let's do it.

I'd be down, but I don't know that you can fully call my blog a hip-hop blog. It does , er , have a hip-hop perspective.

Nice. I'm glad to see you both on board.

I think a diverse range of topics and opinions would strengthen the network. It will help us appeal to the broadest range of people, while keeping the focus on hip hop and things related to hip hop. A culture has many facets, right?

This is definitely a cutting edge project. Here are two sites I found that are doing something similar. If people know of other relevant sites... definitely post them.

baseballblogs.org
sportsblogs.org

Let's keep the role call going. Spread the word.

Also, if people could say what backend system they are using. Should we all attempt to use the same code? Or is that too much work? The reason I ask is because I really hope we can all use a category system? There may be some logistical hurdles. I'm not sure though.

I'm in.

Still in beta mind, but now would be as good a time as any.

(excuse the state of our 'home' will we tidy 'ish' up for the opening).

Thanks for giving us the oppo to join the fray.

Esache #

I'm down but see Lynne's comments for my feelings as well.

In a wholly unrelated note - are people making their top 10 lists for hip-hop/music in 2003 yet?

Jason, Lynne,

If either of you fancy writing a few posts for rap-planet.com, whenever it takes your fancy, I'm more than happy to give y'all authors rights! (full linkage to your personal blogs assured of course ;-p)

Esache

In response to questions about subject matter, I think all of us want the freedom to cover a wide range of topics (whether it be music, movies, politics, etc). That said, I think we can all agree that the only prohibition would be against spamming.

If people have questions or concerns... just let us know if you are interested and then we can discuss our options. This is an open project, with no fixed goal other than coming up with a name and a site that we all share.

I posted a message about this on Jay Smooth's site as well. As a relatively new member of the "hip hop" blogging community I am down as well though I second Lynne and Jason's comments. I have a hip hop state of mind in terms of my perspective but talk about any music I hear that I like or any other pop culture or political/social issues that strikes my interest.

I'm using the no-budget blogger/blogspot platform which I think is fairly limited as to what you can do with it esp. if you have next-to-no programming skills like me.

I'm working on my favorites lists and hope to have them up on my site by the last week or two before the end of the year.

1. There will be NO restrictions on content.

2. I am happy to help with tech issues and provide FREE hosting to those in the network.

oh yeah... glad to see you on board ian! thanks for being part of this.

I've been thinking about Jason's top 10 comment, and thought that perhaps a good way to spread the word of our 'new hiphop blogging community' would be for us all contribute to a [Hip Hop bloggers/community] '...of the year!' awards.

Haven't quite thought about the logistics, but it would be a good way of announcing to the world that we are here, and great for promoting discussion if nothing else.

I'm down.

following the leader

except that, hha is sort of in limbo right now. having some rendering problems with moveable type and i'm not sure how to fix it, plus i don't have the time to learn how to fix it. *sad*

remember to check out that hip-hop blogs post to invite everyone on that list.

follow the leader indeed. If Jason, Lynne, Ian, Jay, and Jon are in how can I say no. I have a site that can do this. I'll send the url to Eric tonight.

It's great to see everyone working together on this. I got in touch with Jeff Chang and I'm pretty sure he is on board too. And hopefully we will be able to pick up a few more and maybe even encourage some new bloggers to start blogging, once we get everything up and running.

Also, I know there are some stragglers out there. And I want to make sure EVERYONE knows that this is an open invitation. The only requirement is that you have an understanding of hip hop and want to be read by people who are mostly down with hip hop. There will be so much hip hop content, that non-hiphop topics will give our network some much-needed variety.

As far as top 10 lists, I'm not sure how soon we can have the central site up and running. But if we post them on our individual sites, we could transfer them later. This is the sort of thing we can discuss after we pick a name and set up the site.

Let's start nominating names. Names, names, names. Nominate as many as you like. Then we can vote.

Jon... your mailbox is full. Send me an email when you clear it out.

Sorry, I am confused (it happens a lot ;-p).

Are you saying that you would like to run a centralised Hip Hop blog 'portal' ? Somewhere where people would run their blogs from directly?

Or are you thinking about a central 'repository' of RSS feeds etc, so we would all syndicate our feeds to there?

The reason I ask is that I have access to a prominent hiphop domain and wondered if (I could twist my partners arm) whether this would be a 'good' [ :D ] URL to collate and disseminate our wares?

As for the top 10's. I reckon just publish individual lists, discuss on each others' sites and then collate the results as a group. Then perhaps we can all run a post discussing each others results and the 'overall' winners...?

(just thinking out aloud).

Y'know I sent out an invite for a lot of ya'll to participate in a top emcees by category thing. Click on my name to go straight there. That can be a great kick off for this project.

Also, I have the site "hiphop.blogs.com"

My thought was to have a site similiar to blogcritics.org where we can post or repost our hip-hop thoughts. Also, we can have a directory of hip-hop blogs and rss feeds. It's simple.

Let's keep this convo going. Email me if you want to talk more: madisonforpresident :at: yahoo.com

Easche... let's figure out all our options and then open it up to discussion amongst our compadres.

Madison... Send me the password to the hiphop.blogs.com site. You hit the nail on the head with the set-up. That is exactly what I'm talking about: total flexibility. People can do feeds, post manually, whatever.

If you can think of it... we can code it.

Because the second half of December will be busy for most of us, let's make our goal to get the site up by the middle of January at the earliest. I want to make sure everyone is ready for the launch. Because we all have our own sites/jobs/lives, there should be no sense of rushing. Our new portal/network is all gravy.

Just lemme know what you want me to do, and I'll be on it!

I'm looking forward to this!

Don't know if I can hang with the royalty of hip hop blogging, but I would be interested in being involved (ps - don't read my most recent post, it's about the most un-hip hop thing I have ever posted).

David... glad to have you on board. Join our royal family!

My site ain't exclusively hip-hop but it certainly has an urban penchant. So hit me up and let me know bout your sites.

Martin... I checked out your site. Good stuff. Thanks for getting in touch. Welcome to the family.

So when do we start this?

oh yeah Esache put an RSS or XML newsfeed on rap planet. You'll be glad you did.

I set up a forum to discuss the network. Visit the page below and click on "Forum".

www.stinkzone.com

You can also click on my name below to go to the forum, or refer to the link at the top of this page.

This topic is now closed.