Post #3: In Which I Evaluate More Blogs

Oh, hi there!

Last post I reviewed several blogs from the realm of academia. This post: we'll look at blogs from different categories within the blogosphere. So, without further ado:

ENTERTAINMENT - Perez Hilton
Perez Hilton's self-titled gossip blog has become a sort of cultural phenomenon in recent years. It's white on pink scheme and large photos with Perez's doodlings have become instantly recognizable. Upon my first perusal, it's hard to see what's appealing here. The stories are short and generally uninformative. Example: Lindsay Lohan is looking rather thin. Lohan's friend: "She at two full meals!" Perez: "Of coke?"

The first comment to this post reads: "She doesn't fart enough either!"
This is literally one of the most coherent responses out of the [currently] 53 comments. Seriously. You can look for yourself.

But maybe the point of this blog (and others of the same variety) is its mindlessness. The bite-sized stories and obvious humor requires little thought, and perhaps that is what readers are looking for to distract them from work/school/life.

LIFESTYLE - I Don't Know, What do YOU Want to Eat

This is a relatively simple blog: it's essentially an ongoing, online cookbook. Aesthetically, it doesn't diverge much from a print cookbook - black lettering on a white background, standard recipe format, and pictureless. Also, these recipes are not original, but rather compiled from other online cookbooks. The author occasionally comments to note that the dish is "tasty" or "spicy" or something of that sort. Most posts do not have comments.

So, in general, although you can't really go wrong with recipes for good food, this blog doesn't really provide anything that a traditional cookbook can't.

NEWS/POLITICS - Hot Air
Hot air is rather groovy looking - it's a nice blend of design and content. Below the "Headlines," which is a series of aggregated news stories selected by the website, there is the blog, which is short stories written by a few contributors, often accompanied by pictures of video. Most stories have 100+ comments, which range from absurd to enlightening. The site's stated mission is:

• Expose new viewers to the revolutionary world of videoblogging, animation, and Internet broadcasting;
• Recruit dynamic, enterprising people with creative skills from across the country to help us challenge (and CONQUER!) the dinosaur broadcast media outlets;
• Laugh. Report. Laugh. Entertain. Laugh. Inform. Laugh. Make money. Did we say laugh?

Nice. Hot Air clearly has the goal of utilizing new media technology to further news and politics reporting. Also, as a blog, they have some room to take themselves a little less seriously than traditional news media. News and humor is not an inherently bad thing. See: the popularity of The Daily Show and The Onion. Concluding, even though Hot Air seems to have a slight ideologically right slant, it's pretty fair and is generally a cool site.

SCIENCE/TECH - Geekdad

Geekdad reminds me of many similar science/tech sites. That isn't a bad thing, though. Tech sites seem to inherently "get" how to use new media to its advantage. Geekdad provides a nice mix of image, video, text, and hypertext throughout, while providing readers with up-to-date tech news and little tidbits like humorous videos or science experiments. Though the intended audience is quite clearly "geek," the fluidity of layout and writing style can appeal to anyone. And even though there are over 20 contributors, there seems to be a sort of coherence to the blog. All in all, good geeky stuff.

The End.