The Weblog Review

I always wonder what a site is going to be about when it is simply titled using the author’s name. When I landed upon Trent Adams (dot) com, I knew right away what the site was going to be about. A huge guitar called out to me, and I knew I was going to be reading about music.

While I’m a big music fan, I don’t know too much about guitar. However, the writing style that Trent demonstrates is fantastic. Every post is well thought out and informative. The author is truly interested in what his readers want, and helps them out anyway he can with new information. I took note that he takes requests on both tabs and lyrics.

I immediately fell in love with the design of this site. It looks really crisp and organized. The guitar in the background is definitely a plus, especially because it gives the reader a clue as to what the website is about. The archives are easily accessible and I found no errors in any part of this website, only excellence.

There are many bonus features to this site. There is a section about song lyrics as well as a section about guitar tabs, for those who play. The author also has a background page telling about him and his love of music. This is one of the few blogs that I have seen completely dedicated to the guitar and music, and that makes it unique.

While this wouldn’t be a site I would read everyday, I believe it would be a good site for a music enthusiast to read, especially those who play the guitar. This blog is aimed at musicians, not the average blog reader.Trent’s Music Heaven

SKOB (Some Kind of Bliss) is crispy and best served with a nice glass of slightly chilled grape juice. It has a clean layout and a clear purpose – to disclose the life of this guy nicknamed SKOB. It is full of thoughts, musings, questions and teachings about life. For example, “bring a friend when protesting. Standing by yourself is a drag, even when you are surrounded by like-minded people.”

SKOB, the author and subject of this autobiographical and daily slice of existence is written with the usual cool candor of a journalist. This may have something to do with the author’s journalism background. Everything you would expect to find in a well-written expose or investigative journalistic piece are presented here. SKOB, as author, uses an interestingly detached perspective to discuss the current events of his own daily life.

This ‘blogs gimmick is participating semi-regularly in One Word. Featuring the 60-second ramblings and musings on a single word. Every now and then, about once a week, you can expect SKOB to wax poetic on a single word. Sometimes it’s interesting.

SKOB, the author, spends most of his time discussing political and environmental issues as they relate to his own personal activism. There is the usual journalistic candor behind every post which makes it an informative and well written ‘blog. The ideas and concepts behind the issues are well presented, as are the facts. In fact, there is something quite applaudable in SKOB’s economical ability to present information.

As clean and as crisp a design as this site has it only further proves that presentation is a mode of content. The content is as crisp and clean as the layout, both notably lacking that one thing any truly great work of word play may possess – ethos. A writers ability to convey upon their readership a perspective of suffering and passion within the characters presented is what drives the exhibitionistic tendencies online journal readers thrive on. I would simply ask for more commentary on the condition of being SKOB rather then a precisely written highlight reel of what SKOB did and/or does. What little self dialogue that is included is always well observed and tastefully written. I am asking for more because it makes the experience of reading a journal that much more personal.

Some Kind of Bliss is a good reference for those just starting out as a blog or online journal writer. There is plenty of style and authority to be found in every sentence making it an excellent resource of what to do. The basics of journal writing are covered quite well. Keep an especially close eye on the topics he chooses and the form of his writing. SKOB certainly has a well defined voice and something to say on every topic he’s chosen so far.

Some Kind of Bliss

First thing which caught my attention was the layout and colour scheme. The page literally screams, “Rock chick!!”. Few have attempted to use such bright and clashing colours, but the writing in the blog certainly has enough attitude to carry off such boldness.

This blog basically serves as a portal to rock music, but sometimes, the entries can get more personal than musical, which makes this blog a hybrid of those two genres. The musical side of the blog is usually the author’s, Jin’s, views on the music scene and the people involved, though there are the titbits of information/news thrown in regularly. The personal entries are usually Jin’s ramblings or recollections of her daily life. It’s a very readable blog as the writing is concise yet invigorating. Although at times, the language used can be rather offensive for certain readers.

I love the pictures that she posts alongside her entries. They add colour to the blog (not that her blog is not colourful enough) and makes the entire site more appealing. There are the usual links – picture gallery, ‘About Me’, guestbook, archives, etc. on her page, so you can look forward to spending quite some time at this site if you are going to visit it.

As this is a personal-cum-musical blog, it’s a good site for keeping up on the rock music scene in New York City and for those who are more interested in reading a personal blog, this makes a pretty entertaining choice as well.
on the moon — the first step for band-kind.

