the concept is to take the content from all of the various bloggers and mash it together in interesting ways.

Q1) TG i think i always wanted to ask you this! how different is this think from Hypersphere (rizal's idea) asking this bcos you have said "Bloggers are always looking for ways to promote their blog"

Q2) How do you intend to mash the blogs up? what will be your priority? how will you choose it? blogging is huge...humongous in terms of content and in terms of people and effort involved!

Techguy-
seems like the real value prop here is the geotagging stuff. I would say ditch the Wodpress MU and tagging aspects for now (if it makes sense to do them later, go for it). You want an easy javascript-based widget like a mybloglog or autoroll that an existing blogger can add and have it associate geographically-related blogs. I can see value in wanting to categorieze blogs w/ geo data. From an advertiser perspective obviously targeted ads are more valuable and from a blogger perspective, it's one more directory in which to be listed and one more source of new traffic so it's appealing. You need to stay focused on that unique value though as there are already plenty of sites that do the tag searching and the geo aspect isn't enough of a draw to compel people who don't yet have a blog to sign up for a new Wordpress MU instance just to get that feature. Good idea in general though. I would use it if it existed in this suggested form.

sean

TG have you come across http://www.popfly.com/Overview/ ????

Q1) TG i think i always wanted to ask you this! how different is this think from Hypersphere (rizal's idea) asking this bcos you have said "Bloggers are always looking for ways to promote their blog"

I'm not an expert on hypesphere, but I think the comparison ends at promoting a person's blog. Plus, hypesphere seems to be focused on just promoting the blogs with the biggest hype. I believe BlogMashing will help a lot of people get more traffic. In the longtail of blogs, 5-10 more visitors makes a big difference for a blogger. Hopefully we can do more than that, but luckily most longtail bloggers don't need massive results to use something like this.

From what I've read of Rizal's idea, he isn't using any sort of geographical mashup of blogs either. This is the real value add that we will use to attract bloggers and makes this idea quite unique. There are a ton of map widgets out there for blogs, but the ones I've seen all focus on visitors to your blog. Ours will do a number of things, but one example is basically taking what amounts to a bloggers blogroll and presents it in a very interesting and interactive way.

Q2) How do you intend to mash the blogs up? what will be your priority? how will you choose it?

Well, I don't want to give away all the secret sauce. In my last comment I suggested one idea on how blogs will be mashed up like a person might do on their blogroll. However, I think that's really only the beginning. My plan is to make it robust enough that the bloggers can decide which bloggers are displayed on this blog. One may want a list of hand selected blogs. Another might want blogs with a certain tag, another might want bloggers from Italy. The plan is to support all of the various choices.

One other point of interest is that our widget will have a link that lets blog readers add their blog to someone else's widget. Although, the blog owner will have ultimate control to filter out bloggers they don't want. This is a good viral way to get more people using BlogMashing.

"blogging is huge...humongous in terms of content and in terms of people and effort involved!"

Thanks for acknowledging that the market for this product is huge. I agree and I think that's what gives this idea such an incredible potential.

fossiloflife,
I have come across http://www.popfly.com/Overview/ . It's essentially a demonstration of what Windows Silverlight can do. I think it has some cool features. However, I don't think it's quite right for my idea. I think the Google Maps mashup will work much better. However, I'll have to keep an eye on it to see how it develops.

Sean,
"seems like the real value prop here is the geotagging stuff.I would say ditch the Wodpress MU and tagging aspects for now."

I agree that the value prop is the geotagging stuff. Wordpress MU is just a nice program that I know that can be used as an authentication system for existing bloggers or new bloggers. Offering the blogging platform is definitely secondary to the main goal of authenticating existing bloggers. However, it also is a bargaining chip that I can use with a network of bloggers that I'm apart of.

I think it is wise council to focus on the geotagging stuff.

"You want an easy javascript-based widget like a mybloglog or autoroll that an existing blogger can add and have it associate geographically-related blogs."

