Month: January 1970

It’s every bloggers dream to wind up being able to quit their jobs and live life a rock star solely based off the revenue their weblog generates. Anyone that keeps an online journal and says they haven’t thought about that is quite possibly lying. Personally, I make enough money off of my weblog to afford an addicting tattoo habit, but I never want to make that the prime focus of my personal weblog.

Because of this and all of the different “opportunities” (and I use that term loosely) that present themselves online, my eyes tend to roll across the floor when I find a site that’s geared towards nothing but that. Case in point? A weblog called “Online Income Opportunities”. Sure, I’ll review the site and boost your Google page rank, so more people will advertise on your site. Why not? Then maybe I can get rich for my superb writing skills and never have to work again.

The site loads and I’m instantly greeted with ads all over the three-column layout. A gigantic banner fills some of the top part of the screen, and a column listing all 15+ different sites where the author makes money while blogging fill one of the sidebar columns. It’s drab and boring. The most aesthetically appealing item on the weblog was some sort of widget the author of the blog has installed to allow people to review this site on the spot.

I wasn’t thrilled when I realized I was going to have to be reading entries dating back to September 06 that serve no purpose, but to make a few bucks here and there. The first post lets readers know that the author has been investing online for almost a year and she’ll be sharing her experience with the programs she’s joined.

Along one column of the blog, she mentions she lives in Bangalore, India. If that’s the case, it doesn’t really make much sense why she’d be blogging about house loans in the UK unless she was getting paid for it, right? And how the post written about the Beverly Hills Plastic Surgery office that she writes about and includes a nearly 600 x 500 pixel image of a photoshopped girl? This is the way about 99% of the entire weblog is written. The rest of the posts are the author telling the advertisers, I mean, readers that she’s going to be gone for a couple of days.

It’s a money-making blog. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. I can’t rank it any higher than I have.
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“Thoughts with God” – quite a name for a weblog, don’t you think?

As par for the course for me when it comes to reviewing a site, I took a quick peek at the “about” section of “Thoughts with God”. This is where I learned the author lives exactly 11.6 miles from me, just a few blocks from the Mississippi River. It’s kind of easy to find this out when the author (Jason Witt) leaves his mailing address in the “about” section. Yikes.

There are other brief paragraphs in the about section that give readers some background information as to why Jason’s decided to tackle this topic in a blog-format and where his opinions may have originated. I was more intrigued about the weblog once I read into more about Jason and the purpose behind this site.

The layout is a two-column WordPress template that hasn’t been changed at all, with the exception of a PayPal link at the top of the sidebar. Not counting the default initial post that WordPress automatically implements into every blog that uses their software, the site has just over fifty posts that begin at the end of August 2007.

Each post is several short paragraphs long dealing with things like how we’re effected by God on a daily basis and how people today measure up to the stories we’ve heard and read about the Garden of Eden. Obviously, the posts written for “Thoughts with God” don’t give off a “light reading material” vibe. Religion is a deep subject, and this weblog is no exception to that rule.

I can’t say I’ve read a lot of religion-themed blogs in my days of spending entirely too much time on the Internet, but I can’t say I’ve ever wanted to either. The posts in “Thoughts with God” are noticeably thought provoking, but as a self-titled skeptic, I can’t help but want more information. Are these thoughts just those of the author? Is there written material to back these opinions up? Technically, each post is very well written, and Jason does a great job expressing his opinions through writing.

Every weblog out there serves a purpose of some sort – informational, entertainment, or anything in between. “Thoughts with God” can perhaps provide some religious background to those people questioning religion, or just needing some reassurance on their current beliefs. This won’t be a weblog for everyone, but really, what weblog is?
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I like movies and I like them a lot. When I realized the primary focus of “Tomorrow’s Entertainment” was movie new and reviews, I was very excited to jump right on into the posts.

