Archive for the 'Construction' Category

July 26th, 2007

Tessellar - World Wide Home Construction Blog

If you would like to take a few minutes to read about a different culture and industry, then I urge you to have a look at the Tessellar Blog. Here you will find the author Mazlin Ghazali writing from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysa about houses and neighborhoods around the world. He is curious about people and places and interested in finding out how to create better homes for more people. You can never read enough about improving the lives of others in this world, and I find this site a fascinating difference from some of the other blogs I have seen. He offers a link to his alternative site: http://www.tslr.info where you can find more information on Tessellation planning if you are interested. If not, have a look at some of his recent posts to see what he is talking about: Growing up in a Xhosa Village, The Yanomamo: ‘shabono’ and ‘waiteri’, Communist condo, Building the Iban Longhouse, Hakka Clan Houses, Roots, Everybody Needs a Home, Slum-Like Tokyo, Are Architects living on Past Glory?, and Unlikely homes.

Mud House Bangadesh The blog is about as standard as it gets for a blog making it very easy to navigate. Posts are right marginalized with black text on white background and orange header as borders. The posts contain a series of relevant pictures in each post which are all very well done and appropriate in both size and quantity. They also lend true flavor to every post, and in a blog like this they are critical elements. There is a left navigation system where you will find favorite blogs, a blog comments and discussions menu, pictures, squidoo lens, copyright information, and a blog archive. At first glance, it seems that the recent posts menu is missing from the blog, but if you scroll through the top navigation system you will find a recent posts menu on every link in that menu. In the top menu, you can find the links to the blog, Home, Theory, Research, Practice, School, Library, and an FAQ’s page. These seem to be a categories menu of sorts for the blog as they are all located on the blogspot domain.

I will give this one a 3.3 for now, it is fairly new so I would expect in a few months time it would probably get a higher mark. The blog scores well for uniqueness, appearance, and content. Navigation will bring the mark down a little as the search for the recent posts menu threw me off a little, but if this menu is placed on the main page in the left navigation bar I can’t see it being a continual issue. The blog’s discussion menu in the left navigation bar shows that it also has a nice readership already, which is great to see in such a young blog. Activity is a little sparse, with 7 posts in June and 16 in July. The improvement in July is a good indicator of the blog’s growth, so as mentioned I would expect to see more activity as the blog goes on. The author is clearly passionate about this work, and writes beautifully about it. The content is informative and well researched, and if it stays at this level, I anticipate this blog doing very well on content alone. Overall I think this is a great blog that many will find informative, but being only a couple of months old, it is difficult to say much more than that. However, if the topic interests you, bookmark it and keep an eye on it. This one should do very well down the line.

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- Chrissie

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May 24th, 2007

Construction Marketing Ideas - Bloggeries Review

If you are in business at all, you want to check out Construction Marketing Ideas. The site establishes itself as a place to provide information and ideas for marketing and promoting your construction or construction-related business. The owner of the site runs a business that publishes regional construction newspapers in several Canadian and American cities and is currently building a network of approximately 100 regional and local construction sites. Some of the business’s publications and websites include: Charlotte Construction News, North Carolina Construction News, Ontario Construction Report, Ottawa Construction Report, Triad Construction News, Triangle Construction News, and GTA Construction Report. GTA stands for Greater Toronto Area, and I know that as I am waving from the Niagara Region as I write this. The site is designed to provide information and assistance on marketing or promoting your own construction related site, but if you look into it, you will find some good business sense that can be carried to many standard businesses.

The owner of the site, Mark Buckshon, writes and runs his business out of North Carolina and has a lot to offer business owners. Recent posts include: The SMPS Listserve: One of my most valuable resources; Coke, Pepsi, and Jeffrey Gitomer Do you Agree?; Five Golden Rules for Blogger Relations; Does ‘free work?; and Pricing, value and free services – The balancing act to name a few. One of my personal favorites was a great story about using executive air fares to get into the coveted lounge, but not actually using the ticket. You have to read “Marketing, time, and employees” to get that one.

The site is very simply constructed, this making it as simple to navigate. Posts are left marginalized, and the blog is active – already over 40 posts in May as of the 23rd. Down the right navigation bars you will find blog standards – a list of other construction blogs, recent posts, and the about me section. Here you will also find Construction Marketing Resources Links which if you are in the business, will be very useful to you. At the top of the page you can sign up for the blog newsletter.

I am going with a 3.5 here, and mostly would recommend some appearance changes to the blog. The site is so simple it does not appear interesting just from appearances alone. However the rich content makes up for that as all posts are well-written and the voice is clearly professional and knowledgeable. However some construction pictures, such as the ones on their publishing sites, would give this site a little bit of pop I think. Activity scores are high, as this blog is worked on regularly. And the content of the posts offers it some uniqueness points as well. I think also this site could use some categories, just to tag the posts a little more effectively and hopefully run up the readership. Otherwise, this is an excellently written blog and even offered me some tips for my own business (freelance writing that is) so I think it deserves a peek from anyone that is working for themselves.

- Chrissie

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