Extreme Wineblogger Makeover

logo_winebloggercilIt’s finally done! Well, not completely, as this is a never-ending project, but at least we’ve created a solid foundation. Over the past month, we have given Wineblogger an extreme makeover, providing it with a cleaner design, a better layout and more functionality. With 500+/- links to wine blogs and growing, lumped together as one, there was no way to differentiate blogs by either type or language. Now you can!

All blogs submitted to wineblogger.info have been placed into a category based on language, and in some cases, type. However, as this project is by the wine blogger and for the wine blogger, we need your help!

We’ve collated wine blogs from Vinography, Wineblogger, Alawine and Google searches. That said we put into effect a rule that they had to have been updated in 2008. In 2009 we’ll begin to remove even more if there are no new updates. However, we’ve also run across several other issues:

  1. Blogs Not Listed: If you’re blog is not listed, or is listed in an incorrect category, please contact us. We don’t mean to exclude anyone, but as you can tell this is a large process. Also with so many blogs you might just miss where your located. That said there are some reasons that you are not listed, most of which can be corrected, continue to reading to learn more.
  2. Blogs Lacking Recent Content: As many blogs listed have not been updated in a coon’s age, if they would like to be added to the list, they may do so by updating their content. Our cut off to add at this point was 1yr since the last update. Going forward though any requests to be added to wineblogger.info must be from sites with updates within the last month.
  3. Blogs Written in other Alphabets: If your blog is written in Chinese, Japanese, Norwegian, Hindi, etc, we are having difficulty knowing if it is authentically a wine blog, when it was created or updated, and how to find the RSS. Any help in this matter would be very much appreciated. We know there are lot’s of Japanese wine blogs, we just don’t know how to find them or how to read them. If someone wants to help, let us know.
  4. Blogs With Poorly Formatted RSS or Using Non-Default Blogging Software – For those sites that are not using Typepad, Wordpress, tumblr, vox, blogger or other standard blogging software, or that have poorly created RSS feeds, we cannot place you on the Wineblogger site until this is corrected. For help, please check out these articles on Default Blogging Software and RSS feeds.
  5. Hierarchy of Blogs - For now, none of the blogs are placed in any semblence of order, other than by category, and even categories need a lot of work. Therefore, we ask for your patience and help in making sure that these categories are accurate and helpful. Hierarchy will come later.

Other ways you ca support the project:

  1. Newsletter: If you are a wineblogger, we ask that you sign up for the newsletter so that we may obtain pertinent and relevant information to you.
  2. Wineblogger Badge: If you like the project, please consider putting a wineblogger badge on your site.
  3. Photos: Add your photos to the Flickr Wineblogger Pool.
  4. Sponsor! Show that you value wine blogs and buy a square on our site to help support us. You can buy a square in any location and in any language. Just send us a note.
  5. Collaborate: Finally, if you want to collaborate with us, either as a sponsor or as a wine lover, please submit a proposal to us. As we are doing this from our own piggy bank, and on our own time, we could use all the help we can get!

We look forward to all of your thoughts!

Cheers,

Your Fellow Winebloggers

PS: We’re working on adding a ton of Wine Podcasts whose RSS feeds are not always the most obivious, bear with us please!

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