There are, I think, too many things that call themselves “networks” and really, they’re just hosting services. This isn’t to diss what they do, but I do want to ask how TTBN will differentiate itself from sites like BootsNAll, GoNomad, [fill in the blank] - there are so many.

Finally, I’m leary of “love and traffic” claims. Promises of “readership” are rife thoughout blogland, easy to make and hard to deliver upon.

More thoughts post coffee. And please don’t mistake my questions and comments for criticism - they’re all wrapped in wishes for your success.

Thanks so much for your response so far. You have excellent points. I look forward to what else you have to say.

I bought trustedtravelblogs.com, so it might be worth taking out the “Network” part and replacing it with something else?

Good points. I’ll consider them all.

Thanks.

Take care,
Timen

2. Standards: All the blogs that I subscribe to have one thing in common, no matter what they write about, they do it in a classy way. ie: they make everyone feel welcome, and they don’t turn me off with offensive language or extreme left or right wing politics. It’s about travel, and while that includes intelligent discussion about the environment and resources, it’s not a time for bashing any of the views (you won’t change anyone’s mind by yelling at them).
Everyone may not agree with me, but I wanted to put my subscription criteria out there as possibilities for the network.

3. Your site: I’m looking forward to seeing your new design, although I hope you keep the clean look of this one. Some blogs are too busy, and it’s hard to find what you are looking for.

4. Vietnam: What a great opportunity to go back to a place you love, and think of the material you’ll get for writing! One of my favorite books was written by a tour guide in Italy, his stories about the places he visits and the people he meets are fascinating (and pretty funny, too)

I reread your comment and think that I can at least answer one of the questions you bring up.

I do not intend this network to be a hosting service. No. Way. The network is solely a response to the article I read in National Geographic Traveller which criticized the reliability of travel blogs. This project has the intention of being a network of established travel blogs (i.e. they currently exist) and the seal, indeed, would show affiliation to the network (but there is no larger thing going on here). I want to make a community of individuals who are recognized as being a valuable resource for travelers. I also want to make it a fun thing–something that people like. Not so much a say-all “authority.” I wouldn’t dare that.

As far as I can tell, there’s nothing really like this so far. Yes, BNA and GN are all calling themselves networks but, like you said, these are simply hosting solutions. TTBN isn’t hosting anything except a little hub of links (to start–with features added later). I see it as 9rules for traveling.

The front page of this network will begin with just a good explanation of what the network is and a list of links to members of the network (along with a quick-link to their rss feed). In the future I hope to add the RSS update functionality. First thing’s first.

I hope this clarifies things. I need to make sure that there is no confusion in my short explanations that will show-up on the network’s front page.

Take care,
Timen

ps: There will also be no hugely prominent connection between this blog and the TTBN. in my All Stars will just be the blog of the guy who admins the network.

I do love the idea though of a place to find more trusted travel writing or even just plain good travel writing. I recently wrote a post on my Puerto Vallarta travel blog about how difficult it was to find good blogs and travel stories on a particular destination–simply because there was so much crap out there.

Google is not doing a good job of separating the wheat from the chaff. As such a facility I’d love to see on this site is a meta-search which searches all the blogs in the network for content as so brings back just quality content (or at least content from blogs the network deems to be of good quality).

Rules of membership? I’d like a blog network that I could trust to be consistently interesting, entertaining, and engaging. None of these blogs that pump out endless vapidity — content for the sake of content.

For me, a network should be about attracting the highest quality. Bloggers should be good writers, have interesting ideas, not post exclusively on the same things everyone else is posting (unless they have a very engaging take).

If you’ve got all of the above, I think that all the other things I also care about — such as not accepting freebies — would follow.