Reviews

Here is a blog that anyone who enjoys gaming of any kind can and will appreciate, and it is appropriately named Game Addicts. The owners of this blog are self proclaimed gaming addicts and spend a lot of time not only playing, but coding games as well. With this blog they can add writing about games to their resume as well. The blog is very well written and hosts authors directly involved in the game industry and has credits from international press that puts them in an excellent position to report on the very latest gaming news. Their mission is ‘to report on the latest gaming industry news and play addictive games en route’. You can see they accomplish this mission very well through any of their recent bloggeries: Rumors of New Xbox 360 Bundles Afloat, Halo 3 sets New Entertainment Record, New PS3 Coming our Way?, Halo 3 Could Fire Microsoft to the Top, Pelican Controller Charging Station for the PS3, Burnout Paradise Confirmed, Eye of Judgement Priced, Shocked Three Times Over, Super Mario Galaxy Leaked, and Could Rumble be on its way for the PS3?.

You will find navigation on this site very easy as the site has a clean well organized design. The theme is white text on blue background and links are highlighted in fluorescent green and blue which is well in line with the gaming theme. There are two let sided navigation systems and bloggeries are right marginalized. In the far left navigation bar you will find a categories menu, latest posts menu, subscription options, affiliate links, and fave sites menu. In the right navigation system you will see AdSense that is very well blended with the overall theme of the site. There is also a top menu that contains a Home link, About page, and Contact information for the blog. Almost every post contains excellent pictures or graphics to add relevancy to the post and adds a dimension of meaning to the content. And given the gaming nature of the blog, the pictures are well in line with what gamers would expect and are of excellent quality. The blog also offers a Game Addicts Forums section where Games Addicts fans can meet with fellow gamers, coders, or game designers.

I will go ahead and give this blog a 4.5/5, it is clearly doing very well and there is little that I can offer as far as improvement would be concerned. The blog scores perfectly on all criteria with its excellently written content and easy to navigate layout. The blog also is very aesthetically appealing, and while this sort of theme may be difficult on the eyes for some blogs, it fits very well with the overall theme of the blog and it blends in beautifully. Navigation is so easy on this blog it deserves nothing less than perfect scores, and the same goes for Activity with its regular content that clearly keeps the needs of addicts met. If you are a fellow gamer, this is one blog you definitely want to keep an eye on as I see nothing but continued success for this site.

-Chrissie

Those little widgets have the right idea by making quality content / products easily accessible. You have a great blog but you should make your older content more accessible than just browsing through categories which are quite long at this point. I would also recommend some more content and maybe a photo to your about us page. I wanted to give you 5 but without the search I had to modify Chrissie’s 5 to 4.5.

Discuss this review and many others in our blog forum,
– Rob

Bloggeries is going to look at another personal blog today, and this one belongs to Nathan Pralle, a computer programmer writing from Sheffield, Iowa, USA. The blog is called PhilosYphia. Nathan uses this blog as a means to provide his own commentary on life, events, ideas, and throws in the occasional emotional rant or plea as well. He hops that you find something of value here, or at least amusement, which besides using the writing as a cathartic act, is why he writes the blog. You can get to know Nathan better and get to know some of his thoughts, reflections, and rants from any of his recent bloggeries: Cuddle Me Tightly, Let the Little Ones Drink, Images from a Closet Box, How to Revitalize your Refrigerator Door Gasket, 30 Years of Breathing, Distraught Lesbian Parental Woes, If I had Ten Thousand Dollars, My Child’s Freedom Looks Bleak, Looks go a Long Way, and Sometimes I’m such a Male.

The site offers a clean and well-organized design and this makes it very easy to navigate. Posts are centralized and are black text on white background with links highlighted in a green shade and most posts are accompanied by relevant pictures. There is both a left and right navigation bar and a top navigation menu as well. In the top navigation menu you will find the Home link, Email subscription link, Colophon, About Me page, and an ad link for I love my Phone Company. In the left navigation bar you will find a top commenters menu, Other Messes of Words menu, and buttons for where the blog is listed in directories. In the right navigation bar you will find subscribe buttons, latest posts menu, pull down menus for the archives by individual post, and a pull down menu for the categories sections which contains quite an eclectic mix of choices for categories on everything from emotions to marriage to travel and everything in between. You will also find the blog’s monetization through some advertising in this bar.

I will go ahead with a 4 for this blog. I think the blog scores well on just about every criteria. The blog is clearly well liked which is noted through its healthy number of comments in just about every post. If the blogger is interested in monetization I might recommend some AdSense or more advertising to take advantage of this healthy readership. I think the navigation and appearance scores are very good as the site is clean and well organized and thus, easy to navigate. The content scores are good as well with each post being very well written with clear, intellectual content. The only change I would suggest on the content is that the posts be broken down a little as they are currently a little lengthy and wordy. This makes for a long read and the blogger may lose some readers as a result. This could be changed by either breaking down the posts into a few posts over the day or over a couple of days. The blogger is not currently writing every day so the activity scores are hurt a little bit, but again, this could be changed by breaking up posts and spreading them out. Otherwise however, the blog is well written and aesthetically appealing and this all clearly sustains a healthy readership. With its wide range of topics it appeals to a large audience and I think this blog will continue to see its current success.

-Chrissie

If you like reading international blogs, then you will really find this one unique in its own right. The blog is called Trendy Palermo Viejo. The author of the blog is Nancy, previously known as Dalila, and she lives and works in Palermo, Buernos Aires, Argentina. The blog is unique in its own right in that it is the first trilingual blog about shops, restaurants, hotels, places, and events of Palermo Viejo which happens to be the trendiest neighborhood of Buenos Aires, Argetina. She writes the Trendy Palermo Viejo blog because well, trends happen too fast for print so she brings it all to you in three beautiful languages. You can check out any of her recent posts to get a true taste for this trilingual niche: Casa FOA 2007, Today is the World Lymphoma Awareness Day, New Business by Celebrities in PV, Photos by Nancy Kulfas Sept. 11, Jewish Music and Tradition in Palermo, More changes in the neighborhood, Photos from a Neighbor in Buenos Aires Argentina.

The blog is very easy to navigate. Posts are right marginalized and are black text on neutral background with faint pastel polka dots adding just the right amount of color to the background. A few posts have relevant pictures or videos attached, and all posts are written in three distinct languages. I am NOT trilingual so I am not 100% certain what the other two, besides English are, so to prevent errors I will not venture to guess. You will just have to check it out yourself! In the left navigation bar you will find the about page; archives menu going back to 2006; advertising; flickr album; menus for shopping, eating, walking, lodging; map of argentina; blogroll, recent readers widget; and a scrolling menu for recent news in the area. Each post does have labels attached to it, but there is no current categories menu despite the fact that there is space in the navigation system dedicated to a categories section.

I give this one a 4/5 overall, and I think that the activity is hurting the mark the most. Currently the blog is updated every few days to a week at times and the blog would probably score better if there was daily content. I also think the lack of a categories section in a blog of this niche is affecting the mark a little bit. With so many elements to this blog – dining, shopping, etc, this blog would do very well with a categories menu to aid in navigation. The content scores are very good as this blog offers a trilingual approach in absolutely every element to the blog which must be very challenging at times. I find this trilingual effect adds to the uniqueness of both the blog and its niche as well. The readership clearly enjoys this blog which is evidenced by its regular comments and active email feed of 89 readers. I don’t think it would hurt the blogger to add some AdSense or other advertising to the blog to take advantage of this healthy readership and monetize the blog a little more. Overall however, this was a very pleasant and interesting read and I recommend it to anyone that has an interest in international affairs.

-Chrissie