Hari's Blog Review: An American Peyote Scribble
Screenshot at time of review
This blog was the second on my list of reviews. I apologize for the delay in publishing this review.
First impressions: I think that the author of this blog is really interested in what he writes about. Some of the topics caught my eye immediately. This is a tech blog, but an unusual techie blog. He doesn't write about the usual technology stuff but about writing, creativity, photography and unique ideas. However, I do find the habit of not publishing the full post on the front page of the blog a bit disconcerting as a reader. To read a full article, I need to click on the topic and follow a link which takes more time. I would suggest that at least the latest topic should be fully published and leave the rest of the articles as merely excerpts.
Some of the concepts presented might scare off new readers, but it seems obvious that the author has a logical and concise way of expressing ideas. This topic about writing workflow is a good example.
The theme is fairly unique and different as you might expect with this author. The three column theme doesn't overwhelm in terms of navigation and the About page is all right without revealing too much personal information. This is perfectly acceptable as I fully respect and understand authors who feel uncomfortable with personal information like I do myself. If there is one criticism of the theme, I think that there are too many links on the left-sidebar. Again, I don't quite understand why blog writers have to use "community widgets" because it doesn't exactly enhance the navigability of the website. I would have preferred a date-based archive link too.
On the whole, I think this writer has taken the trouble to set up a fairly unique site. It has more than a blog, because the author also has also set up a "store" to sell items. There is also a contact form and a "support" link like a lot of commercial websites which shows me that the author is keen on earning some revenue through the site.
I myself find some of the ideas interesting, but I do wish the blog navigation was more standardized because there are too many external links in the sidebar. It's not just a personal website though – it has the elements of a corporate website which might take away something from the personalization, but the content offered is unique and different. I normally don't give ratings, but on the professionalism scale, I would give this blog a 4/5.
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hari,
Thanks for taking the time to write up a review of my blog. It's interesting to see the perspective of a reviewer. I'm always looking for new things to try with blogging, mainly because it's an interesting platform for experimentation.
An example of this is the question of monetization, I like the idea of making money with my blog, but putting up ads which distract from the design and content would be counter productive. I set up the Amazon store to see if it might be successful in the long run to pay for the hosting costs, but I also like the idea of promoting products which I generally feel are useful and would enrich the lives of my readers. Of course, the probability of a casual reader buying an ice climbing tool is probably very low.
Your comments on site navigation and links are quite helpful, I've been thinking of reorganizing my links for some time now, and will eventually make a specific links page and a separate blog roll. Publishing full posts on the front page is another aspect I've been debating. One the one hand it seems good because more posts can be placed there to scan through, on the other hand I agree that it's nicer to have the full post, so that less effort is needed to first scan through, and then read if desired.
APScribble was originally a personal blog, but its focus probably changes month to month, depending on what I'm interested in at that point in time. Right now I'm finishing up more articles on creativity and work flow, but will soon get back to posting some digital camera articles.
Again, thank you for your review.
-mark
No problem. Was a pleasure reviewing your blog because it is different from a lot of blogs I usually read and I had things to write about.