I'd like to announce a new experiment for Photoblogs.org. We've set up a place to chat:

chat.photoblogs.org

For those of you who are familiar with IRC, you can also access this via Freenode channel #photoblogs.org.

I'd like to thank Jules and Arnaud for hosting the IRC web client at chat.photoblogs.org. They were able to very quickly get it up and running. It will be interesting to see where this leads!

I've moved this blog off of TypePad. It's now hosted on my server using WordPress. I'll post more about the switchover (and the future of this blog) once I'm done testing things.

In the meantime, let me know if your RSS is still working, etc. I've tried to set it up so that you won't have to change any settings in your feed readers.

Also, if you get a chance, post a comment to test things out.

A few people have mentioned that this blog has been acting a little strange over the past few days.  TypePad (the company that hosts this blog) did a big upgrade over the weekend, and according to their tech support that has been causing some issues.

I've been watching the Six Apart Status Weblog for details.  And I've already republished this blog a few times...  That actually fixed a couple of the problems, but not all of them.  At this point I guess we just wait and see.  If anyone has any suggestions on how to get the "remember personal info" option in the comments to work again, let me know.

In response to Cameron's recent post about the end of the Photoblog Ring, I've created the Photoblog Randomizer.  It's a very simple way to randomly browse photoblogs.

I've been browsing around with it for about an hour now and almost every site has been one that I've never visited before.

One thing about random browsing, though, is that you'll find several sites that are not photoblogs.  When you come across a site that isn't a photoblog, it would really be helpful if you could mark it for removal.  That way our database will become cleaner.

Anyhow, I've got mixed emotions about this new feature, but nonetheless it's an interesting way to browse the Photoblogs.org database.  You'll definitely find something new... even though it may not be something you like.

If you have any suggestions, thoughts, or questions, feel free to add them to the comments below.

It's been several days, but now the wikis are on the newer, faster, more-better server... so they should be pretty quick and responsive and happy.

• wiki.photoblogs.org
• Camerapedia.org

Let me know if anything isn't working the way it should and I'll debug posthaste.

The 2005 Bloggies were recently announced, and some of us noted that there was only a single category for photoblogs.  All of the photoblogs that got nominated are great, but with only five nominees, the Bloggies don't begin to scratch the surface of what's going on in the photoblogging community.  Brandon and I (I'm the Jake from Bluejake.com) were talking about it, and we decided that now was the right time to resurrect the Photobloggies.  We approached Rannie, who ran the awards in 2003.  We talked about it as a group, and we got to thinking that the best way to do it was to leverage the power of Photoblogs.org and the active user base we have on the site.  To that end, we've created Photobloggies.org, and we'll soon launch a full awards site there. We'll conduct the awards sometime soon, and then hopefully make it an annual thing.

Before we get into all the details, including the exact schedule and rules, we thought it would be a good idea to generate some ideas about possible categories.  We'll probably have the usual geographic and subject ones (Best Latin American Photoblog, Best Portrait Photoblog, etc.), but we have a feeling there are some better categories out there.

What categories would you like to see in the 2005 Photobloggies?

I just finalized the switch to the new server.  We should be back in business now!

Some of you may still see the 503 Error page as we wait for the DNS to propagate fully.  (This should correct itself within a day or so.)

Let me know if you see anything odd with the site.  Switching servers tends to cause unexpected quirks here and there.

Thanks again for all your support during these growing pains.  With this new server Photoblogs.org should have plenty of room to develop and grow.  I can't wait to see what the future will bring!

Thank you all for the unbelievable support!  I had no idea the Photoblogs.org Fund Drive would be completed so quickly.  You are amazing.

I'm looking forward to moving Photoblogs.org to the new server as soon as possible.  In the meantime, the site is still at it's old location and service will continue to be sporadic.  (This means that nasty 503 error will continue to happen.)

I had hoped to make the server move this weekend, but now I'm getting offers from hosting companies to help us out even further... so I've got more decisions to make.

Also, I've gotten several emails from people who would like to continue to donate even though the fund drive is over.  I'm thrilled with this, but we've met our goal.  If you'd like to continue to give, I'm sure any one of these places would appreciate more help.

Edit: added link at the beginning of this post to the fund drive page.

Well, here it is: The Photoblogs.org Fund Drive.

Spread the word.

Let me know what you think.

(more...)

I've made a couple of changes to the Photoblogs.org profile pages...

Many of the favorites lists were getting quite long, so I've moved them off of the profiles and onto their own separate pages.  For example, David's profile is much shorter now.  There used to be a list of over 1,000 favorites on that page, but now you can see them by following the new link in his profile that says "X members consider this a favorite".  Of course, this change also applies to everyone else's profiles, as well.

You'll also notice that I've added Google text ads at the bottom of each profile.  Hopefully these will be unobtrusive and relevant to the content of the pages.  I've been very hesitant about advertising on Photoblogs.org, but now it's time to consider the increasing costs involved in maintaining this site.

Photoblogs.org just continues to grow at a steady pace, so I'm doing what I can to keep it chugging along.

If you have any thoughts or questions, feel free to add comments below.