I love it when weblogs don’t expect their readers to have expectations of grandeur when they visit. Matthew points this out right away as he very quickly explains “the purpose of which is entirely undefined and extremely meaningless”. No claims to perfect posting or thought provoking entries here, and with that in mind, readers don’t expect anything less then just Matthew’s own journal.
The very first post at the time of this review dealt with the originality of weblogs, and how the standard templates that seem to get passed around the internet get so very tiresome. It was refreshing to see Matthew with a template all of his own, which had a very simplistic navigation method, and I wasn’t distracted by any of the current trend in unnecessary javascript or flash tools that sometimes get thrown right into.
The story matrix is a definite highlight of the site. This is the portion of the site where any reader can go in and add a line, paragraph, or even chapter to the already involved story that’s been written entirely in that fashion. It’s quite interesting so far, and will only get better as different people continue to contribute. Go ahead and add to the mix!
Other parts of the site include a very brief bio section, which does give us the basics on Matthew. Of course, there’s your typical computer “stuff” with the Technical and .Net portions of the site. And one would be remiss to leave out the obligatory “Donate” portion.
Now, I could only find archives dating back to January 24th, which was when this site first kicked off. Having each individual day linked along the left hand side isn’t something I’m very keen on, and I hope that Matthew has a plan for those archives in mind once Wombleweb has been up and running for a while longer. The archives were a bit disorganized in the manner that they were grouped, but that’s just a personal preference of my own.
I had trouble staying focused on the actual weblog content at Wombleweb. With a great weblog, I can start at the very first post and make heads or tails of how everything relates or at least make some type of a connection where I want to read more. I couldn’t do that with the entries here. They’re not poorly written at all, but they just don’t make this the type of weblog where you grow attached or find some magnetic connection to the writer. The entries are more along the lines of just sporadic entries about random thoughts.
For an occasional read from time to time, I would definitely recommend Wombleweb to readers. If you’re looking for something to draw you in and really want to come back every single day, this may not be the place.