The layout is kind of obtrusive to look at when it completely loads, and the white text on a black background is always hard on the eyes. The very large image at the top of the layout is a bit overwhelming at first, but the film reel and spotlight graphics do fit into the nature of the weblog. It’s a standard three-column layout with all of the typical blogger fare – archives by date and category, recent posts, and all that jazz. “Tomorrow’s Entertainment” has been nominated in a couple of different categories in the Blogger’s Choice Awards; however, the author of the blog nominated it.

There is a plethora of movie review sites all over the web and there are very few that really pop out as something special or unique. This one’s been up and running since June 2007, but it has yet to establish itself as a front runner in originally or even content. It seems like the author is going back and forth between making it a very professional-like site or a casual news and review site. The writing style doesn’t seem proficient or entertaining enough to compete with major movie review sites around the ‘net.

The author of the blog is able to sneak into several previews and can provide readers with brief reviewed of movies before they’re open to the general public. In doing so, he/she never gives readers any spoilers at all. He/she also includes still image shots or trailers in many of his/her posts, which is also another nice touch.

While movies are the main focus of “Tomorrow’s Entertainment”, the author also does some writing about television shows, books, and even professional wrestling. It seems like there’s a bit of passion behind the writing, but I really felt like the site is just being used as an entertainment-related blog that the author keeps for himself.
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“This blog is dedicated to abstract expressionism and abstract art, open for all artist to make their contribution with their opinions on my art, on abstract art, expressionist art, whether it be positive or negative.” I had to copy and paste from the weblog’s “about” section, because I didn’t know how else to describe Pollocks the Bollock’s Weblog.

I like the layout of the site right away. It uses a four-column layout that doesn’t make an appearance on many weblogs. The author has filled this one with many links, but has managed to keep the sidebars short, so it doesn’t take readers all day to scroll all the way down to the bottom. The menu of links throughout the site is also located at the top. This layout gives readers incredibly simple options of navigating the site.

The archives only go back to mid-August of this year, but the author has shared a substantial amount of information in that short time. The majority of the entries serve almost as informational essays to familiarize readers with different types of art and various artists the author finds interesting. Often times, there will be examples of the artist’s work, in both image and video format.

Sometimes the information is a bit overwhelming. The entries, while very well written, can easily give off the same vibe as an encyclopedia. People looking for information about this particular artists, or those people with a real thirst for this type of knowledge will really be in heaven while reading this weblog. The average reader, like myself? Lost most of the time.
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The first thing I thought when I read the title “I Am Woman, See Me Blog” was that the site had better not be some Grrrrl Power blog, because I’ve never found one of those that didn’t make me roll my eyes. I was very pleased when I read the author’s Blogger profile explaining that the blog is all about her (most of the time), which means no overload of political feminist statements. Yay for that.

As the site loaded, I was greeted by a custom-made design, which is so nice to see among all of the standard Blogger templates that come up time and time again. The simple two-column layout has the typical blogger tools and information down the sidebar (i.e. archives, blogroll, etc.) and the main content fills up the bigger of the two columns, like most other weblogs. The archives of this site start back on August 2006, but the author makes mention of transferring old posts from a previous blog to “I Am Woman, See Me Blog”, so it sounds like she’s done this before.

Lizzie, the author of the site, does a good job of responding to a lot of the feedback that’s left in the comment section of each entry. Whether she knows the people commenting or they’re just first time visitors, she seems engaged by everyone, which is a great way to maintain readers.

Most of the posts deal with her daily life in the Philippines, and over the summer she made it a point to highlight other bloggers about once a week. She participates in the typical meme from time to time and occasionally posts some absolutely beautiful photos of the area she lives in. Variety is a big component of the posts you’ll find on this blog.

Over the past month, Lizzie’s been going back and forth between taking small blogging breaks and at the time of this review, is in the midst of another one of those breaks. It’s obvious from her writing that she doesn’t throw up a post just for the sake of having some content. She puts great thought into what she’s writing and it makes it easy for people to read and understand.

“I Am Woman, See Me Blog” is definitely a personal weblog. The focus of the entries usually falls around the author’s personal life, and because of this new readers can easily find themselves lost. This is prone to happen with any personal blog and certainly doesn’t draw away from the value of this particular weblog.
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