“The Evolving Word” struck me at first as merely another “links to other sites” type of site, with very little actual content of it’s own.
How wrong I was.
After looking through the first couple of posts I became aware of how very coherent and intelligent the entries are. The author is obviously broad minded as his posts range from toilet humour (May 27th) to a detailed history of the way the Incas communicated (June 23). The posts are divided up in to 15 different topics (though two topics have no posts allocated to them yet) including language, sports and music.
There is little personal content about the author and what there is tends to be slightly over-analytical (June 16th), but this is not really a bad thing due to the variety of the content and the exceedingly entertaining and informative manner in which it is written. The author also states that he wanted to avoid the more personal aspects due to its ubiquity in other weblogs.
Some postings are long and in depth, some shorter but very amusing, all of which contain relevant links to a variety of sources. There is multimedia content in many entries too which is a nice touch (especially as they enhance the posts and are not just for show) though I guess this would slow things down for dial-up readers.
The layout of the website is also very good. The posts on the main page are shortened, with the opportunity to read more if you want to (which I often did), as well as the opportunity for commenting. The archives are easily accessible, with a number of statistics included.
My only gripe really was the need for registration to view the photographs and to leave comments with your name attached (they are anonymous without registration). I am sure the registration information would not be used for nefarious purposes, but I am still not sure why it is necessary.
Apart from that, this is a thoroughly entertaining, intelligently written and wide ranging weblog.
Editors Note: the site use phpNuke software as the blogging tool. While phpNuke can be used for blogs it is more of a full CMS and that is why there is the registration requirement for certain aspects.The Evolving Word