Month: January 1970

The Mad Dater turned out to be pretty much what I expected – a whole blog dedicated to tales of dating experiences, one night stands, and dissections of relationships. Sometimes there’s thrashing of certain kinds of men too. But it’s all in good fun – TMD is definitely entertaining.

TMD is a woman, just to set things straight. She nicknames the men she dates different varieties of Bastards: Punisher Bastard, Bob Marley Bastard, etc. She knows what and how to give what readers want, juicy parts and all. Reading TMD is a little like reading a more sophisticated tabloid, expect it’s all just about one celebrity. TMD comes across as being slightly wild, always up for some fun and afraid of settling down with one man. All the better for readers who enjoy her mad dating tales.

The design is clean and nice, but the colors and font size are a bit problematic. The words are light blue against a white background and are really small. My opinion is that bigger and darker font would make the site much more enjoyable. After all, this is a site where you want to sit back and throw your head and laugh, whilst I had to really lean forward to read at a reasonable pace. The only image on the site is of a cute version of a gothic-looking girl saying “I can’t decide which eyebrow to pierce.”, which suits the apparently fickle-minded TMD fine enough.

I would recommend TMD to all readers who like reading quirky tales about other people’s relationships. In this genre, TMD is one of the very good. For the sake of the readres, let’s hope she never settles down!

The Mad Dater

Frequent readers of TWR will recognize I’m really big on the newer kinds of “practical” blogs, that is, blogs with a purpose based in conveying useful or important information. So I’ll be reviewing it on that basis, considering its value for both bloggers and readers.

RootBlog is a hybrid blog/directory/newsfeed. You won’t find any personal daily journaling or commentary here. This site is all business.

It’s in beta version, so presumably it’s new. Exactly how new I’m not sure. I wandered around in the archives and found entries back in 2001, but I doubt this site was functioning in this form back then. An “About” section would be helpful, because I do have questions about who’s running the show here, and it’s always good for business to have recognition that there are people managing and working with the site. With the number of newbies entering the field, a tutorial of sorts would be nice, though I didn’t have any trouble figuring out what’s happening here or getting around.

I know there’s a crying need for this product, and this need will only increase as blogs and blogging take hold in public recognition. Bloggers have faced the same problems as fiction authors with regard to traditional search engines, in that unless you know the title of the blog, or the name of the author, you’re not going to have much luck finding them using conventional search methods. Such sites as there are devoted to blogs mostly have them organized according to the most recently updated, or in some cases, alpabetically. This isn’t much help, either, for someone looking for blogs on a specific topic.

RootBlog does have blogs organized according to subject, and there’s also a list of the recently updated. How the personal journal or diary blogs will fit into this picture, I’m not sure. Right now they’ve got them dumped into the “weblogs” category, which isn’t going to work for long. I can already see blogs in that category that have a clear subject, and so should be listed in that category. Perhaps they could consider using a DMOZ-style submission method, where people submit their blogs by subject to begin with. Logically, they’ll need a separate category (or categories, plural) for the journals and diaries.

There is a special feature on top keywords for those interested in SEO (search engine optimization) but it’s really only of help, as far as I can see, for the diarists and old school bloggers. It’s understandable, though, because the field is still in confusion. Conventional wisdom still says that a blog *must* be an exercise in creative writing of some kind, or about technology. I faced a bit of opposition myself when I switched from an e-mailed newsletter to a blog, and some of my subscribers wondered why I was changing from reporting news to making it all about me. Of course once they saw the blog, and realised there was no difference in content, they understood what was happening.

Right now the numbers of blogs represented here is sparse; but there was a time when Yahoo and Google had that same problem.

The news feeds are really just frosting on the cake; at least for now. I see they use PRWeb as one source, and because it’s a free press release broadcast service, it’s often a source of alternative news that won’t yet show up in traditional media (if you can get past the product pitches). There are news reports in several languages, from many sources, which bodes well for a possible future as a destination for those looking for unbiased reports of all kinds.

I’m confident this hybrid blog is destined for success. I’ll be listing my blogs with them, and encouraging my colleagues to do the same.Root Blog – Web Log Directory

There isn’t much to say about my initial instinct on this blog. It’s not necessarily plain, but it’s not eye-boggling either. I wasn’t sure about what the title of the blog, “Bleeding Burgandy and Gold,” until after I started to read the earliest entries. It all seems to make sense now, as this is the blog of an avid sports fan. Not just any sport, but football. And not just any team either. This author is a huge Washington Redskins fan.

The blog is in it’s infancy stages as there are only two months worth of entries. However, the month of August is filled with quite a number of entries a day. The problem isn’t that there’s a lack of content because, as I’ve said, there are a ton of entries. The problem is that most of the entries send the reader somewhere else. This blog signed up for a review under the “personal” category, but there’s little that’s actually personalized in those early entries. These entries simply seem like news/links entries with little feedback on the author’s thoughts on the subject matter. As you get further into the Pre-Season the entries become longer and focus more on the feelings and thoughts of the author. Once you get beyond all the football talk there are some movie reviews and other intersting thoughts from this author. If you’re not a huge fan of sports you might find this blog rather boring, and it seems most of the entries revolve around sports of some kind. The blog author follows a direction which is mainly directed in some sports-affiliated direction. The entries, when not sending the reader in another direction, have some insight into the thoughts and ideas of this author.