This is really the crux of the idea and is the basic goal. Everything else will focus around making this happen.

"You need to stay focused on that unique value though as there are already plenty of sites that do the tag searching and the geo aspect isn't enough of a draw to compel people who don't yet have a blog to sign up for a new Wordpress MU instance just to get that feature."

I don't know any platforms that do geotagging around the various tags. We definitely have to reach a critical mass before geotagging blogs with certain tags is interesting, but I think this could be one of the most interesting mashups. Imagine Techcrunch with a widget that has every blog that's tagged as Web 2.0. Could be pretty interesting.

I also don't think you understood my implementation of Wordpress MU. Without going too technical in the comment thread, Wordpress MU can just be used as a login for existing bloggers and doesn't have to create a new blog (see Wordpress.com and Akismet api keys as an example). I'm open to other suggestions for authentication systems if someone has a better idea. Wordpress MU just seems like an easy way for me to get it up and running quickly.

"I would use it if it existed in this suggested form."
Thanks for the support. I'll let you know when it's ready.

TG-
I see what you're saying now as far as using WP multi-user for auth only. So for instance I have a wordpress.com acct and use the Akismet plugin on my blog but i don't have to actually publish my posts via scrollinondubs.wordpress.com. That does seem like a sensible approach.

And I also think I understand the bigger picture here- geotagging is the hook but not the end-game for this service. It's really more accurately a blog categorization tool that let's the author specify meta data and make meaningful associations with other blogs with the goal of "cross-pollinating" and attracting new readers. Geographical proximity is an obvious interesting bit of meta data but others can be assigned via tagging. I get it now. Lemmeknow when there's a beta- this looks very interesting. I would say definitely give a hard look at this site for relevant lessons as it has a similar goal-> http://widget.criteo.com/

sean

okay cool TG! all the best!

congrats TG!

"The only issue we'll face is that if we get over a certain number of queries to the Google Map API" Humm, wasn't there there API for non-commercial use only.

"Google Maps, including local search results, maps, and photographic imagery, is made available for your personal, non-commercial use only." -Google

I'm not sure where you got that quote, but there are hundreds and thousands of sites that use the Google Map API for commercial use.

Last I checked they limited you to 50,000 api queries per day. However, once that point is reached, Google has an enterprise version that can be used. There is also some server side cacheing that can be done to lower the number of API calls. 50,000 api queries is quite a bit and if we go over it, I think that would be a really nice problem to have.

I do not see how this will be a commercially viable venture considering what I discovered in Section 1.1 of the Google Map API, Terms of Service:

"You may use the API to display map images in conjunction with other information You provide to end users. The API may be used only for services that are generally accessible to consumers without charge."

http://www.google.co...apis/maps/terms.html

On August 8th you mention the revenue model isn't just advertising but charging bloggers for a premium service.

How can you legally get around the roadblock in Google's Terms of Service that states "generally accessible to consumers without charge"?

Oh gregbd. You are misunderstanding the idea. All of the map items will be publicly available. So, the API terms of services won't be a problem at all.

The premium services that I mention won't be around the maps itself. Essentially see it as a model where the maps get customers and then the premium services we offer are something related to blogging, but not necessarily the maps.

I should also point out that it is only the free API service that uses those Terms of Service. If I found a premium service that would do well, then I could sign up for the enterprise version of the API which allows you to have it private, larger number of api queries, etc.

Also, I wouldn't say that the premium services would be our number one source of income. It's just one possibility. Other possibilities include referral payments from Google (there's like 10 referral products now), referrals to other advertising agencies. Integrating Google Adsense and its API into the blogs we host is another option. Integrating ads into the widgets, etc etc etc.

My Video Question for TechGuy

http://www.youtube.c.../watch?v=eWCyN9zKPUc

I know this is intended to be heated war, but I really think Blogmashing.com is a great idea. If you look at http://oggtours.com, you will see that it is nothing more than a collective audio blog with very localized geographical content -- down to the square meter in some cases.

