A blog to be idealized

The thing you instantly notice about this site is the bright pink banner across the top with the sites name on it. I don’t really understand the meaning of the sites name, “we make money not art”, but it is an interesting title none the less. The author of the page is a media art consultant and writes about the intersection of art and technology. The page seems pretty straight forward, with a plain white background and black text. Pictures are incorporated into every post a number of times and I found I liked the pictures more than I thought I would. The visual stimulation keeps interest in the story and also breaks up the writing. I think I will try to include pictures more often from this point out.

One very cool feature I found on this site was each post had a few link boxes above linking you to other posts with the same topic or from the same writer. This blog has one main writer, Regine, and several contributing authors. These buttons were very convenient because if you had an interest in what the blog was about you didn’t have to search through the rest of the site trying to find other posts on the subject. Each post also contained a number of hyperlinks, though they weren’t in the traditional blue and underlined format. The only difference was that they were in bold, which I think was not noticeable immediately. I only realized these were links after my mouse accidentally moved over one of the bold words. I think I will keep the traditional blue underline style since it is so easily recognizable. The layout of the blog was very nicely done and easy to use. On the left hand side of the site were the most recent posts. The right hand side was mostly for navigation. It included ways to contact the writer, an ‘about us’ link, links to interviews, and links to all the specific subjects discussed on the page. On the far right hand side of the page were advertisements and sponsor links. I don’t think I really have to worry about where to place my sponsor links, because I don’t really see my blog becoming that popular anytime soon.

The biggest complain I had was the length of the page. To get to the bottom I had to scroll down a very long way. I find it somewhat unappealing when all the navigation and sponsor links end and the writing continues for some time. I think it’s better to have all three sections be about the same length, and have the page just big enough so that you can see most of it without scrolling. I think the maximum should be that you can see half the page on the screen. In this page you could only see 1/20^th of the page without scrolling (I measured). Another thing I noticed was that from the 16^th to the 22^nd, each day had at least one post if not a couple. After the 22^nd there were no new posts. The author is considered a professional blogger, and I just found it strange that she would go a few days without making a post.