You're going to want to subscribe to my RSS feed. It's the greatest thing since sliced bread - even better, in fact. You know you want to.

It’s always interesting for me to read the blogs of people my age (14, if you didn’t already know), and Money Makin Guru is no exception. It’s a blog about a twelve year old making money online and all that jazz that comes along with it - SEO, web design, etc. Now, before you go about dismissing that as a “JOHN CHOW CLONEZ!!!11oneoneeleven,” it’s not that bad. Zach’s not a food blogger, for Gods sake!

NOT A CLONE?
Well, for one, Zach’s honest. He doesn’t pretend to get hundreds of thousands of hits and have a truckload of cash. Of course, he wishes he had these things coming in (don’t we all) but he doesn’t lie. Another problem with most MMO blogs is that they are far too vague to get any knowledge out of them. Zach writes in absolutes which take you step by step through his various tips. While the ideas on Money Makin Guru aren’t as innovative or well-written (we’ll get into that later) as some of the advice I’ve read on other blogs, most aren’t generic. I’ve yet to see a “how u maek moneyz with ADSNSE” post on his blog, at least, which makes Money Makin Guru better than all of the MMO blogs that process Shoemoney through their rewriting machine and come out with regurgitated crap.

THEN AGAIN…
One of the things I really hate is when bloggers use their age as a marketing tool. Zach does this as well. Sure, you’re twelve, but is your content any good?

THE ANSWER
One problem plagues Zach that I’ve seen affect most young bloggers - he’s unprofessional. His posts have some grammatical and spelling errors in them (one of his post titles is, “So You Think Your Creative?”) and he often writes very informal, conversational posts that talk about things like which logo design his viewers most like and if this banner ad is better than the other. You’d be hard pressed to find this kind of stuff on Blog Badly, mostly because I think you guys probably don’t care about it - no matter how much you love me - and I find it a bit odd that other bloggers would do this kind of stuff. I would personally just ask a few friends on an instant messenger or Twitter if I needed feedback rather than “wasting” a post. Some refinement in this casual-ness would be a welcome addition to Money Makin Guru.

A FEW MORE COMMENTS

• Currently, Zach brands Money Makin Guru as, well, “Money Makin Guru.” This can be confusing because rather than typing in “moneymakinguru.com” in their browsers, they could type in “moneymakingguru.com.” Money Makin Guru should become Money Makin’ Guru - the apostrophe helps signify that the “g” has been taken off the end.
• The permalink structure on Money Makin Guru isn’t optimized. Zach uses “/%year/%month/%day/%posttitle” instead of “/%postcategory/%posttitle”.
• Money Makin Guru should use the All-In-One SEO program to switch around its titles. Currently, the homepage title is “moneymakinguru.com” - you’re not trying to rank for your website name, right?
• Add an “About” page! Tell your readers about yourself! Seriously, without an “About” page a blogger is no better than a creepy 41 year old that lives in his mom’s basement. That’s not who you are, Zach. Right?

IN SUMMATION…
Refinement is the key word here. Refined posting styles and on-site optimization would do wonders for Money Makin Guru. Zach’s got potential and time, and with some more finesse he can really become what his title implies.

Posted by Max Miroff | 13 Comments »

The most famous 14 year old blogger.

Why do people like reading stuff written by young people? Think about it - there are a bunch of blogs and books with the main selling point being the fact that they are written by kids. There are so many writing contests for elementary, middle, and high school students that let you submit your very own horrendous amazing pieces of literature. All of these contests accept every single piece of writing because they want parents to buy the book compilations. It’s a brilliant selling point, really - apparently, because a 12 year old did it, it makes a short lyric about his dog and a bone that much better.

