Done a Games Blog, some advice needed

Bluemoon

Hey, call this spam if you like and if you think it is you dont need to read any futher

Me and a few friends created a games blog out of a laugh really, we scour alot of forums and realise alot of info gets on the forums before the big sites so we created this. Nothing professional, i created the blog but as you can tell im not very good. We also use it to post our opinions about games

Ive got a few questions

A) The aim was for it to look simple yet not novice does it achieve this?
Anyone who has used blogspot, is there any way to include expandable posts (posts where there is a summary then a "read more" button which either expands or takes you to another page) that dont screw up the blog on I.E and Opera? Everytime i include the codes it goes tits up which means we could have alot of really long posts which of course are likely to scare people away
C) Is there any easy way to edit the HTML script to increase font sizes?

Mainly though as a first attempt at least is it any good? Weve been online properly for about 12 hours after having tested all the software and got about 200 individual views without really promoting it so thats cool.

Like i said not in it to be the "next big thing" because thats impossible given what were using and the fact the games market is hardly a niche that needs filling

Just after a cool place to see pictures/vids and info that may not be well known yet on games we like

(Since im a tax dodging uni student i update about 40 times a day )


Here it is (be kind)
http://ngpgamezone.blogspot.com/

JNighthawk

Because you have no information on Red Faction 3, I refuse to help.

That, or the only useful advice I can offer is to rename it.

Bluemoon

Haha, well the names the same because it links to our forum

No news on redfaction 3 because weve only been up a few hours, still getting todays news up but just for you ill have a little look into it

(though i hated the first game)

Bluemoon

Also is anyone on this board noted for their photoshop skils? trying to get a decent banner up

Bluemoon

Finally finished possibly the worst banner in history but its my first photoshop so meh

Szechuanosaurus

Bluemoon wrote: »

A) The aim was for it to look simple yet not novice does it achieve this?
Anyone who has used blogspot, is there any way to include expandable posts (posts where there is a summary then a "read more" button which either expands or takes you to another page) that dont screw up the blog on I.E and Opera? Everytime i include the codes it goes tits up which means we could have alot of really long posts which of course are likely to scare people away
C) Is there any easy way to edit the HTML script to increase font sizes?

A) Design looks fine to me. It's not going to win any novelty awards but it's clean, crisp and readable. The banner looks fine, as well. When you said you'd just finished your first photoshoped banner ever, I was expecting considerable worse! The nice thing about a blog is that you can continue tweeking and developing the design as you go along. If it isn't meeting requirements, you can just fix it on the fly. It's not a publish once and you're stuck with it design scenario.

I don't think there is. At least, not with the standard Blogger software. There might be a third party plug-in otherwise you'd need to hand-code some Javascript, which isn't as hard as it sounds (there are ready-made hide/reveal scripts easily available although you'd have to figure out some way of getting the necessary div tags published into the article which may just mean having to do it by brute force).

C) Edit the HTML script?!?!? NO! Edit the CSS, however? Yes. You should be able to edit the CSS template via the Blogger panel and change the relevant text sizes quite easily. Or you could probably edit the HTML template but you shouldn't really. For a Blog, I'd recommend using either ems or just descriptive text sizes (small, large, x-large etc.) because then the reader won't be prevented from being able to resize them easily in their web browser (which is important for legibility, different people like to be able to read on-screen text at different sizes and some font measurement systems, siz as pixel measurements IIRC prevent the user from being able to resize them).

bsjezz

look, no offence, but if you want a decent, attractive blog you need proper punctuation and capitalization. 'psp'? 'heres'? 'heres' in that context is a contraction of 'here is', and as such it needs to be 'here's'. it reads amatuerish. you need to present professionally or nobody will come back.

yes, i understand the terrible irony of this post. no, it doesn't change my point.

Bluemoon

Many thanks to both of you

Point taken bsjezz, my spelling and grammar is actually quite good its just most times i rush stories out so i dont think about it that much. Only a day old so these things should get more relaxed, still in that nice "everything is fine" mode

Bluemoon

bsjezz wrote: »

look, no offence, but if you want a decent, attractive blog you need proper punctuation and capitalization. 'psp'? 'heres'? 'heres' in that context is a contraction of 'here is', and as such it needs to be 'here's'. it reads amatuerish. you need to present professionally or nobody will come back.

yes, i understand the terrible irony of this post. no, it doesn't change my point.

Also just to note, were not aiming for any level of professionalism beyond common sense, like i said its just a blog me and a few mates are doing were not trying to corner a market or become renowned in any way. But i agree the fundamentals are essential

Szechuanosaurus

Yeah, I have to confess I didn't actually read any of the blog posts! Although I did notice you use the word 'alot' a lot in the OP. I say word, it isn't really a word. It's two words and you forgot to put the space between them. A lot.

Get a book on grammar and style. Or at least compose the posts in a word processor like Word or at the very least a web browser with a spell-checker like Firefox. It doesn't seem like a big deal, but it jars with the reader making it more difficult to read your articles as well as detracting from your overall sense of authority.

Bluemoon

Szechuanosaurus wrote: »

Yeah, I have to confess I didn't actually read any of the blog posts! Although I did notice you use the word 'alot' a lot in the OP. I say word, it isn't really a word. It's two words and you forgot to put the space between them. A lot.

