Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Ideas, Plans, Brainstorms

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I launched the site yesterday, and your enthusiastic response has been overwhelming. I just wanted to give you an idea of some directions I'd like to go with BostonFoodBloggers.com. (Thanks everyone who sent in suggestions! They have all been wonderful, and I look forward to incorporating as many of them as possible. This site is for us, not for me, and my goal is to build it into something that is useful to our entire community, so your suggestions are essential.)

Categories - Right now, The List is just a big mess, organized only by the alphabet. A very short-term goal is to keep the master list but also add on category lists, such as Baking, Wine, Gluten-Free, etc. If you have not yet filled out this form, please do so if you have a spare moment (even if you're already listed); it'll help me categorize the existing list much faster.

Meet-Ups - While many of us have met at a variety of food events around Boston, I think it'd be great to have more dedicated blogger events for networking, fun, and learning. I have some themes in mind and I hope to start planning an initial meet-up shortly, but I'd absolutely love some organizing help. Contact me if you're into the meet-up thing and we can work together to plan some awesome events.

Logo/Merch - I think we need a snazzy logo, one that we could wear with pride on shirts and mugs and stuff like that. I'll do some work on this, but I'm not a graphic designer, so I can't promise anything spectacular. If any of you would like to try your hand at it, please contact me. If we get multiple logo ideas, we can open it up to a vote.

Guest Posts - Many of you have already expressed an interest in writing posts, and I'd love to hear from more of you. Photography tips, blogger ethics, cooking hints, you name it - anything related to blogging.  I'll soon send out an email with more details to those who have expressed interest.

Facebook/Twitter - I'll set up accounts very soon. The Facebook page exists already but is pretty much empty; I'll add to it soon :)  For now, you can follow my personal Twitter for updates if you'd like.

Photos of the Week/Recipes of the Week - Unless I can think of a more democratic way to run these, I might take these on as my little pet editorial projects. I'll write a post one day a week highlighting some of your amazing photos and another post a different day highlighting some of your amazing recipes (with links to the corresponding blog posts, of course!).

Flickr Group - Several of you have suggested a Boston Food Bloggers Flickr group. I love that idea - and it'll make it easier to spot Photos of the Week :) - so I'll implement it soon, probably later this week.

Events - My food events calendar is a bit out of date; I plan on scouring the newsletters piling up in my inbox later this week. That said, I'd love it if you send me information about your own events, particularly those of you who teach cooking classes, and I'll make sure it all gets on the calendar. I'm also going to embed a separate calendar for blogger events to make it easier to keep track of meet-ups, blogger brunches, and such. If you're organizing an event open to the general food blogging community, contact me and I'll put it on the calendar.

Widget - Once we have a neat logo, I'll look into making a widget that you can place on your site if you want to spread the word about BostonFoodBloggers.com. This'll be a no-obligation widget; just use it if you want it and ignore it if you don't!

Well, I've got a few long-term ideas brewing as well, but this pretty much covers my goals for the site for the next few weeks. I look forward to hearing more of your suggestions, and please spread the word to any of your local blogger friends that are not yet on the list!

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