YOUNG BLOGGER CARL OCAB
Carl Ocab was recently named the top under-21 blogger by RetireAt21. I’m not going to argue that - he’s got a big following - but why do people read his blog? His tag line is “Make Money Online With A 13-year-old.” His age is right there in the title and he enjoys riding that as if it makes his content better. Lets analyze his latest posts:

3 sponsored posts
5 posts he didn’t even write
2 posts full of other peoples content
1 vague post about groceries
1 post with a bunch of pictures of his schoolmates and him
1 post about a contest he won
0 beneficial, money-making posts out of 13.

Yet he still has a crapload of readers. I can only assume it’s because people think it’s amazing a 14 year old can blog. Cool.

Can you explain these phenomena? Do you read any blogs just because a young person writes them? Is it a valid selling point? If I tell you that I’m 14 (I am), will you be more inclined to subscribe to my RSS and read my blog? Please do tell me, because I’m baffled.

Posted by Max Miroff | 20 Comments »

Your World Gallery doesn’t really have a logo, so here’s a handy picture of the website.

Your World Gallery is a blog with art in it - at least, that’s what its “Welcome Message” implies:

“Welcome to the new Your World Gallery. Where you can discover new art works and the artists who made them. We cover a wide range of topics here on this blog as we are active with in our community and want to contribute in any way we can.”

I say implies because it states (directly after the fragmented sentence [+1 point] that tells you it’s an art blog. Welcome messages are the most important things as they are the first a visitor sees - don’t mess them up!) that it covers a wide range of topics. So I suppose it isn’t really a blog about art at all. Imposter!

SO WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT, THEN?
My first impression of Your World Gallery was that it was just your average “blog-about-blogging” blog due to the fact that it had a few posts about contests, Wordpress themes, and the obligatory “post” about credit card refinancing [+1 point]. After further inspection, I actually found some art on the site! Not a lot, mind you, but what was there was… interesting. Most of the content is related to web development, although the content ranges from family to blogging. Your World Gallery definitely isn’t a niche blog - it’s more of a melting pot (the polite way of saying “a bunch of random stuff”). The posts it does have are written conversationally (always a good thing) but do have some minor spelling and grammatical errors which really detract from the blog [+1 point].

IT LOOKS NICE, THOUGH.
It’s true! Your World Gallery looks good - the author, Collin, adds images to most posts and overall the theme has a sleek design that is quite Web 2.0 [-1 point]

BUT THE LAYOUT…
Your World Gallery has a few problems regarding what’s going on in its sidebar. Apparently, Collin loved his categories so much that he included them not once but twice [+1 point]. He also has that weird Wordpress “meta” tab that I’m pretty sure no one ever uses, much like their appendix. But, hey, perhaps he’s found a use for it and is in fact a medical blogical blogging genius. At least he has an RSS button near the top of his page.

THE FINAL VERDICT
Due to Blog Badly’s complex and time-consuming system of tallying points based on 2nd grade mathematics, here’s a recap of what Your World Gallery is.

• The welcome message is messed up! [+1 point]
• Credit card financing. Need I say more? [+1 point]
• Grammatical and spelling errors. [+1 point]
• Looks nice! [-1 point]
• Two categories tabs? [+1 point]

Your World Gallery has potential, but it lacks polish. If it were carefully proofread, the layout improved, and the content a bit more focused, then it could be great. Until then, it receives three thumbs down from Blog Badly (comparatively, this is slightly better than average). Congratulations!

Posted by Max Miroff | 4 Comments »

MOST BLOGS SUCK
It is rare to come upon blogs that are interesting. As well all know, the series of tubes known as the Internet is clogged with a lot of crap. This crap stops the actual good sites from being noticed by the public. Even the crap-sifters (search engines, whatever) sometimes don’t do a good job (why am I not the first result in every search term on Google? Hm?). But, lets get off of this extended craptastic metaphor and move onto the real topic of this post: Mixed Market Arts.

The Mixed Market Arts logo. It advocates kicking other bloggers. It’s also orange and shiny.

There are plenty of blogs online - funny ones, cat ones, camera ones, and blogging ones. Blogs about blogging are pretty much the rats of blogs: they’re normally ugly, smelly, there are millions of them, and occasionally a few get popular (Ratatouille, anyone?). That’s why finding a good one is quite an accomplishment.

