Month: January 1970

The URL provided for the review sent me to a Disney Family website. At first evaluation, I didn’t see a blog, I saw a Disney website filled with Disney movies and Disney products, but no Blog.

The “blogging” section was “below the fold” to use an old newsprint term, and is also not included in the top level navigation bar of the site. Determined to quash this as a non-blog website so I didn’t have to review it, I dug around on the front page and saw the “Family Bloggers” section of the site, down in the bottom right hand corner of the page. The header of the site states it is a production in Beta, so I would suggest that if they want people to read their collection of blogs, they should include them in the top level navigation bar as an option. Not just on the “parenting” page including a link to one blog, and the “food” page a link to another… and so on and so on…

For the record, the blogging collective is housed at http://family.go.com/blog and this is the section of the site I will review.

The “Disney Family Bloggers” page is prefaced by the following: “Family life can be frenzied, challenging, and anxiety-provoking but also hilarious, rewarding, and exhilarating. Need proof that you’re not alone? Get to know the Disney Family Bloggers.”

These Family Bloggers are a hoard of 19 “types” of parents. Nineteen. Not African American, one of them is Asian, and only two of them are male.

And the bloggers don’t come off as individuals, they come off as Jungian Archetypes of Parents. There is Professor Mom, Fit Mom, Tri-athlete Mom, Sitting On The Couch Mom, Slacker Lookin’ Dad (who after reading his blog I find out he’s not a dad at all, see below…), Likes To Cook Dad, Shopper Mom, Travelin’ Mom, Ready To Drop Daughter Deuce Mom, Mom of Twins Mom. I guess we’re trying to cover all the parenting types in one place.

The profile photos and short bios mostly made me cringe a little. I felt I didn’t relate to a single one of these people even though Disney has gone to great lengths to find a what they believe is diverse collection of bloggers. In looking at all the profiles, I found that I was only remotely interested in three of the parenting types. The Travelin’ Mom and the Sittin on the Couch Mom, and the Slacker Lookin’ Dad (who turns out not to be a dad at all, see below).

I dug most deeply into the following. Mother_Road who writes “Kid Trippin'”, ThompsonClanMom who writes “Posts from the Couch” and Sweaterhead who writes “The Village Tweed.”

Starting with the Travelin’ Mom, I found her to be more of a journalist than a blogger, and that is exactly what she is. She’s a journalist, and all her archives read like articles for tour guides, not really about “traveling with kids” with anecdotes and stories of misadventure and mayhem from the blue highways that gird our nation. Kid Trippin’ turns out to be advice for parents looking for suggestions for places to go with the kids. Mother_Road recommends places like London and Florida, Downeast Maine and what to do Indoors and Outdoors with your kids all the place. It read more like the Frommer’s Guide that she references more than once, and I found it to be boring. My high-hopes were shattered. Yawn.

Moving on to ThompsonClanMom who writes her Posts from the Couch, we find a woman who hates last minute play dates, all the begging for money her kids’ school keeps doing, bad nutrition choices, the sexy allure of the scent of coffee, how her kids love Disney Princess movies and the songs get stuck in her head… even when she writes about how she loses her mind and screams at the kids for running late and not wanting to go to school, it feels empty and sterilized and not very authentic. I left this blog bored as well.

On to the Sweaterhead, who is Jared from Brooklyn and is a knitter. The Village Tweed is his blog, and he writes about yarn and knitting. I had hoped that in addition to knitting he’d be a little more Bohemian and fun… but he writes about knitting. And when that’s your passion it’s okay. But again, the coolest LOOKING profile with the most potential, I left disappointed. The thing I noticed was that in none of his entries did he mention his own children, just knitting, yarn, making sweaters for babies and more knitting. And that’s because, as he confesses… “Now, I’m not a parent and I don’t claim to understand all that goes in to parenting…”

I don’t get it. How is he included as a family blogger? Aren’t there some Daddy blogs or Grandpa Blogs our Expectant Father Blogs out there?

This website pretty much typifies why I hate most of what Disney puts out into the world. Princesses and Fantasies, no real substance or “diversity” represented even among 19 humans… men who knit included because what, that’s safe and kitchy and cute, instead of Dads who work their butts off and come home and put their feet up with a beer and blog about what a cruddy day it was and how hard it was to come home. Cookie Cutter types of moms, and every single one of the 19 blogs has exactly 8 pages of archives. Are they all blogging on schedule? Like a blogging mill? It was kind of creepy and disconcerting.

As mentioned, the entire collection of bloggers is headed up with “Family life can be frenzied, challenging, and anxiety-provoking but also hilarious, rewarding, and exhilarating…” And to be honest, I found absolutely none of that inside the collective of bloggers. No real hilarity, no real frenzy, nothing exhilarating.

