When wrote about 7 lessons learned last year, I talked about (lesson #1) how blogs are becoming more influential in daily life. Here is what I wrote in that post:

“Information is more interesting and powerful when it comes from genuine and disintegrated sources rather than media powerhouses: Yes, I'm talking about blogging. We have seen instances of this concept a couple of times in the year 2004 both about Iraq War and the Tsunami Relief.”

I still feel very passionate about this. As a person who spends a lot of time reading blogs, I always wanted two things:
      a. Ability to search blogs based on a location
      b. Ability to “peek” at blog without navigating to them

When I think about these requirements, the BlogMap project that I started last year is exactly what it is – but it needed a total makeover. Finally, I could spend some time to rev this up to release BlogMap, Version 2.0.

Here are some release notes:

1. Redesigned the UI and backend significantly to improve performance.
2. In the spirit my lessons learned from last year, I have used a lot of Javascript, at least in two scenarios:
   a. To show “Blog Summary” balloons when you hover over the  icon
  b. To show “Blog Peek” to display top (most recent)  blog entry from the feed when you click on the “Blog Peek” () button
3. Added new BlogMap (querystring) API – for now it only supports “BlogMap” method, but I have several ideas to add more features; stay tuned.
4. Added “My BlogMap” feature – now you can display your location using a stamp-sized MlogMap on your blog!
5. Implemented a search feature to do a proximity search for blogs around a given location.
6. A better browsing feature to browse blogs by country.
7. Finally, ported most of the existing (registered) blogs from my old BlogMap application (81 out of 97); left out some broken feeds. If I have missed your feed, my apologies!

So, try it out the new BlogMap here: http://www.csthota.com/blogmap/ and let me know what you think!

I need two things from you:
1. Feedback – send your comments, suggestions, bug reports to me; I want all of them!
2. Spread the word – Blog about BlogMap! I want more people to try it out, so that we can find blogs by location!

You can always contact me here and here.

Cheers!