I’m sure it has happened to you at one time or another.
You stumble upon a page, you get hooked instantly, and you want to tell everybody about it, Mom & Dad, and Uncle Percy, your dog trainer, your non-blogging, non-Webbing wife (girlfriend, boyfriend, whoever…), even Mrs. Gunnatharty down at Human Resources (who hasn’t seen a Web page in her little, form-and-pencil bound bureaucratic life, ever). The site is that good, it’s attractive, it’s alive, it has got “flesh” to it, it may be even called a “magnum” site….
“Webraw – digital sushi for your mind” is such a beautiful site. I saw and I got hooked. Webraw is already in the top tier of my “Blog-an’-Web” resources. Save this URL. If you’re serious about blogging, and also enjoy lively writing, humor, and almost flawless technicals behind the page, Webraw is for you.
In fact, the part that was submitted to TWR is the blog section of a larger site that contains three other areas: Form, Function, and Theory. I won’t go into details of what the rest of the site is all about, but suffice it to say the other sections are as interesting and a must-visit as the blog. Make sure you click though to them all. There’s plenty of good material in every section.
Eric J., who’s behind Webraw (and its blog section of course), is obviously somebody who knows his stuff very, very well, and has put together a multi-layered site with great care and finesse. Colors, graphics, photos, the whole page design of the blog (and the other sections) are eye pleasers (but adjust your browser for character size, otherwise you may end up with 8 point Times New Roman throughout, not exactly recommended by your eye doctor).
The reading area is adjacent to a column that contains links to the Archives, a box where you can subscribe to Webraw, and several other useful pointers, including one to The Weblog Dictionary, a smart, concise resource on acronyms, nomenclature, et cetera.
Contrary to what you might think, Eric J. doesn’t post exclusively on computer-Web-blog related material. There’s variety, including, for example, the photo of webraw.com’s new puppy, whose name is Wendy Moira Angela Darling “as in the gal from Peter Pan” (nice touch, Eric, but how are you actually going to call the dog? Pooches are generally unresponsive to anything resembling a name beyond two syllables… “Here, here, Assurbanibal…” Take my advice, it just doesn’t work)…. I was two-three posts down on the current page and caught myself already clicking furiously on links provided to all the new goodies from Google. Expect this to be normal when you scroll down Webraw’s blog — archives, too. Links and links and more links, always to something you can save for future reference.
The December 3 post includes a clever list of “You Might Be A Blogger If….” attributes. Check the list to discover if you’re among the dyed-in-the-wool or simply passing time with your blog.
Several days later, Eric J. says:
I feel like I’m drowning. There is something about the Web that is crushing my non-Web self. I feel compelled to spend every moment of my free-time learning, studying, reading, teaching or constructing something related to the Web. Feelings similar to guilt descend upon me when I’m doing something that is not Web-related. While I’d like to be able to just integrate the Web with the rest of my existence, like television or newspapers, the very evolutionary nature of it demands that I always be improving or else I will fall hopelessly behind. When I think about this it seems kind of sad but what else am I to do? I actually enjoy this, most of the time. I guess I just need to get used to drowning because the Web is an ocean and one can only swim for so long in the ocean.
Copy this and read it again and again over the span of several days. I think that Eric has caught the deeper feeling of many of us out there…
I can go on and on about Webraw. Although, strictly speaking, we’re here to review the blog only, Webraw cannot but be perceived as the well-oiled whole that it is. On this count, Webraw gets a 5 and the set of stars to go with it. The Weblog alone gets a 4.5, completely deserved.
If you haven’t visited Webraw yet, do it now.webraw/blog