I hated this website and plan never to return. You may like it if you’re looking for the Disnification of Blogging… the Vanilla and the Pedestrian. The typical American non-edgey, pre-packaged shrink-wrapped, non-reality of it all. I’m not. There are so many better parenting sites out there, written by individuals and collectives of parents who produce content together, who are far more genuine and interesting, compelling and fascinating. They don’t review products like Bounty Paper Towels or recommend you take your kid to theme amusement parks on vacation.

Feh. Now I’m off to ride bikes with my kids and pray to the blogging gods that I never become a Disney Blogger archetype.

NULL

The title, “Where We Relax,” in the author’s self-appointed category, “Personal,” suggests this might be a family blog, about the places two or more people who spend a lot of time together go to relax. I imagined parks, saunas, swimming pools, cafes, most of them kid-friendly, illustrated with photos of the happy group enjoying their sojourn from the nine to five. It would be bursting with “awww” moments and the scent of fresh air so tactile it would cause tendrils of longing and envy as the reader dreamed of escaping from behind the computer screen into a playground of green earth, dirt, dandelions, and buggy-wugs. Naturally, reality bears no resemblance to my imagination. Normally I cope with the stress of this rift by eating cookies and reading surrealist fiction. The bloggers over at “Where We Relax” suggest that I cope with that stress by using one of their massage products, available through their sponsor, Ultimate Water Massage.

The blog is written by a team of seven people. Thus far most entries have been written by the only two without human names, Service Guru and Product Guru. In lieu of an “About,” one must refer to the upper toolbar and select “Company and Authors,” which is a blog post written by Admin, which is either short for “administrator” or the name of a human male. Here one learns that the blog is written by employees. For once my imagination isn’t concussed after colliding with reality.

The design is based on the idea of water. The background is a soothing collage of blue abstract shapes and lines. The entries and navigation column are silver with rounded edges, while the content background baby blue framed by lavender. Very feng shui.

Aside from a smattering of first person posts that begin with the story of a stressful meeting or painful toe and end with sweet relief offered by one of the company’s products, most of the blog entries are decidedly impersonal. Strangely, the topics that have the most posts seem to have the blog writers as the intended audience. “Writers Only” and “Writing for WordPress Tips” have a combined total of 15 posts, balanced against 23 posts under the 8 other categories combined.

Most of the other posts are about stress, ways people cope with it, what causes it, the damage it can do, and concerns along those lines. The posts read like professional articles, which is to say, they are very well written. Many are punctuated with statistics and polls. According to one of the how-to-write posts, this is the “E” in a SUPER post. A SUPER post is Simple, Unexpected, Practical, Expert, and Relates to the reader. Wedged between the E and R of a SUPER post, one learns that Expertise, specifically when the reader perceives it, DEFEATS doubt. How can you be sure the reader perceives your expertise? By using Demonstrations, Examples, Facts, Evidence, Analogy, Testimonials, and Statistics, one can be sure to bludgeon doubt by exuding the perception of expertise.

As a reader, any one of those letters might dispel doubt, but when they are all used in a cacophony, what is perceived is not expertise but the salesman’s pitch. Bites of numbers and percentages don’t necessarily lend credibility, especially when one doesn’t know where the numbers came from, how they were counted, or who counted them. Statistics are notorious for being misleading, and statistically, people are disinclined to follow things that will mislead them.

The writers are knowledgeable and skilled at crafting technical essays. However, I can’t shake the feeling that it’s all crafted just to sell something to me. This blog doesn’t seem to have found its own voice yet. Normally I have no problem imagining what kind of person might read a particular blog on a regular basis, but aside from repeat customers and industry employees, my imagination fails me. However, the first entry was made less than two months ago, so this blog is young enough to be rife with potential.
NULL

First things first — I feel suddenly very, very old.

I’m 40. Should I be reviewing a site that focuses strictly on music that I am not listening to? I mean, I like to think I’m slightly more in tune with what is going on musically than the average 40 year old housewife who thinks Kenny Chesney is just so effin’ HOTTTTT in his wifebeater Ts, straw cowboy hat, pookah shell necklace, flip flops and swim trunks (insert swoony noise here).

I feel almost guilty giving this one a go. But that’s not going to stop me.

Kids Pushing Kids as a site has a decent layout. The colors are interesting and reminded me of the very first layout I had for my very first blog entry in 2001. The greens, the white, the overall simplicity. Nice.

The site has an “about” page (and I always head there first to gain thoughtful understanding of the mission the writer/s have in mind) and was happy to realize that I just read about Danielson in Rolling Stone recently… and I went to iTunes to get some of their music… so I didn’t feel too incredibly out of touch and felt somewhat at ease going through the site.

Kids Pushing Kids hopes to share mp3s of bands the author/s enjoy/s and I have to say that it is nice to be exposed to some new music. There are embedded YouTube videos, and embedded links to songs so the reader can listen while looking at the review. The site writer/s don’t let on where they are located geographically, so I am not sure if there is a specific local scene that they are into, or if they are trying to build an national audience.