MIXED MARKET ARTS
That’s why I’m pleased to present a blog that doesn’t suck - Mixed Market Arts. It covers all the usual AND stuff that isn’t usual. So it pretty much covers it all. The great thing about the content is that Collin (the author) writes about PRACTICAL things. He doesn’t just repeat cookie-cutter posts like “blah blah blah making money online is easy blah blah join these programs blah blah give me your money blah adsense blah blah.” He’s too good for that. He’s written about how to get high PR links from chat boxes. Chat boxes. This is all part of his link building cookbook, possibly one of the most useful things I’ve ever read. Everything on his site is innovative and new - not recycled garbage. If you want to learn anything about blogging, visit this site.

AN ADDED BONUS!
And I might even get paid for writing this! Collin’s giving out $25 dollars weekly by Paypal if his contest and site are mentioned in a blog post. Oh, and I’m supposed to mention something about making money online and blog marketing. Hey, Collin, if you’re reading this: I better get paid. I mean, come on, isn’t this the best review you ever had? I compared you to a rat (kind of)! A RAT! Uh. Anyway. Go to Mixed Market Arts while I think of ways to blackmail Collin.

Posted by Max Miroff | 3 Comments »

One of the photographs from Tales of Kulafunny Koalafumbi Kulafoombi Kulafumbi

Tales from Kulafumbi is a blog filled with pictures of things from Africa. Awesome pictures from Africa, actually. The blog writer, Tanya, lives in Kenya near a national park filled with alligators, hyenas, baboons, and other sorts of friendly safari animals. Tales from Kulafumbi chronicles what goes on during the day which, sadly, does not involve hand-to-hand fights with lions.

 HOW DOES IT LOOK?
In short, great. The blog has a clean, smooth design that utilizes passive shades of grey and green to augment the stunning pictures found on it. The actual images are akin to those one might find on National Geographic and the photographer clearly knows what she’s doing. Everything on Tales from Kulafumbi is so neat that I thought, at first, that I had actually cleared the dust off of my computer monitor (this was not actually the case).

WHAT ELSE IS THERE TO SAY?
Nothing. No, really, this blog has nothing wrong with it. I’m at a loss for words.

Congratulations.

Posted by Max Miroff | 4 Comments »

BradBlogging’s design boasts simplicity. Seriously, it says that it’s “using a simple template to get to what’s important: the content.” Weird headline (+1 point).

BradBlogging is possibly the most innovative and unique blog I have ever read. I mean, come on, a blog about blogging? Can’t get more original than that.

SIMPLICITY IS KEY
After speaking with the owner of the blog for a bit (his name is Brad, amazingly), I learned that he recently had a theme redesign. It focuses on simplicity and usability (even boasting this in the tagline for some reason?) without cluttering itself. This makes my job much, much harder. You see, the theme is very straightforward and yet not boring. It has achieved a perfect balance.

AW, SO I HAVE TO ACTUALLY READ THE CONTENT?
Apparently, I do. Grr. Normally I don’t have to resort to this drastic measure!

Scanning over the posts, I notice the following things:

1. Images are used, and these images are mostly relevant.
2. The content is written concisely, helpfully, and in an interesting manner.
3. Some of the content isn’t the recycled garbage of blogging-about-blogging blogs - it’s unique.

BradBlogging is steeled against my assaults. It’s like trying to beat a wall at tennis.

BECOMING NITPICKY
Time to look at the most absolutely minuscule details to criticize…

1. BradBlogging has no “About” page (+1 point). Therefore, I wouldn’t be able to e-mail him and tell him about his review. All he has is a “Thank you for reading message.”

Actually, you know what? Lets just head right along to the final scoring:

THE BEST YET

The lowest rating yet. Congratulations, Brad!

