Reviews

The next blog that Bloggeries is going to review deals with a sensitive subject matter and readers should take this into consideration when reading the blog. The blog is called PPD Connect. This is a blog for women that have suffered or are suffering from any degree of Post Partum Depression to join, meet, share their stories, raise awareness, and help other moms that are struggling. Post Partum Depression is a psychological disturbance that happens with some women after they have given birth. There are varying degrees of the disorder, which you will find out for yourself when you read the most recent bloggeries: Liz’s Story; Advice for Moms with PPD from Another Mom; Leah’s Story; Lisa’s Story; Amanda’s Story; A Readers Response to the Author’s Story; A new moms story, seeking Welcome to Postpartum Depression Connect. What you will find when you read this blog is story upon story that will touch your heart of real women, with real stories and the struggles they face every day when coping with this psychological challenge. PPD is a real disorder, a real problem, and this blog has been created to reach out to everyone to educate, raise awareness, and help heal.

This blog contains two navigation systems and is very easy to navigate. Bloggeries are centralized with black text on white background and links are highlighted with pink. In the left navigation bar you will find links on how to submit a story, Categories menu (containing only one category – stories), and a Recent Comments Menu. In the right navigation bar you will find a disclaimer about the claims of the blog, Learn More about PPD Menu, PPD Resources, and information on Support Groups. The blog is strictly stories and content so there are no associated pictures with the posts, and as of the time of review, the blog does not have an about page, though the blog is fairly self-explanatory.

I will give this blog a 3.4/5 for now and offer a few suggestions for the blogger so they may see some growth to the blog. At this point, there is only one category in the categories menu, and I do recommend the addition of more categories to ease navigation of the blog. The blogger could make use of additional categories for not only navigation purposes, but for traffic as well. With so many degrees of PPD, the blogger could add ‘Post Partum Psychosis’, ‘Baby Blues’, and things of that nature to sort the stories out for the reader. I also suggest the blogger use keywords in the titles of headlines for the same purposes, it eases navigation, will bring in more traffic, and sorts the stories. Adding keywords like ‘Post Partum Psychosis’ to relevant headlines for the bloggeries would make a tremendous gain on the navigation of the blog. Content is well written, and has the potential to move the readership to action which is the goal of written content. While I recognize that the point of the blog is based on story submission, I do recommend the blogger allow the readers some editorial rights to edit the submissions as some of them are not that easy to read. There was for example one bloggery I read where a run-on sentence lasted about 5 or 6 lines. By using editorial status on the submissions without affecting the integrity of the story, the blogger may make her posts easier to read on the readership. The blog is also new from what I can tell, though without an archives menu it is hard to guage this. With newness, comes a lack of blog meat for any blogger, and I suggest for Appearance sake the blogger move the navigation bars into one navigation bar for the time being to ease up on some of the white space of the blog. Overall however, this is an excellent blog with a unique niche. If it follows some of these suggestions, and works on continued improvement, it should do very well. This blog has a large target audience and with its quality content has the potential to really hit the mark with its readership and see tremendous success.

-Chrissie

Fruit lovers are going to love this next blog! This blog is all about fruit plain and simlple. The blog is called Fruit Species, and is run by blogger known as Fruity. Here at this blog you will be able to find all kinds of fruits from all over the globe, including exotic and rare fruits. The blog is not a blog about the most ordinary of fruits, and you will find information here on any kind of exotic fruit found anywhere in the world. Each bloggery is accompanied by a beautiful picture of something you have likely never seen or heard of before. To see these for yourself, check out Fruit Species most recent bloggeries: FRUIT Thumbnails, Passion Fruit (Purple Rind), What’s Your FIVE Favorite Fruits, Dragon Fruit (White Flesh), Hardy Kiwifruit, Pulasan, and Cape Gooseberry.