Some of these regional audio blogs (or podcasts if you prefer) are available in a Google Maps mashup we have put together:

http://oggtours.com/map

We will eventually expand our mashup to include almost 600 more podcast tours as well as blog postings related to specific points of interest across the globe. But it is not easy to gather information on regional blogs.
I have used http://local.blogdigger.com which searches for blogs by topic and region. But it is not a map mashup and I have often wished it was. So, I eagerly await the advent of Blogmashing.com ;)

Best of luck with your venture techguy!

In response to GregBD's video questions (I'm sure I missed some):
What is the featureset on blogmashing.com?
The initial feature set is as follows:
-Geographical Mashup of Blogs (according to tag, location or friends filters)
-Blog Widget(sidebar) for each of the various geographical mashups
Those are the 2 main features to attract bloggers. Of course, I'll have a number of request your blogger friends, a blog, and things like that also.

Who is your market?
As of April 2007:
-Over 70 million blogs
-120,000 new blogs created every day
-About 1.4 blogs created every second of every day
-1.5 million postings per day
-About 17 posts per second
Source: http://www.sifry.com...archives/000493.html

What are their needs?
My personal take after interacting with hundreds of bloggers is that most want the following things:
1. People who read their blog - They'll do all sorts of things to get people to read their blog.
2. Interact with other bloggers - most bloggers also read other blogs and want to find other blogs.

I've also seen how people react when they are both blogging from the same city. I know I love visiting the blog of this lady that I've never met, but lives about 4 blocks from me. I think in November I'll probably finally meet her.

Jay,
I'm glad that you like my idea. The results of this weeks competition should be interesting. What an interesting concept that your idea is just an audio blog that's regionalized.

I hope that things go well for both of ideas and that we could create an interesting partnership offering the BlogMashing content on your site. Could be a cool way to find a local or understand some of the local culture when traveling.

CH staff ask questions!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=fKP8OAeWyPo

Hey I'll post these in text form shortly, but no need to wait on that if you want to respond now. Yes, I'm posting an identical YouTube link under both ideas. One video covers each matchup!

techguy,

Q -TechGuy, you and Sean/ScrollinOnDubs have been talking about how a
javascript based widget will be key to adoption of BlogMashing.com, as
it will offer up lists of near by bloggers for readers to investigate
when already reading a geographically tagged blog. How do you protect
against spammers using such tools to promote their own spammy blogs?

Q - MJ says this is a vitamin. But geographical data is just stumble upon with
one aspect filtered. Why wouldn't stumble upon add geotagging one day between lunch and dinner. They'll see your idea and BAM! Replicated then you're so screwed.

Response to Q1 by Gord:
Controlling spam will definitely be a challenge. However, one of the keys will being able to allow the community to filter out blogs that they consider spam. A blog that is added and has no blogger friends is a good candidate as a splog. I'm sure that over time we'll find sophisticated ways to control spam blogs. In fact, one of the easiest ways could be to integrate a Report Spam button on the widget that let's readers of peoples blogs inform us of splogs.

Hmm...that information sounds like something Google or other search engines would pay for. User generated information about which blogs are splogs. Sounds pretty valuable to me.

Response to Q2 by Blue (I'm not sure why Gord said MJ in the text, but maybe Blue stole the idea from MJ):
Saying that BlogMashing is like StumbleUpon is not really a fair comparison and even if it is I don't believe they will see geotagging of interest in their business model.

Furthermore, StumbleUpon receives the interests of many people, but doesn't have knowledge of who owns the content usually. Therefore, StumbleUpon could only geocode the people who liked the content and not the people who created various content.

I believe that one aspect of BlogMashing could compete directly with StumbleUpon, but I believe that some of the other aspects of blog widgets, blogger friends, localized bloggers and localized content is very different than anything that would interest StumbleUpon.

