chrissie

If you are at all looking to travel the Eastern Hemisphere then you should take a moment to check out a professional looking Asia travel blog.  The blog is a blog that operates under the business of Asiahotels.com which is a leading Asian accommodations reservations site. As a reservations network from Asia, you will find it very comprehensive as it offers blogging with a personal voice, yet access to destination guides, travelers tales and guest reviews. Have a look at any of the recent bloggeries to see what I am referring to: Beautiful Sceneries in Japan, Pho King Strange Shirts, Top Noosa Holiday Accommodation, Typical Asian Photo Poses, How to Take Photos in Beijing China, Environmentally Friendly 5 Star Hotel in Beijing, How to Overcome Con Artists in Asia, The Three Most Luxurious Airlines, Best Beaches in Asia, and Ten Things to Do if you are Trapped on an Island.

Navigation on the blog is very easy, and very straightforward. The blog has a well-organized template and a clean layout and design. Bloggeries are black text on white background and the blog has yellow bordering with yellow accents on the menu titles. Bloggeries are centralized and there is both a left and right navigation bar. In the left navigation bar you will find the categories menu, recent posts menu, and the About page. In the Right navigation bar, you will find Hotel Club Blog information, and ‘On the Go’ menu, and an ‘Accom Blog’ menu. The categories menu also is very comprehensive, and for the Asian traveler contains all of the vital information – Airlines, Asia, Australia, Beaches, Japan, Things to Do, Vietnam, and much more. Most of the bloggeries also contain relevant pictures which adds to the overall design and aesthetic appeal of the blog. I took some time to visit a few travel guides and found the guide to Taj Mahal very informative.

This blog is definitely raising the bar for other travel blogs in terms of almost all other criteria we score on here. For this reason I am giving it a 4.5/5. The blog scores perfectly on almost all accounts – Navigation, Appearance, Uniqueness, and Content. The blog is designed with a very professional appeal, and this gives it much credibility to its readers which are obviously the travelers demographic. This lends well to the success of the blog given that travelers looking for information are always looking for credible sources. The pictures and the professional but good personal voice in the blog serve this purpose well for Asia Hotels. The only thing I would suggest is more frequent activity and this is the only section where Asia Hotels lost points. Currently bloggeries are coming in every other day, but I am seeing periods where the posts lapse with a couple of weeks in between. The blog would definitely get more traffic with daily updating and thus, be an even bigger success than it clearly already is. Otherwise however, I am taking a mental note of this one should I ever see the opportunity to Go East.

-Chrissie

We are going to look at a personal blog by established writer and author Bruce Eisner. This blog is a perspective on ‘creating a sensible culture’ and is named “Bruce Eisner’s Vision Thing” . This blogger is a Ph.D candidate and is currently writing out of Las Vegas, Nevada. He is the President of Island Foundation and is working on the Island Sanctuary Project. You can find more of his writings, publications, and random musings at his blog. You can also get to know this blogger a little better by checking out his recent bloggeries: URTH.TV Consciousness Movement Social Network, The Shock Doctrine A Short Film by Alfonso Cuaron and Naomi Klein, Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak Looks to Robotics and Artificial Intelligence – eWeek, Horizons – Contemporary Perspectives on Psychedelics October 27 New York City, Singularity Summit 2007 Complete Audio Downloads and Kurzweil Video, Peter Max (and a lot more) on lines and colors at blog, Top 10 Video Search Engines, and Remember Jack Kerouac on the Smithsonian Magazine.

You will find navigation on the blog straightforward as the blog offers both left and right navigation systems as well as a very handy top navigation bar. Posts are centralized with the two navigation bars, and are black text on white formatting. The header is in red and there is no other specific color scheme which is fine on the eyes as the blogger offers a lot of other features to the blog to add color and life to the blog. The top navigation system is very handy with each link opening up in a new window, and offers links for Home, About, Writings, Links, Everything Bruce, Blogroll, Archives, Search, and Subscription methods. In the left sided left navigation bar you will find the About Page, Vision Thing Widgets, an extensive categories menu, software downloads, AdSense, Everything About Bruce Eisner (publications), Bruce Eisner on the Blog Critics Blog, Mind Media Blog topics, and Deal of the Day. In the right sided navigation system you will find a Google search bar, AdSense, Subscription info, Archives pull down menus both by month and by category, Recent Comments mnu, Swicki search bar and tag cloud, Bruce’s other sites menu, Amazon ads, Blog widget buttons, and more AdSense.

I am going to give this blog a 3/5 with my biggest suggestion being some clean up and organization of the advertising. There is so much advertising that it is affecting many aspects of blog scoring criteria. The ads are extremely distracting from what appears to be very well written content. The excess ads also affect the appearance scores as well. Navigation would be improved with a recent posts menu, though otherwise navigation is very easy on this blog. The content is well done but again, it is difficult to focus on this with the amount of advertising that is currently there. The activity ranges from a week between posts to a couple of days, but it does seem to be picking up. I am not sure what the readership is currently as there are not a lot of comments, though this sometimes is not a reflection of readership. I think if the activity was picked up a bit and the appearance organized a little more efficiently, this blog would be a very good read and this would be reflected in the readership.

-Chrissie

In this day and age, eco-friendly and global warming are very quickly becoming household terms. With that, many people will find The Conscious Earth blog very interesting particularly if they are inclined to swing politically on the matter. On this blog you will find earth-centered news for the health of air, water, habitat, and the fight against global warming. The author of this blog is 32 year old Odiyya who hails from Vancouver, British Columbia. You can read about his passion and prepare to be inspired through his most recent bloggeries: Canada faces lawsuit over Kyoto Failure; Canada to accept nuclear waste; Whale dies from ‘Old Age’; Leaders to agree to aspire to stop global warming; Think Tank calls for an end to Green Taxes; A victory over Iceland Whaling; Western States, BC and Manitoba join in Climate Goal; Think CO2 is ‘Just Plant Food”? Think Again.; The 11th Hour Opens Tomorrow; and Airplanes Automobiles and Emissions.

You will find navigation on this page very simple. Posts are right marginalized and there is a left navigation system. Posts are black text on a white background using a politically themed header from blogspot. Each post contains either a relevant picture or video to accompany it, giving the content an even greater appeal than it already has. In the left navigation system you will find the About page, a feed burner that currently holds 336 readers, Top Posts menu, Email Subscription link, Advertising Butons such as ‘Click for the Forest’ or ‘Vote for Me’, a list of great sites including ‘Inconvenient Truth’ and Real Climate, a Must Reads menu, Archives going back to May 2006, Headlines from the Blogosphere where related blogs can add their feed, Blogroll titled ‘Earth Conscious Friends’, and a series of Blog Buttons for science blogs and Top Science Blogs. I do note that there are labels on each post, but there is currently no Categories Menu associated with the blog.

I will go with a 3.5/5 for this blog and note that it is probably the activity hurting the score for the blog the most right now. Posts are currently ranging every couple of days to weekly and I think more frequent updating would make this already popular blog even more so. These posts score well for content as they all contain excellent quality writing that speaks to the readership in a moving, inspiring way. I would also recommend that the blogger maximize his About Page to connect with the readers a little bit more. I also think a Categories Menu would benefit this blog’s navigation, as this blog is such a unique niche with so many elements that Categories would organize the concept as a whole that much better. However the blog is doing very well judging by its active and full feedburner and regular comments. With this I might suggest the blogger consider monetizing the blog a little with some advertising or AdSense as I would guess he would do very well with it. Overall however I think the blog is doing very well and is available to the readership and public at a very timely season and given this, it will more than likely see continued success.

-Chrissie