Friday, June 25, 2010

Maybe There Should Be A Consequence?

Folks, here's the deal right now. Completely unrelated to my part-time gig here at AAYSR, this has been a brutal two weeks. Long-nights-and-red-flags brutal. I mean, people have fucking died, man.

So if I come across as a bit curt or abrupt, I mean, more so than usual, don't take it personally.

Not this time.

But it does mean that I just need to cut to the friggin' chase here, and tell you about my friend Roschelle, and her Inconsequential Logic. (Side note: What the hell is that supposed to mean anyway? Are we supposed to dismiss you out of hand, because you're Inconsequential? Or are you being ironic?) Roschelle has been blogging a long time. A looooooong time. Since 2004, if you believe her.

Which you kind of have to. Because there's no way to get back all the way to the beginning to see when she began and what she sounded like way back then. Because she has no archive navigation at all. Other than this little roulette wheel type thingy where you click it and it serves up a random post. First couple days I was reviewing what she had to say, I thought that was kind of fun. But that fun wore off.

And I still couldn't get to the beginning.

As a reviewer, very little chaps my ass more than making getting the big picture a damn puzzle.

I pulled it up in Google Reader. Which took me back to October 11, 2009. In which I learned about splogs. Which I already knew about, I just didn't know they had a name. She then spends a lot of time blogging about blogging and social media. Not so much about content as much as about mechanics. In short, she came off sounding a bit like the back section of Reader's Digest, where they give you little bite sized tid-bits, but not full on articles.

And sure, that's probably someone's cup of treacle. Just not mine.

So, yeah, I skipped ahead, back to the present day. Luckily at some point along the way, she stopped writing exclusively about blogging and started writing about other stuff, but it still seemed like for every post that was what I'm in this whole blogging thing for, there were ten that were genuinely, to me, inconsequential, to use her own word.

Roschelle is pleasant enough. Does, generally, nothing particularly wrong. But I was not engaged. I was not especially amused. It wasn't a chore to read her writing, but it wasn't enrapturing either. I sort of felt like I was being held at arms length, away from the more challenging subject matter, the more humanizing material. And I'd say that's the one thing I'd suggest to Roschelle about her content -- bring more of herself to it.

I mean, seriously, she wrote an entire post about Father's day, doing a twist on it and stuff, without telling me anything about her, her mom, or her dad.

Unless that's not what she's in it for. All the clutter and gadgetry in her template does lead me to believe that she may be in it for the click-throughs and follows and all of that shit. But if she is trying to engage readers more, she should work on that opening up thing a bit more.

Oh, yeah, and about that template? Normally, I'm the guy who doesn't pay attention to that. As long as I can read the text and can find the navigation, I don't care what your template looks like. But right now, all the doodads and hoohahs all over this thing make it look like a teenage girl's bedroom. In cases like this, Roschelle, less is very much more.

All told, this whole thing adds up to this... One large, full-fledged "MEH."



I think you have it in you to get a star or two, but as the Smiths say, you just haven't earned it yet, baby.

9 comments:

  1. I clicked for a "random post" and this came up:


    "There is no rocket science required to know what makes a blog stand out from the crowd. It's the content. Good quality content is one of the best things you can provide your readers."

    I'm no rocket scientist, but I think that's what they call irony.

    ReplyDelete
  2. People have died? That just plain sucks.

    That background looks like an Aussie Wogs bathroom circa 19... I dunno, sometime when they used butt ugly marble a lot.

    Tried to have a read but if I have to go more than two pages to find something to hook me in, it is too far.

    I know people don't like too much dense text but there is also such a thing as too many breaks.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I hit the random button too and got the following:

    - an invitation to a yahoo meme.

    - a youtube video and a couple lines of text of minimal interest.

    - blogging tips with the following:
    "Some blog for fame; others for fortune and most importantly many blog as a means of self expression. As hi-tech as blogging has become, it's still all about conversation and opinion."

    In three strikes I saw no self-expression or interesting conversation whatsoever. So, she's out.

    Maybe it's just me, but I'm not really interested in reading about blogging. Well, with the exception of reading this blog, but that's because you people entertain the hell out of me.

    ReplyDelete
  4. In a single evening, waiting for something interesting to happen in my life, I clicked the Random Post widget probably about 25 times. In that span, I saw one or two items that elevated her above a "You're doing it wrong."

    Not a great percentage, but a sign that she has it in her.

    ReplyDelete
  5. And I have now notified her.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I just received my notification! Completely forgot I'd set myself up for this but your words and the others shared in these comments were well worth the wait.

    To sum it up: I'm kinda boring, in it for the click-throughs, have a template that resembles vomit in a girly girl's room. Yet, there's hope that I can PRODUCE.

    Aside from the comment about the click-throughs, you're all pretty much spot on!

    Thanks for a real 'I-will-tear-you-fucking-apart review!

    Now...to go forth and turn this thing into at least a star or two!!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Vomit in a girly girl's room?

    Oh puke ...

    ReplyDelete
  8. working hard to re-invent myself. Layout, giving readers a sense of me, adding a "navigational" archive...even changed up the template.

    In the words of Patti LaBelle ....'I Gotta New Attitude'

    ....(drops the microphone and leaves the stage to a thunderous applause)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Well, that went better than expected. I was interested to read about the development of a female version of viagra. I have two (middle-aged white suburban) friends who will probably welcome it with open arms, since both are bemoaning the fact that menopause killed their sex drive.

    ReplyDelete

Grow a pair.