When I signed up as a reviewer for TWR, Brent told me I would need “about an hour” to do each review. Although this has held true for many reviews, every now and again I come across a blog where I don’t want an hour to review it at all, I want a week. “Pop Culture – Consider The Source” is one of those sites.

Now I think it is only fair to point out, before I go any further, that this weblog has many good points. Many. BUT…it is perhaps not for the faint hearted. Although according to one article, the content has actually been toned down recently. There is nothing illegal here (I don’t think), nothing explicitly pornographic but there are issues and pictures which would appeal probably to the more broad minded amongst you. Ok, now I have that cleared up, on with the review.

My first impressions were extremely favourable- the design is the most impressive I have seen so far for a weblog- in fact it won “The Golden Web Awards” as a result, by the looks of things. Effective use has been made of Flash, (the menu buttons are way cool) and the general theme of “SpeedMonkey” (the primary author) is prevalent throughout the site including a nifty logo and even merchandise. There are polls, photos, a map, a chat room, a forum and even a media centre, (though I couldn’t get it to work, but that may have been due to my own stupidity). So, top marks for design then.

Now on to the content. It is curious amongst weblogs because it is not organised by date at all, but by category. Incidentally, to view the archives, you must either select read more from the posting or click on a category title in the menu bar. This will then take you to the most recent posting (if going through the menu) and a list of all the other posts in that category can then be found above the post itself. There are many, many postings, some by another author (Dr Tom) but most of them by SpeedMonkey. Of the articles I read, all were funny, most of them personal and very honest and it was easy to get a clear picture of who the author is. There are movie and music reviews, including live gigs, articles about sex and relationships and also quite a few rants about various issues- politics, the ineffectiveness of large corporations and the like. Also the author clearly doesn’t like “pop culture”- a man after my own heart I must admit. I think the rants may get a bit tiresome after a while, though most are interesting and intelligently argued. My only gripe with this blog is that there is a fair bit of negativity to be found, and this can be off putting after a while.

So overall there is loads of content to be found here and most is very funny and intelligently written. When I have that spare week I will be spending more time here, as I quickly grew rather fond of the author. Maybe not everyone’s cup of tea, hence the 4.5, but I loved it.
Pop Culture – Consider The Source

At first I was a little hesitant about this blog since I automatically categorized it as what I would like to call “Teen Girl Blog.” You’ve seen them. They’re all over blogspot and LiveJournal. Basically the online equivalent of a diary, Teen Girl Blogs contain random nonsense about boys, school, and the occasionally “What ____ Character Am I” quiz. Let’s just say I’m not the biggest fan of Teen Girl Blogs. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that while the author of In Character is a sixteen year old girl, the blog content goes far beyond your standard Teen Girl Blog fodder. The background image alone (a cool but bizarre drawing done by the author) told me that I was in for something unique.

Like I said, the blog entries go way past your standard diary entries. Most are pretty long and tell a great story, such as this one about Vanessa’s adventures at an Anime convention. Vanessa is also a graphic designer, so she writes about that often. Yeah, there are some Teen Girl Blog type entries here, but that’s to be expected from a 16 year old girl. My biggest problem with the blog is that it isn’t updated very frequently. As of this writing, Vanessa hasn’t posted since October 21st. Maybe she’s working on her to-do list. In order for me to want to come back to a blog, the first thing it needs is frequent updates. Otherwise it becomes just like that stagnant homepage you might have at Geocities. However, I think the length and depth of the entries are enough to keep a visitor occupied for some time.

The main characteristic that distinguishes this blog from your standard Teen Girl Blog is the design. It’s rather nicely done and you can tell that a lot of effort was put into it. My biggest beef about the design is that the text is rather small and hard to read. Also, there’s a whole column dedicated to the Tag-Board, which doesn’t get used very much anyway. If I were Vanessa, I would get rid of the Tag Board (or put it in the second column) and give the blog some more space. Also, the very top of the blog overlaps slightly with the background image, which makes the blog hard to read since it is white text on a white image. That’s just me being nit-picky, but it shouldn’t be too hard to fix. Other than that, I think the design is very creative and fits the blog and the author very well.

Overall, this blog is a great read. The only problem is, it’s rather difficult to read because of some design issues. These can be fixed though. Also, infrequent updates make a blog stagnant and turn away visitors, so blog often. Like I said in my intro, don’t let the age of the author fool you. This isn’t your standard Teen Girl Blog. It’s much better than that, and has the potential to be something great.in character