Imagine going to a mall and attempting to have a conversation with every single person you ran into: pedestrians, people you see in line, employees, custodians. It would be exhausting! Filtering through blogs is much the same: you end up learning the credentials of a person but never building a rapport. Every once in a while, an awesome blog, full of character and interesting ideas, pops up on your screen and after realizing it's uniqueness, the conversation has to end in order to meet more Mr. and Mrs. Smiths.
Pouring over Ebay's Blog was particularly painful. The voice style used by the writers seems so forced; like a person in their '40s trying to use modern slang: It just doesn't work. The page formatting was also fairly bad. It can be seen in the screen shots that there is so much monitor-real-estate to be used, but all of the information is, instead, crammed into a thin column that is stuffed full of links, pictures and advertisements. I would forgive formatting failure if the writers only seemed sincere.Google, being the massive corporation that it is, has little license to venture outside of the creative box. Keeping the tone on the straight-and-narrow minimizes the chances for lawsuits and maintains the necessary credibility: nobody wants to see their doctor in a pair of cargo shorts. Despite the flat tone, the degree to which the writer cares about Google's product is easily seen (such as when fighting for users' privacy, providing support for the flood victims in Jakarta and encouraging child creativity.) Finding good writers is easy. Finding good writers that genuinely LOVE what they are writing about is not, and the combination makes even the most boring statistical blog entry enjoyable to read. It's worth admiring.
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| Expect to see things like this... |
The first page was devoted to a blog called The Everywhereist. This blog is written by the female-half of a traveling couple. The writer constantly switches between hyper-conversational and business-casual tones, though she does this without detracting from the readability of the piece. She will begin a piece by articulately describing the appeal of a diner that her and her partner just visited, then end with:
"Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to go hug a penguin. Not sure if that's allowed, or what. But I'm gonna do it."
Every tone has it's purpose in a piece, and this writer's wonderful execution of tone specificity is excellent.
As I begin to delve deeper into the bowels of blogging, it's becoming more and more readily apparent that it's an act of spinning plates: a non-stop stream of information will dehumanize the blog entirely, whereas using the blog to be a personal soap-box will turn the blog into a glorified pop star's twitter feed.
Spinning, spinning, spinning....
Kyle,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your introduction as it painted a perfect picture in my mind and drew me into to the rest. I could not agree more with you about the Ebay blog, I fought myself to try and continue reading but just didn't have anything for me with that post. Enjoyed how descriptive you were with the other blog discussions and look forward to continue reading your newer posts.
Great job here. Accessible layout that makes reading this easy and enjoyable. Your tone is a perfect blend of casual/professional that infuses developed, critical thinking with your personality. You are off to a great start!
ReplyDeleteKyle, this was an awesome blog. Like Prof. Murphy said your right on! Its on that border so do we dare call it risque. After reading your past blogs up to this point I see your blogs as a secret indulgence. 50 shades of Kyle!
ReplyDeleteKeep up the good work.