Those who have been blogging about Taiwan or looking for English based information about Taiwan are probably familiar to some extent with the "Taiwan Feed". The project started a few years back as a service to gather blog posts from Taiwan based bloggers and provide them in an aggregated form for readers interested in Taiwan.

Trying to access the site this week, this is what I got :

This site has been under constant attack for nearly three years. I've done my best to repair it each time it has been cracked and to close various security holes that have been exploited, but it's no longer worth my time. I'm just too busy with work and life in general. Fortunately, there are a number of good feedreaders available now, and it's easy for anyone to make their own aggregation of their favorite blogs. Google's feedreader is a good one to try if you're unsure of what's out there. -Admin

I guess that marks the end of a wonderful idea that was struggling throughout the time it's been running with endless technical issues, mainly around attacks and spam. Mark, the person behind the project, continuously updated users on the frustrating state of trying to keep the site up, like in this post on on his blog "The Taiwan Blog Feed Lives!" marking a move from Drupal to Wordpress :

I have no idea why it was under such a brutal attack. I added any sites which met the criteria of being about Taiwan, teaching English or learning Chinese, and promptly removed anyone who asked to be. On top of that the site was entirely non-commercial, with no self-serving purpose what-so-ever. Nonetheless, it was under constant bombardment; perhaps some Chinese activist was upset at all the political blogs being aggregated, but it seems unlikely. In any case, it was pretty clear that the attacker had a Drupal kit. I upgraded the site to the newest version of Drupal in order to close some of its security holes, but that broke half the add-ons I had used to make the site.

So, I’ve moved the Taiwan Blog Feed to wordpress, which I’m much more familiar with. It should be easier for me to keep on top of maintaining the site now, too. People can’t add their sites anymore. Just leave me a comment if you want a particular site added (or if you’re the author and you want it removed).

But as the current message on the site suggests, the move wasn't all that helpful.

I know that many in the Taiwan community were using that service. PGS211 in Forumosa.COM writes :

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the administrator of Taiwan Feed for his hard work and dedication over the past 3 years. Thank you Taiwan Feed.

Thanks, Mark, for trying to keep it up that long. I believe you've inspired a few other projects that sprang up later on.

If you're looking for alternatives, there are a few :

1. Bloggers in Taiwan - or Taiwan Blogs - has recently changed the front-page look from a weekly recommendation to showing the latest post of each blog reviewed, using the Blogspot RSS feed.
2. Taiwan Eggs has been trying to do something similar to Taiwan Feed, to a somewhat controversial and limited success, but as far as I'm concerned - anything to boost the local blogosphere helps.
3. Michael Turton and Todd of Daily Bubble Tea are still going strong with their Daily/Weekly Links with recommended posts from across the blogosphere.
4. Taiwanderful aggregates the Taiwan blogs registered on the site that choose to be aggregated from (summary post list here). The bloggers appear according to their Taiwan location on a Taiwan Google Map. All Taiwan blogs are welcome to add their blog to the list. The site runs a Taiwan Blog Awards annually, and you can check out recommended blogs and bloggers of 2008.
5. Front-page of Taiwanderful and INCKU shows recommended Taiwan posts from David Reid's shared items on his Google RSS reader.

Know of any other interesting Taiwan projects? be sure to let us know, we'll add those here.