Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Do you judge a blog by it's cover?



You know that saying right? "Don't judge a book by it's cover, it's what's inside that counts". Sage words, but hard to follow. With so many books out there, the cover art is a quick and easy way to pick a book. I do it- I see a cover I like and I'll pick it up, see what the jacket says, see if the interest that the cover generated extends to the description. Of course, if the jacket fails to keep my attention the book goes back. I wouldn't buy a book based solely on the cover, but I won't deny that the cover is what pulls me in initially. I've been perusing alot of blogs lately- participating in memes, looking for new books to add to my to-read list and getting ideas for new authors to check out. I've come to find, that first blush way of picking books seems to extend to the way I look at blogs.

Like books, blogs come in all shapes and sizes. Some are minimilist, giving you the facts and nothing but the facts. Some are works of arts, combining their reviews with music, art and high quality design. Some, like mine I'd argue, are somewhere in the middle- a premade background, a banner that was cobbed together by the blogger and a hodgepodge of information- aimed mostly to entertain the author of the blog. I'd have to argue that that first glance you get when you open a blog really affects whether you read on or not. I've closed many blogs without even reading what they have to say, simply because the layout and design didn't catch my attention. Totally unfair probably, but completely true.

Why do we do that? I'm probably missing a ton of good blogs just because the design didn't appeal to me. I should try to break that habit. What about you guys, anyone else make the msitake of judging a blog (or a book) by it's cover?

5 comments:

  1. Great post! I have been doing a lot of blog surfing lately, mostly because I have really stepped up my interest in blogging on my own blog. Usually what I look for when I visit a new blog is some common interest. Something that speaks to me and keeps me interested. I love looking at the different formats and styles, and I know what you mean about some blogs just looking boring--I might have even closed a few of those myself. Lately, however, I have been looking at the content, since that is more important to me. Do I like their reviews, do we have similar tastes in books, are the reviews well written, etc... That is what I have been looking for lately.

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  2. I somewhat agree with you. I am turned off by blogs that are too busy. I saw one in which you couldn't read the content because the background was dark and so was the font. Generally, I look at the content, if they've enjoyed some of the same books that I have, I'll stick around.

    I have to admit that my own presentation is something that I'm still working on. Right now my blog is very minimalist. I have been doing this for two months and am still trying to figure out what works.

    If anyone has any suggestions on how to improve my blog, please let me know.

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  3. you should have seen the first version of this blog- it was horrid (I should have screen capped it!)- I think it's alot of trial and error. I got my background from cutest blog on the block.

    I think minimilist is good- it's those "too busy" ones that turn me off!

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  4. When I go blog scanning I tend to gravitate towards ones that are 1. easy to read 2. are written well and have a sense of humor 3. do lots of book reviews and are up to date on new stuff

    I totally get what you mean though by judging a blog on his "bling". While I agree it's nice to have visually appealing blogs it's not the most important thing. Content over cover! Lol.

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  5. Oh hey, I gave you an award over at my blog! http://findabookmark.blogspot.com/

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