The Golden Age of Ballooning Search Engines

Blastvalve http://www.blastvalve.com/ is a searchable subject index devoted to ballooning. Categories include festivals, organizations, publications, extreme flying (??!), and regulations. Some but not all of the subcategories are on the front page; there are a lot of subcategories here.

There's a geographical refinement feature that's an interesting idea. Pick a category and subcategory. Publications/Magazines, for example. At the bottom of the page there's an option to refine the search by country. Choose UK and hit reload. Watch the number of listings shrink to 2.

There are other ways to view listings, including what's new, what's cool, random links, and top searches. There's also a balloon mailing lists, which provides a discussion forum for about 800 enthusiasts.

Posted to Entertainment-Sports-Ballooning