Month: July 2007

The Lexi Review is a review site like I haven’t seen before. The reviews are primarily done by a dog – a Doberman named Lexi. It’s a very simple site, but done creatively, in my opinion.

The author uses a Blogger-inspired layout, which is a simply done white background with dark gray text. Each review follows the same template. There’s a picture of Lexi enjoying (or not enjoying, depending on the product!) the product, with her stamp of approval (or disapproval), followed by the pros and cons of the subject of each review. Lexi rates it on a five star scale, and so does Lexi’s owner.

Everything from types of food, toys, and even dog-training facilities are touched on in these reviews, giving dog-owners a clue to all sorts of different options out there. The target audience – and probably only audience – of this site will be dog owners or potential dog owners.

There’s not a lot to touch base on as far as a review goes. It’s a simple site with a simple purpose and it succeeds in its goal of reviewing dog-related products perfectly. As time goes on, I only see more and more good things going with this site.NULL

According to the archives, this site has been around since August of 2006. In the same breath, the archives contain less than 20 posts in that time span. When I see an blog as inconsistent as this, I immediately question the consistency of the content. If someone running a blog can’t post more than twice a month, it’s very likely that the content is severely lacking.

Some of the earlier posts made by Brandon Marcel focus on how to create traffic for your website. Considering the only comment throughout the entire blog is a spam comment, I seem to doubt the validity of the tips the author provides for bumping up the number of visitors to this site.

It starts to make sense, though, midway through this blog. Eventually, the author starts giving out links to another domain, which is filled with banner ads for free cell phone rings and Google Ads. And, of course, it also gives readers the chance to buy a downloadable book that gives “Over 100+ indie music and music industry website links!”.

The actual content of this site is very dry and hard to process if you’re not into the indie music producing scene. The author drags posts on and on until I had to refocus at least half a dozen times per entry to continue through the whole post. I realize the indie music scene is up and coming in popularity, but this site is definitely geared towards those that have already been a part of that scene for a long time. Someone trying to make a jump into the scene is going to feel overwhelmed by the posts made here.

As I mentioned before, I don’t really see this as a site that’s trying to do anything but generate some revenue and even page ranking for their main site.

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Anytime I stumble upon a new blog, it’s always my first instinct to find out as much as I can about the author. Maybe it’s reading the blog from the beginning or maybe it’s skimming through the “about me” section. I always try to form some type of personal connection to the author; it helps me relate to what I’m reading and find it more entertaining.

The author of the News2020 Project is Jeff. He’s been everything from a lobbyist to a speechwriter for the president of El Salvador. The first post of the blog comes in October of 2006. It gives readers an insight as to Jeff’s reason behind starting News2020 and what he hopes to accomplish. It’s a post that is definitely helpful to anyone reading this blog for the first time.

In the initial post I mentioned earlier, the purpose of News2020 is to “contribute to a conversation about the evolution of online news”. Shortly after rolling out the blog, the author presented the concept of it at an Online News Association, and eventually posted videos on response from different people in the online journalistic world. If you’re looking for short quips to back up what the author talks about in his posts, these videos are the way to go.

Each post is lengthy, but it always backed up by some type of resource, whether it be quotes or links or the aforementioned videos. It’s obvious from the posts that the author does a lot of preparing for each post, both for himself and to adequately present the ideas and thoughts to his readership.

Early on, and constantly on the sidebar of the layout, Jeff encourages comments and other opinions. Maybe it’s just a site that hasn’t had a chance to build the readership he needs in order for a successful discussion to take place in the comments of each post, but that is definitely something that would increase the credibility of the site.

The layout itself is clean and simple, working perfectly for the site. The archives were easy to find and Jeff also lists a poll along the sidebar to encourage more reader interaction. However at this time, only four people have participated in the poll, myself included.

I like the idea of this site. While it’s not my cup of tea to read on a regular basis and will only attract a certain type of reader, I can absolutely appreciate what the author is attempting to achieve. It’s certainly stacked with promise to become a widely read blog, but until constant interaction starts, it hasn’t lived up to its full potential.

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My first thought for News2020 was that this was going to be a recap type blog for the show 20/20. Then I smartened up a bit and realized that would be a bad blog idea and thought the owner probably has a better idea than a 20/20 recap.

After reading through the most recent month’s posts I wasn’t quiet sure what it was I was reading. Sure the posts were enjoyable, but I didn’t quiet know what the blog was about. Easiest way to solve that problem is to go all the way back and read the first post.

Sure enough, smart blogger. The idea for the blog is a discussion of how news will be presented in the year 2020. We all know that the presentation of the news has evolved, and is evolving more so each day. Back when I first got online it was rare to find a news posting. Now I can go to any number of websites and either read up on the news or in some cases watch video. No question that the medium used to deliver the news is changing.

The design of the site is a standard 2 column layout. I could be mistaken, but I am sure that this is just a modified design of a typepad template. Either way it works for the site. The posts are presented in an easy to read format and are enjoyable.

My one gripe I have with this site is that it is supposed to be a discussion. However most posts have 1 maybe 2 comments. I am sure that a site that encourages discussion could continue with presentations of ideas that were expanded upon within the comments. I have seen other blogs do this continuation when one of their posts became so popular within the comments.

Overall this is a very good site to read. The ideas presented are done well and I enjoyed reading them. As I said I would like to see a more encouraged comment section, but that is something that can be developed. If you want a good read, then News2020 is for you.NULL