Posted by Max Miroff | 3 Comments »

The SlamBlogger logo. I wish I knew what it was. It looks like the magic carpet from Aladdin with a crown.

(short synopsis at end)

SlamBlogger is a blog that, according to its search engine description is >he place where the A List bloggers get what’s coming to them.” This apparently translates into the blog author, Ethan Christ, writing poorly supported insults against other blogs (akin to what one might find scrawled onto a middle school bathroom stall). I decided it would be pretty fun to see my own blog get dissed, so I submitted this “cocky message from [me] wanting [Ethan] to talk shit about [my] blog” (in Ethan’s own words):

I knew it’d get him nice and riled up and it definitely did.

LESS PAINFUL THAN YOU MIGHT THINK
It appears that the only things the Slam Blogger could say about my blog were these:

• Your blog is gay.
• Your blog content is crap.
• You suck at writing.

Lets cover these points one-by-one

“BLOG GAYLY”? I DON’T THINK SO
Ethan drew up this fancy schmancy graphic of my current blog logo as he sees it:

Nice, isn’t it? Heck, if he were in Kindergarten I’d probably give him a cookie and a pat on the head! Something tells me that this isn’t the case, though. Oh, and calling my blog “gay” as a derogatory term is pretty much the same as saying its current title, Blog Badly. You can’t really insult a title that insults itself and expect it to work. Calling a blog “gay” as in homosexual is pretty pointless (I’m pretty sure blogs don’t have orientations), too.

BLOG BADLY IS ABOUT BLOGGING BADLY
I’m not sure Ethan knows what satire is, considering this entire blog is one huge glob dripping of parody, humor, and sarcasm (the actual posts, at least. The review aren’t too satirical). The purpose of the blog is to entertain, not inform (after all, who would actually listen to my tips?). Apparently Slam Blogger doesn’t understand this (perhaps that’s why his blog is so bad? :P). His critique of my introduction message further solidifies this point:

(the stuff he circled is the stuff he didn’t like)

I guess if read nothing except for the “pesky visitors” part and interpreted that as me hating you(this visitor), then that might be detrimental. But you know I don’t mean that, don’t you? Hello? Guys?

Oh, and he underlined “gigantic.” I don’t know why, but the likeliest explanation is that he is a midget with a long history of being oppressed by giants. I apologize, my vertically challenged friend.

DO I SUCK AT WRITING?

I don’t think so. According to Ethan, my content is bland and sucks. No examples whatsoever. He just says it and, as we all know, he must always be right.

EIGHT WAYS FOR ME TO IMPROVE

Luckily, I was provided a handy list detailing exactly what I needed to do.

 

1. Don’t give out advice when it’s obvious that you don’t know what you’re talking about.
2. Write better posts.
3. Get a better, less gay, logo
4. Add more color to your site. (Google has more color to it than BlogGayly)
5. Move your banner to the top of your homepage, I barely noticed it way at the bottom.
6. Submit a slam of some other site so you can get another link.
7. Talk shit on your blog, and turn this into an “on-going” slam.
8. 

And what do I think about that?

1. This is like telling The Onion to stop reporting news because it’s completely false. This blog isn’t for learning - it’s for entertainment.
2. That’s a tip for everyone. Any specifics that could apply for me?
3. Will adding Aladdin’s magic carpet (ala your blog) make it any better?
4. My blog has a more expansive color scheme than yours (dark blue, light blue, lighter blue, etc etc.) I don’t think you’re in any position to talk.
5. Well, it’s gone now. You scared it away. Happy?
6. I’ll think about it
7. That’ll be fun.
8. 

Oh, and this is only the first part of Slam Blogger’s review - expect another when I get bored and write the second part [an actual review of Slam Blogger])

Posted by Max Miroff | 5 Comments »

This is not, contrary to popular belief, the cover of the next album by [insert your favorite emo band here]

(synopsis at end)

Underground Unrest doesn’t seem to be underground nor does it fatigue me (get it? Unrest! Unrest = fati- nevermind). Still, you can’t judge from first impressions, so lets take a closer look. Actually, you can judge a book by its cover. Seriously, who thought up that one? A book called “Soviet-era Repression” isn’t going to be about ponies and pixie dust. In the same sense, Underground Unrest probably won’t be about happy things or beds either. Time to investigate!

