Feedback on your Blog

As I noted I will be providing you feedback on your blog project to date, beginning end of day wednesday, October 19. Thus you have until that time to make any adjustments to its overall design and content. For your reference here is the original project scope for the blog project. As you will note in the syllabus, this review will comprise a third of your grade for the overall blog project.

Details that I will be paying particularly close attention include:

• Overall theme of blog: and how it ties to a specific target audience. Thus it should be clear when viewing the blog what the blog is about and who is its potential 'readership'. For some blogs it will be obvious, for others, it may require a little explanation (in the left hand column of the template).
  
• Content with respect to your entries. I will be looking at the frequency of entries, the 'usefulness' of the entries (especially as they relate to the first point above), and the writing style of the entries (use of good english). I will also be looking for relevant links included within your entries.
  
• Content with respect to your template. I will be looking at the resources you have added to your template and how relevant they are to your target audience and the overall purpose of the blog. These resources should include links to at least five of your classmates' blogs and links to other relevant blogs (relevant to your blog theme). These resources should also include links to your contact information and your wiki work (note, I realize your wiki work may be unrelated to the theme of your blog, but nonetheless it should be linked to your blog). These resources should include sitemeter (This will allow you to determine not only the amount of traffic you are receiving but more importantly where that traffic is coming from so you can identify other resources that link to your blog and reciprocate the link, building community.)
  
• Additional Content with respect to your template. As you progress through the semester I will be looking for you to add further resources to your template. You may consider these now if you wish. Google Adsense (if your blog is informational in nature, and it makes sense to offer advertisements to your target audience, then the google adsense program can allow you to do this); amazon associates (your blog can become an e-commerce site quite easily by enrolling in this program).
  
• Overall Design. I will be assessing the overall look of your blog as it stands now. Are the resources you have added to the template well ordered ? Make sure it is clear in terms of their headers and so forth. There are other opportunities for you to add to the design of your blog as we proceed through the semester, but for now I am focusing on how 'clean' the site looks.
  
• I will also be reviewing your bloglines subscriptions. I will be looking at consistency with your links on your blog as well as other outside resources you are subscribed.
  

I will focus on the commenting aspect of the blog project after this feedback. Feel free to use the comments section here to ask questions about this feedback, or e-mail me directly.