"Learn Chinese" iGoogle Page Grand Unveiling
[Update: 
NetVibes page has replaced iGoogle page](Click here for audio soundtrack for this post) [sc_embed_player fileurl="/wp-content/downloads/fanfare.mp3"] [Update: see also also "Learn Chinese" 2.0]
This is the greatly anticipated (by me) and severely anticlimactic (to you) kāimùshì 开幕式 of my "secret plan" for all those Chinese-learning RSS feeds:
A "Learn Chinese" iGoogle page! (Add the button to your own page)
Current Contents
| Blogs* | Daily Words | Lessons** |
*in alphabetical order**and a dictionary thrown in for good measure
What is it?
For learners of Chinese, this is a way to skim quickly and easily the "headlines" of (currently) 21 a lot of different Chinese-learning blogs and resources all displayed on one page. You can rearrange, add, and remove content to customize the page for your own Chinese learning. The idea is that rather than checking each website every day, you can just click over to the iGoogle page, have a look at what's new or intriguing and then dive into the content that interests you without clicking on thousands of different pages.For writers of blogs/Chinese resources, this is a way for us to hùxiāng bāngzhù 互相帮助 and boost everyone's readership (see below in "What's Next" section).Everyone wins!
How do I try it?
It's absolutely FREE (you don't even need to sign up for a Google/Gmail account, but if you want to save your settings you should at some point).Just do this:1. Click here 
to tell iGoogle you're thinking about trying the "Learn Chinese" page.2. On the screen that opens, ignore almost everything while you scroll down and click the button that looks like this:
(I don't know what that check mark does)
3. Go to www.igoogle.com.4. You should see a list of headlines arranged in 3 columns. Here's a little diagram to show how I organized the stuff (you won't see these column headings on the page itself):
Blogs* Daily Words Lessons**
*in alphabetical order**and a dictionary thrown in for good measure
5. Here's how to use the iGoogle page:
What's Next?
If your website is included in the "Learn Chinese" page, consider adding the following code to your website (in Wordpress it can just be a "Text" widget) and we'll each get a new subscriber every time someone clicks on it!
Code:[raw]<a href="http://laowaichinese.net/igoogle" target="_blank"><img src="http://laowaichinese.net/wp-content/uploads/igoogle.gif" border="0" alt="" /> Add "Learn Chinese" to iGoogle</a><br /> <a href="http://laowaichinese.net/learn-chinese-igoogle-page-grand-unveiling.htm" target="_blank"><em>What's this?</em></a>[/raw]Looks like this:
If we get 500 users of the "Learn Chinese" iGoogle tab, it should appear in the auto-complete suggestions for iGoogle adding tabs (whatever that means. If you'd like to know more about that, let me know.)I don't currently know of any way to track how many users there are of this iGoogle page. That's one of the things that makes this grand experiment so fun.I see RSS feeds as a largely untapped potential for language learning (and in general). I would love to know how to post "a package" or list of raw RSS feeds like this some way other than an iGoogle page created from a dummy email address. But this is the best I could come up with for now. If anyone else has a better way to do this, please do tell.
Something missing from the "Learn Chinese" iGoogle page?
Let us know and I'll add it if it's appropriate.Disclaimer: Laowai Chinese does not take responsibility for any of the content displayed on iGoogle. The "Learn Chinese" page is just an attempt to aggregate all current, quality RSS content that is related to learning Chinese without making any statement or claim about the value of each resource. Any dispute about whether a resource should be added to "Learn Chinese" will be settled via peer pressure in the form of comments on this post.[Update: Language Learning and Technology (a journal affiliated with Michigan State University) reviewed the "Learn Chinese" iGoogle page in their June 2009 issue (pdf) under the "Emerging Technology (pdf)" column.]