MORE FIRST IMPRESSIONS
The colors blend quite well overall - grey, white, dark grey, grey, white, grey, grey. Can’t go wrong with that.

You can go wrong with sidebars, though (most blogs do). And Underground Unrest has done just that.

• The right sidebar flows together like a muddled grey river filled with words (+1 point). There are no labellings for “recent comments,” “recent posts,” “tags,” or “blogroll.” I was left scratching my head as to why Mayor McCheese said something about “listening to them…” on the blog.
• Recent visitors sticks out like useless, sore thumb on the left sidebar (+1 point). Awesome, you get visitors from Canada! I don’t care!
• The one thing that might come close to mattering (a “vote for me” badge) is kept on the bottom of the left sidebar below the useless visitor widget (+1 point). If you want votes, put it above the fold. Otherwise it looks like you’re too scared to ask.

Oh, and how do I get back to the homepage (+1 point)? The header is not clickable and there is no visible “home” button.

WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?
That’s my one question - what the hell am I reading? There’s no “About” page nor are there any categories (+1 point). Therefore, I can only rely on the tags. Lets see a short sampling: dead, drugs, Britney Spears, funny, the serpent curse. Thanks for clearing that up, Jaden (the blog owner).

It actually has some funny stuff, though. After reading a couple of posts I’ve realized that it’s mainly humor - funny pictures mixed with satirical articles (at least I hope an evil coalition of clowns doesn’t really want to kill America’s children!). I got some laughs out of reading it.

DRUMROLL, PLEASE

Lets tally up the score (every point is a thumbs down!):

1. The sidebar is messy.
2. Recent visitors - who cares?
3. If you want to get votes on Fuel My Blog, display the button more prominently.
4. I can’t get back home!
5. Uhm. What the hell am I reading?

Underground Unrest may not yet have achieved A- B- C-list status, but at least it’s halfway there.

This has been a Bad Blog Review. Want a review of your blog? Just contact me at moneymoose.com@gmail.com or use the contact form. All I ask is some recognition for it. Click here for more details.

Posted by Max Miroff | 2 Comments »

Money News has quite a snazzy logo.

(short synopsis at end)

The first thing I noticed when I visited this site was the domain - MoneyNe.ws. It’s use of the “.ws” domain (from Samoa) is very clever. So clever, in fact, that I’m going to give it -1 point.

ONTO THE DESIGN
Money News has the best design of any blog I’ve reviewed so far (and that’s not saying much). It has a custom logo - always a good addition to a blog - which is almost as good as Blog Badly’s own. In fact, the whole header is quite well made and I have no comments or witty sayings about it. No, really. It’s perfectly fine.

On the other hand, the post formatting has one thing that annoys me - a “Read More” button (+1 point). I don’t want to spend the extra two seconds clicking that to finish reading a post! What’s worse is that these cutoffs appear randomly. On the front page there is a long post with no “Read More” button and a shorter post just above it with one. If you’re going to pick something pointless to do, at least be consistent with it! (+1 point)

WIDGETS YET AGAIN
The sidebars of this blog appear clean at first until I come upon two widgets that I find utterly pointless (+1 point):

• Blog Catalog Recent Visitors. The site is great and all, but who cares?
• Scratchback. It’s like buying text links except you don’t get any Google love for them (it’s nofollow).

Space could be better spent on anything, really. Perhaps Mitch (the owner of the site) should take a look at my post about blog pizazz? I’m sure a dancing World of Warcraft character would make a great addition to his sidebar.

