Western Mass Drupal Web Sites
I'm starting work on a new not-for-profit Drupal site on the side called WesternMassBuyLocal.org. There are a few "buy local" sites out there already, but I have some new ideas that I would like to try with this one. (Update: just created a national site on the same subject called http://www.buylocal.net/ -- live, but still in development. Also building related site http://www.pioneervalley.org/ in Drupal.)
I see a lot of box stores moving into the area, and local businesses that have been around for 20 years are closing down. When people type in things like "[product] store amherst" into Google, I want them to come up with information about local businesses and to not end up at one of the "box stores". We also have a lot of CSA here and it would be good if more people learned about how they can buy locally-grown produce direct from the farms.
Another project that I would like to start on in the next few months is a multi-blog Drupal site about the 2008 presidential election (USA). The idea is that the voices of a large number of regional (national?) bloggers would be able to get higher search engine rankings and a louder voice than if they were just blogging independently. A multi-blog project would get more coverage than a single blog.
Just some ideas that I am working on. I have the domain names ready, but haven't installed Drupal on them yet...
Ical feed
Western Mass Buy Local
I'm going to be working out the taxonomy for WesternMassBuyLocal.org this weekend.
I'm trying to figure out a way that people could navigate to the nodes of individual business either by region (maybe by county) and also by product. I picture a navigation structure something like the categories of an online store, but instead of products, it would list local businesses.
Web site visitor from Amherst gets to the web site thinking, "I am looking for a shoe store nearby". They could either click on Hampshire County —> Amherst, then Clothing —> Footwear...
...or they could navigate starting at Clothing —> Footwear, and then choose Hampshire County —> Amherst.
Maybe it would be best to organize taxonomies by county, and then put an identical set of product categories under each county. People would rather search for businesses nearby. They could use the search box if they needed to search multiple regions.
Actual products sold could be listed under the meta keywords (nodewords module), and those inserted in the node somewhere so that they display on the page. Or business listings could be custom nodes that included a comma-separated "products" field that would output to bulleted lists of products sold.
Just thinking out loud here...
This may be more than you
This may be more than you were looking for, but you can use Google maps API to put store locations on a map.
Here is an example of mapping log entries of a boat trip: http://69.50.214.54/~homefree/?q=map/node
Using this method, any node can have a map location. Here is where I found out how to do that: http://drupal.org/node/61335
You can also do just what you said, in addition to the maps thing – you could have both.
Rick
Great idea
I've tried the Google Maps module for Drupal a little bit, but not that feature. That looks like a great idea for the site.
Was that your sailing trip?
No, not my trip.
No, not my trip. Done a lot of sailing in my day, but not that trip. That is for a client (http://www.morrisyachts.com/) who might want me to do such a site.
Interesting
Looks like a great trip. I once had a job sailing around the world (1999). Only made it about 800-miles before I realised that the crew was a bit too shady. So I jumped off the yacht in Mexico. I would still like to try that again someday. I have a yacht crewing-related Drupal site, but it's not in a condition to post the URL here — still need to redo it.
Thanks for a great idea!
I'm setting up a web site that, like WesternMassBuyLocal.org, will include business listings as well and just wanted to say thank you for your excellent idea to use Google maps!!!
(WesternMassDrupal - I look forward to seeing how you set things up.)
Oh yeah... I would have liked to have been on that sailing trip aboard the yacht! Turns out I went "sailing" of a different sort - aboard a U.S. Navy warship from North Carolina to Northern Saudi Arabia via the Atlantic, Med, Suez Canal, Red Sea, & the North Arabian Sea. It was NOT a "pleasure" cruise... ; ) On another "sailing" trip, I was the officer in charge of a Marine detachment aboard a U.S. Navy carrier that sailed from California across the Pacific to Somalia to help evacuate all remaining U.S. forces back in 1994.
Walt Esquivel, MBA; MA; President, Wellness Corps; Captain, USMC (Veteran)
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Refine by Taxonomy Module
Just found the Refine by Taxonomy Module which might work:
http://drupal.org/project/refine_by_taxo
It seems like it would allow a visitor to search all nodes tagged with "Footwear", and then further refine the search by limiting it to posts also tagged with "Amherst".