I'm actually beginning talks with my brother who is in a computer science doctoral program to see if I could possibly get a doctoral student or two to do their doctoral research on some of the more difficult parts of BlogMashing like controlling spam and algorithms for determining our users preferences.

"I'm not sure where you got that quote"
I got this quote "Google Maps, including local search results, maps, and photographic imagery, is made available for your personal, non-commercial use only." From Google, it is listed on the the very first page of Google Maps and quietly clearly stated in there TOS.

Kevin_Cox,
Well, like I said, there is an enterprise version of Google Maps also. So the TOS won't be a problem.

The TOS should not be a problem at all unless access to your mashup is restricted to paying users. Thousands of commercial ventures are currently using Google Maps without violating the TOS.

I came, I read, I voted :-)

"Well, like I said, there is an enterprise version of Google Maps also. So the TOS won't be a problem."
Well, from what Google says:
"Pricing for Google Maps for Enterprise is based on the number of page views and geocode requests handled by the Google Maps for Enterprise API and starts at $10,000 per year."
Is it just me or is $10,000+ a year going to cost more then the amount of money you are taking in!

Kevin_Cox,
This won't be a problem. If we can't produce more than $10k per year in revenue then we shouldn't even start down the path. I honestly don't see this as a major impetus. Plus, if you look at the example of something like MyBlogLog, then you'll see that there's also great value in number of eyeballs and $10k will be a small amount to pay for that number of eyeballs.

I just wanted to let everyone know that a prototype of a blog widget is ready for people to try out. I posted it to my family blog. Essentially this is an example of what a blogger might include in a post on their blog, integrate it with their sidebar, etc. Tonight I hope to have time to integrate one into the sidebar of one of my other blogs. Take a look and let me know what you think.

http://www.crashutah...a-few-friends-blogs/

Hey TechGuy

This is not your idea but its something similar and interesting: http://www.newseum.o...aysfrontpages/flash/

I hope that gives you some ideas.

Good luck.

Check this out:
http://www.blogrush.com/

sorry that last post was nothing like your idea but I think its interesting and perhaps something to think of.

Thanks GL. That first link was a nice interface into many locations. I'll have to consider it if things roll together nicely for having community feeds that are relevant local news.

The second one I've actually seen. It has some interesting concepts, but I believe that this map will be more compelling and encourage more click throughs. People that see the BlogRush items will generally know that they are ads and not want to click on them. The map angle makes it more enticing for people to look at and browse through since it looks like the blogger made some extra effort to do all the locations. Even if Blog Mashing is really doing all the work for the blogger.

TG, you always present a good case and it is a good idea but thinking about this some more in detail, i think it needs a little more "sauce" to really appeal to consumers to find it interesting. After all, if the readers of the blogs don't find it useful then the advertising and marketing benefits go out the window.

From the blog readers perspective, a search based on a content tag and geotag can be novel but the density of flags on a map would probably be overwhelming when you have a large bloggers database. Imagine searching for "Politics" in 'Washington DC' and the number of flags covering the map... you probably wouldn't see the map for 'red'. Tags are useful but we know how easily they get abused and how frustrating it is to search on a tag only to find hordes of unrelated entries being displayed.

However, what would be useful to me with my readers hat on would be to able to do a 'deep content search' where only specific articles were presented to me as results and then the map would be cleaner and more pertinent in the result set.

My comment perhaps moves away from your primary focus on the bloggers themselves but i do feel you have to create a more 'of use' benefit for the blog readers that see the widget because they will be the ones that really drive the success or do you only see your target as the Bloggers themselves, a closed ring of interested parties who find it useful to see other bloggers nearby?

I understand all the bloggers benefits and the targeted advertising opportunity but i do think there needs to be more "user sauce" in here to make it fly.

Checked out your site. I am starting to like what I see. Good stuff!