A line from Hamlet has stuck to my head and I never miss an
opportunity to quote. Here I take the liberty again.
LORD POLONIUS
What do you read, my lord?
HAMLET
Words, words, words.
LORD POLONIUS
What is the matter, my lord?
HAMLET
Between who?
LORD POLONIUS
I mean, the matter that you read, my lord.
So what is this doing in a blog review? Well many of the blogs
are just what Hamlet said: “words, words, words” that leave the readers asking “what
is the matter’. This is especially true in the case of quite a few poetry
blogs. Anunoy’s blog ‘justforsuzan’ is
one of those that stand apart from this motley crowd. The words create a
powerful imagery, the metaphors are distinctly original without seeming
ludicrous and overall his words leave a strong impact. Even some of his fiction
reads like poetry. However his blog is definitely not one of those blogs that
can be quickly skimmed through. If you try to glance through his blog, you will
find no difference between his blog and some of the more banal blogs that just
peddle words to sound impressive.
I have started out about the content. So let me finish all I
have to say about content before moving on to the rest. I do not feel qualified
to give any feedback on his literary content as such. He also shares a few
photos which again are in my opinion out of the world. His pictures are not run
of the mill pictures and are usually accompanied by an interesting commentary
that makes them fascinating indeed. He also has some very interesting
informative posts, mainly written for contests. They are very lucid and convey
the point very well. He has also linked his photos section to his travel blog
and often this blog leads to his travel blog. Last but not the least most of
his content has a sprinkling of humor. I
however will limit my review to the literary and photos blog alone and not
comment on the travel blog to avoid losing focus.
In terms of look and feel, my feelings are quite neutral.
There is nothing wrong as such but it does not look as if he has really put any
effort into thinking through the background theme either. Maybe it will help if
he thinks what kind of first impression he wants to convey to his new readers
and tries to explore a theme that can convey that. On a similar note the blog
does not seem to have a name. There is a nice tag line and the title section
describes in a succinct way what the blog is all about. But a catchy name helps
in top of the mind recall. The url of the blog has a name ‘just4suzan’. But the
name is not mentioned anywhere else on the blog nor is an explanation given for
the name.
In terms of navigation, he has followed my favorite method
of creating separate tabs for fiction, poetry and photos and giving links to
all the posts manually instead of the label based one which requires much more
scrolling. But I feel he could have used the labels as well separately to
provide an alternate method of navigation. The latest link section on the side
bar has too many links. In my opinion, if any section has more than ten links,
people tend to skip it. The archives and
the popular post widget have been placed right at the bottom and it is doubtful
if people will scroll down so many posts and find them. He should either bring
those to the side or have only the latest post in the home page. One thing I
would recommend is to create a separate tab for more informational posts. Right
now the excellent informational and nostalgic posts are scattered among the contemplative
posts. It will be nice to call them out separately
for the low attention span reader starved of time to rush through, while the
more relaxed reader can recline on his arm chair and sip through the more
contemplative posts.
In terms of interaction, he replies to comments regularly
and has a contact section. But in general readers do not seem too responsive if
one were to go by the comments. But I guess in general readers don’t tend to
say much on contemplative posts as it is not easy to put up some shallow
comment on them without looking stupid.
Overall I would strongly recommend readers to take out time
and go through his writings. In my opinion they have literary merit. In case reader is not able to get it one
reading, it is highly advisable to read it a second and third time and I can
give assurance that it will be worth the effort. Find below a small sample of
writings selected by the blogger for a new reader’s perusal.
19 comments:
thanks a lot Lucifer for the wonderful review!!!
I tried to work on some points...
thanks brother :-)
Ahh if only my blog was worth a review i would have lined up 2,but i still hav a long way to go before asking for a review..as for this one i shall definitely read the mentioned posts..
Done justice fool,
With your recommendation, definitely warrants a visit. I shall do that shortly.
But this has me worried about my own blog. I will score an F on every single parameter!
Very thorough analysis though I haven't read the blog you've reviewed. I guess there us a lot that he and the others can take away from this.
Oh, WOW! I bet every blogger would love to have a review like that. Checked the blog and it is just as you said. :)
Glad you liked the review, Anunoy.
Do check it out, Asteria. As far as reviewing your blog goes even if you ask, it will take more than a year as there are already 21 blogs in my list.
Glad you felt so, Rio.
@Rickie - I never consider anything in an absolute sense. I try to understand what the blogger wants to do with his blog and try to present that to everyone and give my recommendations on achieving better results.
So check out the blog.
Thanks Rachna. Glad you find this beneficial. Of course I try to say something specific to different blog. No value add saying the same thing for each and every blog.
Thanks, Saru. Glad you liked the review.
Yeah, ill hv ample time to improvise...
i find your reviews absolutely brilliant and that's why i try to read all your blog-review posts. you cover almost everything - content, design, interaction and all other aspects that make a good blog.
i go through indiblogger tags whenever i have the time searching for good and interesting blogs (in vain). these reviews are quite helpful for people like us who would like to read something nice once in a while.
Thanks a lot, debajyothi. I am sure you will love Anunoy's blog.
Reviewing a blog is not an easy task and you seem to be doing a fair amount of justice to it TF.
Thanks a lot, jaish. It is true that it is not easy which is why I begin to procrastinate at times.
Some friends even agreed to whatever you said without checking the blog... this is called Belief :-)
"On a similar note the blog does not seem to have a name. There is a nice tag line and the title section describes in a succinct way what the blog is all about. But a catchy name helps in top of the mind recall. The url of the blog has a name ‘just4suzan’. But the name is not mentioned anywhere else on the blog nor is an explanation given for the name."-----> Now I think there remains no more need for any explanation after I took a domain name created an 'about me' page :-)
Please change the links and the title of this review :-)
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