It has been way too long since I’ve posted anything regarding the progress being made on the Codex Network. That’s about to change, as the first site, Travel Codex, is nearing a launch. Being a social site in design, I’ve created corresponding Twitter and a Facebook fan page. Facebook is becoming a very useful tool in development and networking for Travel Codex, and eventually other Codex sites.

While I was in Kiev last August, I stayed at a privately owned hostel and got to know the owner. The owner of the site is actively involved on Facebook with pages for his hostels. Utilizing this and talking with him, I’ve gotten information, including photos, about his hostels. I’ve used this information to fill out pages for his hostels on Travel Codex. I passed the links back to him and he posted them on his Facebook hostel pages as well as becoming fan of Travel Codex. Within three days of posting this information, Travel Codex has gained 50 fans, including hostels.

The next step for me is to reach out to these hostels that have become fans on Facebook and get their information to fill out pages for them. This will allow the network on Facebook to continue to grow and information to be gathered in a much easier fashion for the site. Growing the network and growing the content is what will draw people back to the site to get travel information and talk to others about their travel experiences.

For the last several months, I have been putting the pieces together to start a small network of sites. The whole idea that lead to my desire to create this network was a small off handed comment while I was in the train station in Prague. The comment was basically “why isn’t there a site that tells you about these kinds of things.” This was in reference to having a difficult time trying to find someone to give us information regarding the train we were to get on.

Once I got back to the United States, that idea began to grow roots and expand and lead to the creation of Travel Codex. The site is a community driven travel site, that will contain a wealth of information from countries to cities to lodging to attractions. The users of the site will be able to comment on and rate items such as hostels. The site also has a travel planner, where people can simply click add to planner on pages. It also has the ability for people to blog while they travel, this is useful for those who don’t have a normal blog to post at, but wish to share their adventures. It is meant to eventually be a one stop repository of the kind of information a traveler would want, but would typically have to visit several different sites to find.

Even though the site launch was months out, I wasn’t happy with just the single site. I knew that I both wanted and needed to create more methods of content distribution. If you can deliver unique content, that you’re passionate about, and make a living from that, you are living the life. To create other sites I needed an umbrella, a network, to place the other sites under. This network would be known as The Codex Network. The friend of mine that is involved in this, who needs to start blogging, actually developed the idea for the second site in the network. The details and logistics of this second site are still being worked out, but should come shortly behind the launch of Travel Codex.

In this blog, I’m going to start writing more about the things I am learning in this process as well as my travels around the world to find content for Travel Codex.