The design is workable, though somewhat plain. It’s not a template that you see often, so that makes it all the more pleasing to see that it doesn’t look like every other template out there. The archives work and are organized into different categories.

The author gives you glimpses into a photoblog, which is always nice to see the world through someone else’s eyes. The author’s landscape photography is quite beautiful and worth a look. The design of the photoblog is quite beautiful as well. Otherwise, there are the usual spattering of outgoing links to other blogs and recent entries; nothing out of the ordinary.

The author posts a lot. Usually this is a good thing. If we had a category for “sports” this one would definately fall into that category, as it’s mainly about sports rather than anything more. The posts about his life and observances are interesting, but the sports posts will drive many other reader’s away. You’ll find yourself enjoy the more recent entries than the older as you get to see the author through his words… finally.Bleeding Burgundy and Gold

The title didn’t give much away for this weblog, so I clicked the link and found a standard template which er… also didn’t give much away. Now don’t get me wrong, the template was functional, technically sound and the content easy to read, so no real complaints. The sidebar had links to his friends and the rest of his website and that was it, but then that was all that was needed. On the other hand, the template overall could maybe have done with a little more eye candy to brighten it up a bit. My only other gripe in this respect was that I could not view the author’s profile without registering, which I always think discourages the casual reader.

Anyway, on to the content, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I want to lay my cards on the table now and say that I read nothing like a high percentage of this weblog. Archives go back to January 2002 and the author is VERY prolific. Most of the entries are quite long too and often cover more than one issue. This is where the weblog shines though, and the reason why I gave it a high score. The most recent entries deal with a trip to London where the author took in plays, art and general sight seeing. Going back through the archives, it is easy to see that he is a very broad minded individual, with many tastes and opinions on literature, art, website design and travelling to name but a few. Picking some entries at random, I was always given a glimpse of his personal life as well as views on these wider issues, striking a good balance between the two. The other thing I liked was the fact that the author is an Astrologist by trade (which is the function of the rest of his site) and this colours most of his entries, adding a new dimension to them.

The style of writing is very accessible. The author is literate, intelligent and witty without being patronising or pretentious. He is also keen on using his digital camera which adds a visual element to the posts.

I think most people would find this weblog entertaining to read, as the subject matter is varied enough and the writing style is easy to get on with.

Having said that, I expect the author may be able to explain my affinity for his weblog due to my being a Sagittarius!xenon

Xenon, huh? Could be anything. It’s number 54 in the periodic table of the elements, symbol Xe. It is a noble gas. Maybe we’ve some deep-geek scientist here unlocking the secrets of the universe…

Two column template, purple and white. Purple’s my favorite color, so I’m inclined to like this blog anyway. No distractions, a few tiny graphics, looks like navigation’s going to be easy. All the links are neatly lined up on the right hand side. He’s got links grouped by astrological sign, which is a clever touch. But wait — where’s the “about” section? I scroll down to the bottom and find there are 753 entires, 498 comments, and 47 members. Members? Is this a group blog? How can that be — it’s copyrighted by a single individual. Huh…

So far, there’s no indication the author’s a scientist, or at least maybe not. There’s a graphic for a web writer’s conference in Austin next month. There are also links to the Pepys project, Austin Bloggers, and Austin Stories, so even though he could be a scientist or anything else in his day job, he’s certainly interested in writing online. There’s also a terms of service page, (lengthy, tiny print) and a link to an astrology site.

Wait — there’s a link to a profile! Maybe there’s something there. Nope, sorry, it wants me to log in. The Members link also wants me to log in. There’s nothing up front here that says what happens when you log in, or why you’d want to, so I pass.

I read through some of the entries (no, not all 753, this guy’s already made me work too hard) and find some nicely-written daily ramblings, some references to astrology, and a daily record of a trip to England, apparently going on now.

See, the thing is, when I look at a blog, I’m there for the first time without knowing anything about the author, his or her intentions in doing this, or if the author has been doing this for two months or two decades. It’s good to know as much of the 5 Ws (who, what, when, where,why ) as possible going in to something like this. Sometimes, though, the author gets caught up in other details and forgets the casual visitor. It’s always possible for bloggers not to really want people reading the blog, or sometimes a blog’s there for a definite purpose that’s so important to the author you feel badly if you miss it. If the blogger doesn’t let you in on the secret, the reviewer or casual visitor may entirely miss the intended message.

I’ll probably look in from time to time, because I’d like to hear more details of the trip. Otherwise, I most likely wouldn’t. I’m a big fan of clarity and ease in writing, and when the structure around it fails, it can’t help but detract from the main event.

xenon