Hip Hop World is a blog that features news on and video from hip hop artists. The site has a black background with white text and yellow navigation in the sidebar, which isn’t as hard on the eyes as I’ve found in the past.
There is no “about” page listed that I could find, no blogger profile. So I am not sure if our author is an American or International Hip Hop fan. An about page is always key, so we know the profile of the writer and where he or she is coming from. I suggest activating that in the blogger dashboard so we know more about the person taking the time to bring us the news.
The standard three column blogger template is deployed but is slightly out of skew. The header banner (at 804px wide) is too big for the table, and hangs out of the table frame to the right by about fiddy pixels. Because the table is the wrong size for the content, the right navigation column is forced to the bottom of the screen for users at 1024×768 resolution. (I viewed the site on my monitor at home and at work with the same problem).
Seeing as the right panel navigation is incredibly important, I would suggest to the blogger that the size of the table be increased, or size of the photos and videos inside the center column be decreased. A little bit of code-tweaking can fix this problem quickly, and can be done through the blogger dashboard.
The left navigation bar has icons for going straight to iTunes to buy certain artists’ latest recordings. There is a message board to dialog with other Hip Hop fans, which opens up discourse and interaction with a wider community. Unfortunately, the site is too young for that feature to really have gotten off the ground at this point, but I think that if the blog author gets a little more exposure the community can grow.
There are few archives to the site at this point, just April to June. This was just enough content to keep me reading and interested this morning. Also, the site categories are listed out by artist, so if you’re only interested in Ciara or Timbaland, you can go to those categories and read the entries for your favorite artist.
My favorite part of the blog was the biographies, which sound like they were written by the author and not creatively appropriated from Wikipedia or another source. I also loved the header graphic, which is a beautiful mural portrait of hip hop’s current and past, living and gone, performers.
My major complaint with the site, aside from the layout being messed up with the right panel navigation forced to the bottom of the screen, is the overwhelming amount of Ads by Google content. Under the header, in the left side panel, and after every single entry… Way way way too much. The target audience is more interested in reading about hip hop and less interested in the advertising. I know everyone is trying to make money off the web in whatever way they can, but I’d totally pare down on the advertising… at the header of the page and in the entries. Leave the Ads by Google in the left panel of the site, away from the content.
I give the site a 3 rating, because I see potential as it grows. Now, where’s the review on the Beastie Boys’ new release. Rolling Stone says it’s the best ever.NULL