kuro5hin.org

This site has a nice layout, monetization-wise … but that’s not why I like this design … it is for another reason – the comments.

If you scroll down to the bottom of each entry and read the comments, the reader has an option to stylize the way the comments are shown .. such as a normal comments you might see in other blogs (flat mode) or threaded mode that you might see in a forum .. or some combination in between.

And, there seems to be a lot of comments on every post!

People are commenting. Does having the choice to make them look and feel they way these commenters are comfortable the reason why? Is this a blog? Is this a forum? It’s like something inbetween.

TheTwilightSingers.com/

StrayLightRun.com

Both of these sites have something intriguing to me … as the backgrounds are alive. Do I have to explain that? What do you think of it? I like the subtlety of something like this.

theinquirer.net

This one is different, that’s for sure. But is it? On most of my sites .. I am using the “Evermore” wordpress plugin. Basically, I use this because I am sick and tired of people ‘baiting’ me to read “The Rest Of The Story” and click my mouse again. With the evermore, what it does is convert every post automatically to pause at a standard interval of text (I use 2 paragraphs or 250 words) . This way, on my front page all the reader has to do is scan down the page and read excerpts or part of the beginning of the articles and then can decide if they want to read more.

I know that my mosts are never the same length. Sometimes I have short posts, some are long, some are picture overload, some have videos .. My father has a seeing problem and it’s hard for some to be able to grab the side scroll bar, if your pages scrolls down to infinity – because basically that scroll bar slider gets smaller and smaller.

By the way .. although the mono-color red might seem too .. celebrity-type-ish’us .. if you were to have nicer color blending and maybe a small square logo in the top left corner .. well .. maybe even John at SyntagmaMedia might even consider this type of format for his magazine.

Let’s face it – isn’t it nice to just see all of the titles in one screen view and pick your magazine article to read? “jump to page 13!” .. I can see myself using this design.

thecoolhunter.net/design

Actually, I like looking at all sections of this website .. but design wise – I like the actual “Design” page format! Well, actually (again) it’s the same in the other sections of this website .. their lifestyle, art, music, travel, and practically everything else except the front page and the news!

I think this is the best site out there that I have seen in my travels – with a 1-column blog design. What’s nice that it is full of pictures, for the entire width of the column. If the picture isn’t big enough – two pictures are there .. or 3 pictures .. or 4 pictures .. or 6 pictures … and they are all in a block format with some CSS to round the corners .. I think .. and // well it’s smooth. The height is always uniform if there are more than one picture side by side, and the entire width is utilized – no align=left or hspace=15 needed!

And, talk about using those [HR/] bars .. which I’m a fan – with that fat divider line! I like.

When I surf this site .. this is one site I can truly say that I use my middle mouse wheel to scroll. I think I can safely say that I’m more of a keyboard PAGE-DOWN for simple scrolling or with the side scroll bars drag-and-move. It’s a nice change once in a while.

TailRank.com

When I see this site, I wonder if it’s possible to convert something like this in an automated “sweet-HART” post. The site almost looks like 5 columns sometimes, but it’s 3 columns.

In February 2006 I participated as a co-contributor/writer for the Light The Torch blog watching the Olympics (mostly for the curling schedule). At that time, Aaron Brazell came up with a unique way to associate each co-contributor/writer with a basic flag of their host country directly in the post. I liked that idea.

In this Tail Rank blog, all the little referenced blogs have icon pictures of the blog itself. I think that is neat someway. When I have been posting information that relates to any member site ..I include a category with the post, so you can see all of the posts (for instance) of all talked about “The-Singers.com“. Seeing a visual icon on each post would be nice.

A lot of the writers and bloggers I know and read on a daily basis also have these little ‘series’ of blog posts .. and often create their own graphic and place it in the sidebar. If I had a little graphic of every site inside the post .. it would make this site more visual .. than just having text all of the time.

I dunno .. that is what I was thinking anyway .. I’ve seen other better examples – but, can’t think of the name or URL except this one.

seobook.com

This is what I have been getting at .. making the top navigation more like a book .. and each page is either another site or chapter in it (except for maybe the affiliates menu) .. and only one of them is the site’s blog! This is a website .. Not a Blog site.

I’ve had a few clients come up to me and ask me personally if they should be blogging for their business .. because they’ve read somewhere by ‘marketers’ they should. My own view is that unless the president and owner is blogging about his vision and the company .. I would NOT recommend it. That’s related to the clients and industries that I’m currently involved with. You don’t want your staff to become addicted to blogging!

However .. blogging software is the future and the now – and there are many ways to have blogs as your website and still have a great website and promote a company’s product or services. If businesses look at blogging software for what it is – content management software – and realize the benefits – they do not need a webmaster anymore .. it can help.

But, I’ve been a fan of this site’s design for a while – it’s clean, I like the colors, easy to navigate. But I like the fact that this is a website – of a bunch of websites and sections .. not a bunch of posts in a blog. It’s something that to keep in mind, like I was saying yesterday when I posted the sugar site menu idea that I like.

PopSugar.com

See our top menu bar? That’s pretty common – they are pages and makes navigation easier.

On the Sugar Publishing sites .. the sites are where the pages are. This can be useful because for instance, I now have at least 3 outright shopping sites .. and 8 pet related sites .. and 8 health and fitness sites .. and soon to be more business sites .. I like this way to link the sites together – instead of the sidebar or blogroll. Quick surfing!

I’m kind of doing it now on the Battling series and the PetLvr blog .. but, keeping with other pages and other non-blog sites within that domain.

homesweetcube.com

I’m not sure why I like this design – maybe because it’s all on one view and you never have to scroll. My image shows scrolling, but that was because I shrunk the window down to take a screen image picture.

The images are neat, the videos are somewhat interesting (although, I don’t know what this site is really selling) .. and I like when little men on the background screen are more than animated .. they do stuff!

The background and images used .. almost looks real 3D .. not 2D. Well – I think that’s why I added this to my “Hmm cool design” bookmark folder!

CopyBlogger.com

This design is really simple and has the right colors. However, what I like best about it is what happens when you want to post a comment. The font turns into some nice bright burgundy on white and about 16-20px in size and makes it REALLY easy to read what you are typing. On some of my sites, I like to add the preview so commenters can see what they are typing and correct it before hitting the submit. This comment’s appearance is quite obvious that you can read what you are typing and can preview it directly as you are typing! I hate hitting submit to a comment, then reading how it looks on a site and noticing many or obvious spelling mistakes and errors.

blogs.feedburner.com

I like that the right sidebar is neat and adjusted nicely along the right side and the center is flexible width .. and that the colors of this blog exactly matches the look and feel of their other sites .. mainly the feedburner site itself. I was thinking that because not all of my sites are entirely blogs .. (for instance PetLvr has a whole bunch of sites .. plus galleries, calendars, forums, stores, etc) .. I think a new design for any new blogs that I might create .. has to be able to translate well into non-blog sites and designs. I want it to look uniform.

I also like the group of colors used .. red, black, blue, orange .. they work together on the white and makes it easy to read.