Blog Review: The Misssy M Misssives

The blog: The Misssy M Misssives

The Reviewer: Nutmeg from Simply Nutmeg

FIRST IMPRESSIONS:
Stick with me on this one because we all know we should never judge a book by its cover, and first impressions are often wrong. This said, my first impression of this blog was, "YAWN!" The design is one I've seen frequently -- a standard Blogspot theme with no header and a slightly confusing sidebar. I found the lack of "about me" information very frustrating. Flying Martinis? Is this a bartending blog? Misssy M Misssives? The most I could glean at a glance about her was, "That's me." Nothing informed me that the blogger was from Scotland, and why the extra letters everywhere? If I had found this blog by surfing, I would have clicked off quickly, never to return.

DESIGN:
Enough said. Here's my advice: Customize the blog just a bit with a clear header and more defined sidebar. Give us a much more thorough "about Misssy" even if we have to open up a new page. Maximize the potential of your exotic location (exotic to me and hordes of others); tell the reader upfront where you live. Please tell me why there are so many extra letters; do you lisp?

CONTENT:
Here's the thing: the day I landed on Misssy's missssssives, she had posted 1001 words about ketchup. If you've read my reviews or my own blog, you most likely know that I have a problem with long blog posts. This position is an educated one. A very large body of research on internet reading points overwhelmingly to the fact that we read differently on the web than we do when reading a print document. When we read print, more than fifty percent of the time we will flip to the rest of a story or article continued on a later page IF the writer has done a good job of hooking us and building the momentum to the continued part of the article. When we read on the web, rarely are we willing to page down for content. Web readers seek short, well-written, concise bites of information. We look for interaction on the page: links, internal pages, comment sections. We do not want to read 1000 words about ketchup. Missy posts regularly, on average, every other day. She does not link often.

That said, because I was reviewing, I read through a ton of Misssy's content, and slowly, very slowly, found myself getting hooked! Misssy writes extremely well and nothing pleases me more as a reviewer. She is clearly intelligent, has a droll sense of humor, and, best of all, her content is extremely varied. You can't predict what Misssy will tackle from day to day. She may reflect on her exotic travel, old lovers, Madonna, ketchup, a Yeats poem, her work, or the telly. You can predict that she will use a lot of words in her reflections.

BEST AND WORST:

Best: I came to thoroughly enjoy Misssy's writing and I loved the glimpse into life in Scotland. She has a bright and quirky brain and sees things in ways differently from me. I love her turn of phrase, subtle sarcasm, and perfect grammar!

Worst: I have read Faulkner; I like Faulkner; but I would not read a blog written by Faulkner. Blog readers tend to be people who work for long hours at a computer, like myself, and break up the day with quick blog reads. Misssy is rarely a quick read. My mind wanders. I start to skim. I start to obsess over those extra s's...

BLOGROLLWORTHY:

With only a few design changes, more links, and more condensed posts, I think Misssy would really fly. I'm sure I'll come back to her blog regularly now that I've gotten to know the Martini's. Will I finish every post? That remains to be seen!

SCORE:

I'm going with 7 with the disclaimer that this blog has great potential to be a Bo Derrik. There's proof of it in Misssy's TOPBLOGMAG piece from last week. It's a must-read!