I liked the mp3s and absolutely loved the music player, similar to the one I play when I listen to Guster concerts on Archive.org (yes, I am unbearably lame but proud of it, shut up) to help make the pain of my undeniably horrible workday lessen. But hated that when I went from page to page to read the archives in the sit the music stops. Feh. A standalone player to listen to the ten items on the playlist while flitting around the site would be a great improvement.

And I knew three of the ten artists on the playlist. You go ahead and guess which three. Be proud of my nineteen sixties born ass.

As for entries, mostly they focus on a band with an mp3 and an opinion. As I write this I am listening to Pterodactyl’s debut on Brah Records — “Esses.” It’s not bad, but I feel it falls apart at the end and bores me.

Other entries are “Shortlist” content which consist of a series of links and pack a few news items in for a punchy entry. (I love Human Giant too, so it was fun to read the little blurb about them taking over MTV). There are industry links and news items and not every entry is an opinion piece on a song or a band. So that’s nice. And unlike other mp3 sites, this one hasn’t had a lot of time to develop into a really heavy duty “oh we’re too smart for YOU and YOUR pedestrian allegedly indie tastes” kind of sites, where they discard the music of anyone other than their friends and mock mock mock like Paris drives drunk. But they do link out to those sites (Pitchfork was mean to Guster back in the day!!! and I’ll never forgive them!!!) so it is good to get a lot of different portal-esque coverage of the music scene.

Two criticisms. First — there are sadly not a lot of archives. I enjoyed the visit to the site, but felt like it should be reviewed in about a year. Perhaps a re-review will be necessary as the site grows beyond May and June archives.

Secondly, I immediately cringed at the Ads by Google at the top of the page(s) and the Amazon videos on the right navigation area.

It is hard to look at a site that focuses on up and coming music with a big fat ad at the top calling out for 2007 cutest kid of the year and 3d educational games.

Everyone needs to make money but … feh.

Now, my favorite indie bands are Dealership out of California, and The Knockout Drops out of Brooklyn NY… The Knockout Drops are as of this moment doing a kick ass Off Broadway show called Escape From Bellevue. Check them out! Consider me a kid pushing kids. I went to high school with lead singer Chris Campion. He rocks harder than any 20 something I’ve ever seen… and that’s saying a lot for a 41 year old man from Long Island.

I wish this site well, good growth, great success, and have added it to my personal blogroll.
NULL

Cars, trucks, or vehicles in general don’t really fall into a bucket of things I want to learn about on a regular basis. Anytime I’m around my younger brother, however, I learn a little more than I’d ever wanted to know. He’s got opinions of every car and knowledge of car parts that cost more than the actual car itself. I felt qualified to give Car-O-Focus a fair review, despite not being as big of a car buff as my motorhead of a sibling.

The archives go back to December 2006, making this site about six months old according to the posts I could find. Each post is three or four very small paragraphs that make up the first part of the post. Readers then have to click on a link that takes them to a completely different URL for the rest of the entry. This would become increasingly annoying if one was reading the site through an RSS reader.

The layout of the site is extremely distracting. Red is one of my favorite colors, but having so much of it on this site drew away from the actual entries, which were also a bit tedious to read at times with white text on a dark gray background. There are so many Google ads thrown all throughout the site that readers will have a hard time distinguishing between a link the author suggests or an ad of some sort. There were often up to 15 separate ads on any given entry.

In the “about” section of the blog, the author explains that he wanted to start a site that had a particular niche. He does do a good job of staying in the niche he’s chosen.

I didn’t particularly find this blog as one I would return to anytime in the future. I didn’t even find the need to pass it along as a link of interest to my brother, who, as I mentioned before, loves anything to do with cars. It’s just another blog that happens to be out there and ready for someone to accidentally stumble upon when searching for a BMW review, but not one I could see winding up on too many lists of “blogs one must read or their life will not be complete”.

NULL

Ok so the first review of this site I mentioned how there wasn’t a blog and that there needed to be one. The author quickly sent me an email asking me to review the blog portion of the site. The blog can be found at http://fusioncharts.blogspot.com/.

One thing I kept in mind that the blog is not listed off of the main product page like I suggested in my original review. This is something that should change very quickly.

The blog is short. Very short. There are 3 posts. All 3 posts happened on May 1st or May 4th. So that makes this pretty easy to review. The blog helps explain what the product does and how to use it. But it isn’t very engaging. It reads more like a bad sales pitch or a power point presentation.

The author really needs to figure out the purpose of this blog. If it is a sales pitch site, then it needs to do something to spice it up. If it is more for tech support then they need go that route. If it is more for showing off the features of the product, again go for that. Personally I think it should be used for all of those and then also showcase sites that are using the product.

Overall I can’t rate this blog very high. The blog doesn’t do anything for me, nor for the product it is trying to sell. The lack of posts may just be due to the relatively newness of the site, but even if that is the case, it hasn’t been updated in almost a month.NULL