Get a book on grammar and style. Or at least compose the posts in a word processor like Word or at the very least a web browser with a spell-checker like Firefox. It doesn't seem like a big deal, but it jars with the reader making it more difficult to read your articles as well as detracting from your overall sense of authority.

Did you read my blog?? used it once so far in the entire thing according to Ctrf-F

The spelling cant be that bad considering that I contribute little to it in terms of original content, most of it is source material so in fact if there is a multitude of spelling mistakes dare i say its the professionals getting it wrong! Shame on them

But ill make sure i keep tabs on the grammar

bsjezz

the problem is, there are a lot of people who can write professionally, and do so, and still only manage to lick up the merest scraps of an audience - if that. it's a bit insulting (as a writer myself, though from a completely different field) to see people treat blogs like forum posts or hasty emails while still expecting people to read it. why should i? you have to show me you can write properly, or else i won't come back.

and the thing is, it's so easy. go over it twice - you should be going over it, anyway. properly capitalize titles and double check the apostrophes are in the right spots. run a spell-check. it takes a minute.

Bluemoon

bsjezz wrote: »

the problem is, there are a lot of people who can write professionally, and do so, and still only manage to lick up the merest scraps of an audience - if that. it's a bit insulting (as a writer myself, though from a completely different field) to see people treat blogs like forum posts or hasty emails while still expecting people to read it. why should i? you have to show me you can write properly, or else i won't come back.

and the thing is, it's so easy. go over it twice - you should be going over it, anyway. properly capitalize titles and double check the apostrophes are in the right spots. run a spell-check. it takes a minute.

I have read through the blog and alot of the "mistakes" grammatically are not my fault but the fault of the sources ive quoted, in this case i apologise but im not going through every source to check their grammar. Also the "im a writer" therefore everyone must adhere to my standards routine is a bit pathetic, im human and hence make mistakes, you want to take the moral high ground thats your business but dont expect me to lose too much sleep over it.

Bottom line this is not a professional blog, its an experiment, a bit of fun :P

If you dont come back you dont come back, the success isnt measured in numbers though obviously its nice to know people are reading, this is just a way for me to experiment with the format and see where it leads.

Bluemoon

That wasnt meant to sound like lashing out, im very happy for all input good or bad had a good mixture from the people ive asked so far

Szechuanosaurus

Did you read my blog?? used it once so far in the entire thing according to Ctrf-F

No, I didn't read your Blog. I said that already. It was the first post in this thread that I was referring to. I've had a read through some of the articles on your Blog now though and, to be honest, the grammar and spelling aren't that bad. There was the odd editorial that I didn't quite get, eg:

Huge news, whereas games, one criticism of console gaming is the lack of players in online action games, such as COD4, Team fortress 2 and Halo

Doesn't quite scan for me. I think I get what you meant to say, comparing console server cap limits to PC games server cap limits, but the 'whereas games' bit just isn't right. Not a big deal though, everything else I scanned over seems to be all right and some of the IGN quotes didn't scan right either, so the 'professionals' obviously trip over their words occasionally too. Again, as I said before, a big advantage of Blogs is that you can correct these mistakes post-publication, unlike say writing editorial for a newspaper. It's not an excuse for being lazy, but at least you can go back and fix the odd mistake at a later date.

Don't get too offended by bsjezz pushing the issue though, the primary purpose of a Blog is communication through writing, so it makes sense that he'd assume you'd want to make that your priority if you're asking for H/A with your blog. Like he says, simply re-reading a piece is usually all it takes to pick up on any spelling mistakes or sentences that don't scan, so it's not something that only professional writers should be expected to do. One advantage of writing your own Blog is that you can use it to practice and improve your communication skills which will be to your advantage outside the format as well, so it's worth not ignoring.


Incidentally, a couple of design ideas I'd like to suggest:

Style an alternative formatting for quotes, box them out or something so that people know you're quoting another article (then they can't blame you for spelling and grammar errors )

Links. Links links links. Go crazy with links. Bloggers and blog readers love links. If you mention a game, turn the name of the game into a URL to the game's website or a wiki article on it. Link back to old articles discussing similar topics, link to other peoples articles or news pieces that are relevant. Not only does it help highlight important or key elements in an article (such as the names of games if you have a big list of games in the body of an article) it's also an easy way to include more content and thus more value into an article for the reader. If the topic interests them, they can easily investigate further. Tycho is pretty good at this, as an example.

JNighthawk

Coincidentally, I was just going to post the same bit the Szech did. You know, the one that's not from a source and makes little sense, both grammatically and how it lumps Call of Duty 4 in with Halo (1, I presume).

So far, my biggest complaint is grammar. Everything I would say has already been said before, though, so I'll just reiterate: capitalization and grammar.

Bluemoon

Thanks guys, i dont know if its crude or not but that "editorial" on COD4 wasnt actually written by me, i got it off a forum and posted it straight up which, to be honest isnt really an excuse, just know that im not quite as bad as that , ill amend it

Thanks for all the comments though, we doubled our views/individual hits today and though im pretty sure it wont continue its been a good day and your comments have been very informative

More care, more attention