The blog is formatted a bit differently I think, and there are some navigation issues with the blog. Bloggeries are left marginalized and are in white text on a dark green background which creates a perfect background for a fruity theme. Each bloggery also is accompanied by a beautiful picture or set of pictures of fruit, which are only enhanced by this color theme. The blog has a right navigation system that contains a Google Search Bar, About and Profile Information, AdSense, Top Page Views Since Sept. 13th Menu, Blog Widget (currently not working), Top Favorite Fruits Voted by 50 Surfers Menu, a Fruit Menu which is a list of 25 fruits and essentially functions as the Categories Menu, Fruit Recipes, Blog Reviews, Food Blog Links, Top 30 Commenters Menu, Blog Directories buttons, and Blog Visitors Widgets. There are some other blog features as well which seem to be floating around where a left navigation bar might be, but they are formatted way at the bottom of the blog. This problem was not rectified by switching to Firefox to view the blog so the blogger may want to look into this. In this section contained subscription info for the blog, technorati links, and Blog Awards. I would suggest moving subscription buttons into the right navigation bar near the top so that new readers can have easy access to it, as this may help with subscription stats at this point. New readers may be missing this with its current location.

I will give this blog a 3/5 and right now it is mostly formatting that is affecting the score. The appearance of the blog is lovely and scores well, the theme is very appealing to the niche the blogger is writing about. The content is done well as well, and is extremely informative to the readers of the blog. Navigation again does have some issues as previously mentioned. Activity is not as frequent as it could be, and I imagine it might be difficult finding regular content on this topic. I might suggest to get more traffic to add daily content to the blog if possible. Suggestions for possible content would be fruit recipes, fruity drinks, and so on with any of the blog’s featured fruits. Overall however, this is a unique blog that is doing well with its concept as a foundation and a clearly established readership. Should the blogger be able to do some tweaks with the formatting and update a little more often, its success can only grow.

-Chrissie

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If you are a movie buff, then you definitely want to check out this blog that is dedicated to movies. The blog is called Tomorrow’s Entertainment. This blog is a blog dedicated to becoming a premier destination for both the casual movie goer, as well as the proficient movie buff. Tomorrow’s Entertainment provides its visitors with news, previews, and reviews on anything related to Movies, Television, or Entertainment related. The blog will be soon pursuing Television Series, Games, Books, Comics, and Music News, but is currently dedicated to reviewing upcoming movies. You can see this for yourself by looking at any of their most recent bloggeries: Bee Movie Review, Margot at the Wedding Review, Stop – Loss, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins Update, Book Review – V: The Second Generation, and Punisher: War Zone Update.

The blog is professionally laid out and this makes it very easy to navigate. I do suggest for easier navigation to use Mozilla Firefox when viewing this blog. Bloggeries are centralized with white text on a black background and menus are bordered in maroon. The blog header is designed after a movie ticket stub, so ‘Admit One’ when entering Tomorrow’s Entertainment which I thought was very clever. The blog contains both a left and right navigation system, as well as a top navigation bar. In the top navigation bar you will find links to Home, News, Previews, Reviews, Movies, Television, About, Contact, and Advertise. In the left navigation bar you will find Recent Articles Menu, Archives Menu, and site stats accompanied by Subscription links. In the right navigation bar you will find Awards, Recent Viewer widget, and blog directory buttons. You will find also a comprehensive Categories Menu that lists categories such as Books, Fan Short Films, Interviews, Movies, News, Other, Previews, Remake, Reviews, and so much more. Each bloggery is also accompanied by relevant pictures from or showcasing the movie in question.

I will go ahead and give this blog a 4/5. The blog is doing well on all counts of scoring criteria. The blog has been professionally designed which makes navigation very easy and earns it excellent appearance scores. Navigation scores are high due to the content of all essential blog meat that readers like to see – About page, categories, recent articles, and etc. All of these things make navigation on any blog much easier. Activity scores are not bad, bloggeries are coming in every couple of days it seems, and some days even contain more than one entry. The concept of the blog is standard, however it is presented in a unique fashion that gives the blog some creativity. Content is well-written and I had no issues with the content however the context of the content needs to be looked at, and this definitely affect content scores.The blog has a copyright disclaimer claiming all content is original, but upon closer examination of the content it in fact was not 100% original. I saw almost identical reviews on other websites, and the blogger needs to be wary of this. Not only is he claiming 100% originality, but there are some content issues. If the blogger has writers working for him, he may need to double-check their reviews. Otherwise my suggestion would be if the reviews are taken from somewhere else that those sources be cited at the end of every review. This will protect the owner of the blog from any infringement issues. Otherwise, the choice of content is excellent, and I found it to be an easy read that would be very appealing to movie goers. Overall I enjoyed visiting Tomorrow’s Entertainment, and as a movie buff myself, expect to see myself returning.

-Chrissie