Blogging with Xanga

The Xanga blogs seem to be mostly oriented towards the teen and young adults. A lot of personal drama seems to be the main theme for many of them. There are other topics as well though, but a lot of them seem to be geared towards people they know, rather than the general public. Regardless, I promised not to discriminate here based upon content, so I went ahead and added them to this blog.

My intent here was to list all local blogs. To me, the term "local" includes anyone who resides in Allen County, or who's blog content is mostly focused upon this area. Xanga views "local" differently than I do though. They have a list of 28 metropolitan areas throughout the state of Indiana to choose from. Therefore, some of the blogs that are defined by Xanga as local to Fort Wayne are beyond the boundaries of Allen County.


Xanga has their own list of URL feeds. And unlike Blogger, theirs is sorted according to most recent activity. Therefore, I decided to remove the Xanga blogs from my own URL list and just add the link to their URL list. I think the problem I'm having with getting My URL list to function properly may e because 500 blogs is overloading it. Maybe this change will help take off some of the pressure.

Link to Xanga

A Blog of Blogs

Did you know that there have been several thousand local (Fort Wayne/Allen County) blogs created, with at least one dating as far back as 2001? Granted, many of these blogs are now defunct, but over five hundred blogs have added a post just since the beginning of this year. I have added a list of these blogs here with a URL feed to update them as new posts are added.

The topics these blogs cover are as varied as the people who live here, and many are difficult to categorize. I would say some of the most popular subjects appear to be family, food, politics and religion. Many of these blogs cover subjects of a quite personal nature, and I really wonder if the authors realize that they are accessible to the entire world.

As I peruse these blogs I notice that many had some interesting ideas to start with, but failed to follow through for some reason. There appears to be quite a bit of duplication in some areas, and it makes me wonder if bloggers who did not have the time to regularly post might have done better if they shared their blog with someone who held similar interests.

Eventually, I would like to categorize these blogs to make this list more user friendly. But that appears to be quite a daunting task. So for now, I'll simply turn this list over to the general public to consume. Perhaps by seeing what is currently here in our local blogosphere (as well as what is missing) someone might get a brilliant idea for the next great blog.

There are a few blogs that I am currently having a problem in getting listed on my URL feed:
http://www.myspace.com/s8er_nsh_2010
http://www.sbscpagroup.com/blog/
http://www.carboblog.com/site/Blog/tabid/54/Default.aspx
http://x-wire.blogspot.com/
http://fortwaynepolitics.com/

Currently I am only listing blogs which have posted since January 1, 2009. I am watching the older ones though as people frequently come out of long periods of hibernation to post again. If you know of any other local blogs that are missing from my list, please comment here or send me an e-mail at marxpd01@ipfw.edu

Enjoy the list, and try not to read them all in one setting!