Dave’s Guide to the Best of the Web is a blog theme which has been done many, many times over. We’ve even recently reviewed sites just like it here on TWR. Most of the time, these types of blogs are hard to navigate, full of advertising, and really are Pay Per Review scams where people write glowing gushing reviews of stuff because they’re being paid to do so — not because they actually LIKE the thing.
What I like about this blog is that it seems Dave writes honestly about his opinion and what he likes about the sites. He states in his About page that he “likes to share” good things. And that’s good and well appreiciated. I get the impression that he is actually LIKING these things and hoping to share them with people, and not LIKING them just for Pay Per Review kinds of purposes. I hope I’m right and that he has not tricked me with a ruse and that this is truly a Pay Per Review site… I’d feel silly then, now. Wouldn’t I? I liked his writing, the constant wiki-like links out to topics within each of the best ofs entries, and the general ease of use of the layout.
The thing I kind of dislike is that Dave asked us to review his site when he only has five entries of best of the web topics. Had this request come to us after, say, December 2007 when (hopefully) Dave had built up a host of wonderful reviews to best of the web stuffs, perhaps my rating would be higher.
I would like to see Dave pound out a good year’s worth of great webstuff to share, and to dig deeper than companies like Apple. I mean, everyone likes Apple stuff, right? So that’s hardly a discovery worthy of sharing.
Maybe he’ll put The Weblog Review down as something to share as the Best Of The Web. One can hope.
I give the site a 2.75 because I like the personal tone, and again I stress that I would have marked it higher if there were more entries and interesting/deeper/unique content.
Best of luck to you Dave as you dig through the interwebs for great things.