SO HOW ABOUT THAT CONTENT?
Money News is about money news, but not about all money news. It’s about World of Warcrack Warcraft too. About how Mitch makes money from World of Warcraft, actually. He gets paid to play games (as his header prominently states. Lucky) because, apparently, people spend real money on imaginary virtual game money so that they can buy imaginary Gauntlets of +5 Strength for their imaginary Gnome warlock. Heck, sometimes it’s not even about money at all. Money News has at least three posts up with various World of Warcraft commercials. Still, I guess those commercials were bought and produced for money and they made people go to the store and buy Wor-

Okay, so it’s about money.

SO, IN SHORT…
I really can’t talk smack about Money News. It’s overall a good blog. But, for the convenience of you, my esteemed reader, lets run over the points:

1. Good use of the “.ws” domain name! -1 point
2. Egh. What if I don’t want to “read more”?
3. What if I do want to “read more,” and you don’t consistently include it - even if the posts you include it on are short while the posts that are long don’t include it…
4. Useless widgets. Replace them with pizazz!

And, using the one-point-equals-one-thumb-down system, Mitch’s blog scores a…

Money News is heading down the path to success. It must be stopped.

This has been a Bad Blog Review. Want a review of your blog? Just contact me at moneymoose.com@gmail.com or use the contact form. All I ask is some recognition for it. Click here for more details.

Posted by Max Miroff | 2 Comments »

The VVIDE logo. It’s… uh… blue, I guess.

(short synopsis at the end)

VVIDE almost confused me with its title. Almost. But, alas, I was too clever for its tricks. It is not actually “Wide,” but is V-V-I-D-E. Nice try, you evil blog! But your dastardly schemes are foiled again!

WHERE AM I?
VVIDE doesn’t feature too many navigational choices. I don’t see recent posts or popular posts, no sir. I just see archives and categories (+1 point). Even the link that leads back to the homepage is a ninja - it hides until I move to a page other than the homepage and, once I am there, stealthily turns into a shade of inconspicuous clickable orange from a static black (+1 point). The header is not clickable either. At least the design of the blog matches this theme of desolation - the stark grey background combined with the blurred header makes it look like an inhospitable tundra (+1 point).

NO, SERIOUSLY, WHERE AM I?
VVIDE writes about a fairly large amount of topics. I mean this seriously. On the front page are articles about subprime mortgages, angels crying, and people marrying goats. I can’t even make a joke up for that. That is the joke. Still, I have no complaints. Visiting this blog is like reaching into a mystery box.

I THINK I’M LOST
If you want to subscribe to VVIDE’s RSS, then good luck finding it. It’s buried deep underneath all of the content in an unattractive link format (+1 point). By the time you get there, you’re already wondering what you were trying to accomplish.

WAIT, I RECOGNIZE THESE LANDMARKS
Widgets! Lots of them! Lots of widgets I don’t want (+1 point)

1. Some sort of TopSpots widget. I’m supposed to pay to get on it. There are way better ways of monetizing your blog than this service, seeing as how it doesn’t even provide any link love. It’s empty, by the way.
2. BlogCatalog recent visitors. It’s great seeing my avatar on your blog, but who really cares? It seems like it’s just filler.
3. Total visitor counter. Although less obtrusive than others I’ve seen, it seems unnecessary. But hey, if that’s what you like, sure.

IN SHORT…
Lets tally up the points:

1. Wha? Where do I go?
2. How do I get to the home page? Why can’t I click on your header? Arghh!
3. The colors seem desolate.
4. I want to subscribe. But how? Where? Why don’t you have a generic shiny graphic?
5. Whats up with the pointless filler widgets?

VVIDE gets 5 thumbs down. It’s halfway good and halfway bad. It’s like Humpty Dumpty sitting on his wall. VVIDE just needs a nudge in either direction to get going.

This has been a Bad Blog Review. Want a review of your blog? Just contact me at moneymoose.com@gmail.com or use the contact form. All I ask is some recognition for it. Click here for more details.

Posted by Max Miroff | 3 Comments »