Reviews

For those that enjoy a good tongue in cheek blog, I recommend you check out the Omnipotent Poobah Speaks Blog. The blog is certainly a running commentary and opinion piece on a variety of issues with the blogger being self-proclaimed as the Omnipotent Poohbah or the Grand Maven of all that is media. The blogger ‘speaks the truth’ is ‘all knowing and all powerful’ by his own admissions, and also believes in the “Constitution, Motherhood, and applie pie” in that order. He thinks religion is a wonderful thing as long as you don’t bother him with it, that political correctness should be extinguished, and also that the truest test of democracy is how it deals with its ‘loathsome’ practitioners. Still not sure what the blog is about? I wasn’t so much either, but you receive an invitation from the Poohbah himself to ‘genuflect’ in your own right on what the blog stands for. You can easily do this through any of his recent bloggeries: Randomness: Piggy Style, Blackwater Takes to the Waves, In Defense of the Human Powered Dildo, Humans are always Mucking up the Works, Randomness AARP Style, The Energizer Craphound, and Purge the Surge.

The blog is fairly easy to navigate with a few different navigation systems. Bloggeries are left marginalized and appear in black text on white background with links highlighted in blue. Each post also has relevant pictures attached to it as well. There is a top navigation system that contains menus in pull-down format and these links contain a Pages Link that pulls down to pages for comment policy, contact information, Privacy Policy, Poohbah Toys, and a Photoblog link. You will also find the Archives menu and Categories links in these top pull down menus. The right margin contains two right sided navigation bars. In the left bar contains the blogroll, and in the far right navigation bar you will find a search bar, pull-down Archives Menu called the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Skype links. The blog also contains funny and relevant pictures attached in each post and a good example of this is in the post called “The Energizer Craphound”. I don’t see a Recent Posts Menu in this blog, and given that some of the posts are fairly lengthy, I think one would definitely benefit this blog to add some ease to the overall navigation.

I will go with a 4/5 for this blog as I found it to do very well on almost every criteria for scores. Navigation was very easy with the two right menus and the top pull down menus, though I would suggest the two right sided menus be combined to make one longer right sided menu as due to the little content in each navigation bar, there is a lot of white space on the opening page which affects the overall appearance of the blog. I think moving the two navigation bars into one will fill up the blog a little more and take out some of that white space. The writing is very well done and contains flavor that will definitely appeal to its readership. It also keeps in touch with its readers on a very regular basis which is always beneficial to any blog. The blog has a very obvious healthy readership judging by its wealth of comments, and given this, it may do it some service to monetize the blog a little with some advertising. Overall however the blog is a fun read with some very good tongue in cheek points that I think its healthy readership would find very appealing.
-Chrissie

If you like money, like to talk about money, like to make money, or like to read about money, in an investing and big finance kind of way, then you may want to have a look at the Sharpe Investing Blog. The blog is only a few months old but is doing very well as a means of providing comprehensive information about a variety of finance and investing information. The owner of the blog is Matt, and he is a finance major attending a well-respected business school in the United States. His career objective is to pursue investment banking or asset management. Besides education, his experience lends credibility to the blog topic, as Matt has been investing himself since he was 13 when he started out with a small value mutual fund and he made 60% in the first year. That same year he began pursuing the stock market through a contest at school and as he says ‘performed very well’. He finds that writing and researching this topic has helped him grow immensely in the field, and he wants to enhance this learning process by growing a readership through which, everyone can grow together. You can get a feel for his extensive knowledge in the subject through any of his recent bloggeries: When to Issue Debt Versus Equity, WallStreetOasis.com, Liar’s Poker, LIBOR – London Interbank Offered Rate; In Investing, You Get What you Pay For – Speech by John Bogle, 130/30 Fund Strategies; Merger or Risk Arbitrage Overview; George Soros Theory of Reflexivity MIT Speech; and Theory of Reflexivity.

Navigation on this blog is very easy, as the blog has a clean layout and extremely organized design template. Bloggeries are in black text on white background with blue bordering and blue highlights throughout the blog. The links are in blue highlights and this overall design makes the blog easy on the eyes, and thus, a very easy read. Bloggeries are left marginalized with two navigation bars in the right hand side. In the left navigation bar you will find a Categories menu, advertising, Archives Menu, and a Blog Roll. In the right navigation bar you will find advertising, subscription information, Recent Posts Menu, Recent Comments Menu, and a Top Commenters Menu. You will also find a very handy Top navigation bar where you can access the Home link, About Page, Archives, Contact Us information, Sitemap, and Subscription information. Themes you will find in the categories menu are of course finance related, and range from Alternative Investments, Economics, Personal Finance, Retirement, and many more finance related topics.

I am going to give this blog a 3.7/5 as it does very well on almost all blog criteria. The appearance is excellently managed and makes for a very easy read. Navigation scores are well as well, as this blog has a clean layout and well-organized navigation system. The blogger has also incorporated his advertising enough to monetize the blog without the ads distracting from the blog content. The only area the blog needs some strength is in the frequency of activity. Currently the bloggeries are only coming in every couple of weeks and sometimes even longer in between. Overall however, this blogger clearly understands his content and conveys that in an easy to read yet intelligent manner, and thus with more frequent activity could very easily sustain a nice healthy readership. If you are looking for some sound credible advice on investing or finance, this blog is definitely well worth the read.

-Chrissie

Bloggeries is going to review an interesting personal / sports blog and this one is going to focus on the topic of shark fishing. You can find this blog, called Fishing for Big Sharks. This blog is strictly about shark fishing, and emphasizes that the fishing is for BIG sharks, mostly catch and release. The blogger is known as Christo and writes from Mosselbay, South Africa. You can find out all there is you need to know about Christo and his interest through any of his most recent bloggeries: Light Tackle Boat Fishing, Amazing Shark Video, Back on the Beach and smiling, Violent Great White Shark Attack, Big Fish….Nice Surprise, Getting Withdrawal Symptoms, Fishing the Winter Blues, Hound Sharks at Santos Beach, Sharks Going Wild Again, and Really Bad Weather Again.

Navigation on this blog is very straightforward as the blog is laid out very nicely and well organized. The header contains a beautiful shark picture, and the theme is black text on white background with a blue border lending much oceanic appeal to the entire blog. Links also are highlighted in blue. Bloggeries are left marginalized and there is a right navigation bar that contains an about and profile page, categories menu, AdSense, Google Search Bar, Archives Menu, and a healthy list of fishing and useful sites. You will also find here an extensive list of fish and shark pictures, sunset and nature photos, video clips on fishing and sharks, and some news bulletins pertaining to sharks. The categories menu is very extensive with categories divided into different shark types as well as some categories designated to fishing methods itself.

I will go with a 3 for this blog at this point. At the time of review the blog scores well for navigation, appearance, and content, however activity is really hurting the blog scores right now. This blog definitely needs more frequent updating in order to be a success, as bloggeries are coming in only every few weeks at the moment. When this blog was reviewed, the last bloggery was posted on September 7th. However, this blog is very aesthetically appealing for its niche, and is very well organized and easy to navigate. Adding to the appearance scores for the blog are the extensive and beautiful pictures that the blogger provides in just about every bloggery. If you are a nature lover, you will truly enjoy the aesthetic appeal of this site. The content is well written as well, and given that this is a personal blog, the personal voice the blogger gives to its readers is very well written. If this blogger is able to update his blog a little more frequently, he should see some success from it.

-Chrissie