the air

I’m sure many of you have heard about John Chow. He is self-proclaimed dot com mogul and his primary cashcow is his TechZone website. In addition, he also has a personal blog aptly named John Chow dot com. In the few days leading up to Decemeber 21, 2006, Mr. Chow requested paid reviews of his blog using PayPerPost Inc. services. Due to some technical difficulties that reviewers were having, Mr. Chow extended this option to all bloggers and readers of his personal blog. To give you an idea of how popular his blog is, it is ranked 1, 529 on Technorati out of at least 2.2 million claimed blogs. In addition, his blog is one of the most widely read blogs on the Internet. As an added incentive to all writers who are not participating through PayPerPost, Mr. chow is offering a chance for the writers’ blog to be linked by his blog and a chance for the best reviewer to win an ADS Tech MiniTV USB. After the enticing offers, I decided to write my own review of Mr. Chow’s personal blog.

Before I go any further, I just want to say that I am writing this review out of my own free will. Mr. John Chow has not in any way offered me any compensation for this review. Furthermore, I explicitly will decline any monetary based offer from Mr. Chow. That means, I am not going to accept the MiniTV if he should decide to award my review as the best.

I first heard about Mr. Chow’s blog approximately a month and a half ago. I was at the time starting to begin a new blog and I had “accidentally” come across his blog. My initial impressions of his blog were:

• professional looking
• well written
• functional layout
• Nothing too distracting

Mr. Chow’s blog hosts (at the time of this writing) eight (8) different categories. They are as follows:

• AGLOCO
• Cars
• Fine Dining
• Investing
• Ramblings
• Technology
• The Net
• Videos

Most of his posts tend to focus on Ramblings and The Net. These two categories are perhaps most relevant to Mr. Chow. Since it is his personal blog, it makes sense to discuss his personal thoughts and feelings. In addition, since he is a dot com mogul, it is only appropriate that he discuss and share his expertise on internet related topics and enterprises.

The Layout

Mr. Chow’s blog is laid out in the familiar two-column page layout. However, unlike most personal blogs, Mr. Chow’s blog is laid out in a functional and professional manner. The right column hosts “containers” for RSS, bookmarks, archives, recent comments and posts, categories, and text advertisement links. The left container plays hosts to the actual posts themselves with ads placed at the end of each post and towards the top of each post. Many of the ads in the left container are quite poorly placed and leave a sour flavor while reading the post. In addition, there is a banner ad at the top of the left column. This banner ad detracts from the reading and unnecessarily attracts the readers’ attention away from the main articles. An example is shown below:

My personal favorite about his blog is the Featured Sites container in the right column. This design allows the ads to be presented in a discreet manner that also makes it clearly visible to the reader. I find this type of advertising to be non-intrusive and pleasantly tolerable. In addition, by making his RSS feeds immediately available to the right of his first post, a reader has the immediate opportunity to quickly bookmark or add the RSS feed to their favorite RSS reader and continue reading. This is a concept that I too have adopted for my own blog.

The Design

On December 18, Mr. Chow redesigned his blog for a more personal touch and differentiate it from the hundreds of other blogs that use a similar theme as his. In his goal to present a much more professional looking blog, Mr. Chow resorted to using a shade of blue for the background and presenting the URL’s in his blog in a blue shade as well. Choosing the color blue is quite interesting because it is psychologically synonymous with trust and caring. In addition, the color blue has a tendency to attract the eyes and creates for a more appealing design. I think Mr. Chow’s blog does a very good job of giving the aura of trust and care. In a facetious twist, Mr. Chow’s blog also has a blue Corvette in its header image. My only complaint is that I had hoped that Mr. Chow would allow his blog layout to have more pronounced divisions rather than a light gray line dividing the different segments. Perhaps a black border around his blog would create a more structural design. However, I do think that it is a trivial issue and a personal decision reflective of his thoughts.

The Posts Themselves

What good is talking about the layout and design if the content themselves are lacking in depth and creativity. This is an area where Mr. Chow shines. Being a college student, I find that some of his posts are quite irrelevant to me since I cannot enjoy some of the expenditures or financial choices he encourages his readers to explore. Of particular note are his posts about how to increase revenue from credit cards that offer rewards for every dollar spent. There is also another interesting post about how banks trap their customers by various marketing schemes. To summarize, I believe that there are many posts that Mr. Chow writes that relate to many different types of consumers. In fact, I strongly believe that many college students can benefit from his expertise and advice in a variety of tech-related topics and investments. As of recent times, Mr. Chow has been writing extensively about AGLOCO. As I am not an expert on AGLOCO, please forgive me for not talking about them any further. What I enjoy most about reading Mr. Chow’s blog are the different topics he chooses to write about. Although most of his writings are geared towards the Internet, I feel he does a great job of balancing his personal thoughts and his objectiveness. This allows for a more adaptable reading landscape while ensuring the reader will return for future posts.

Conclusion

This review is not about simply saying that you should or should not read Mr. Chow’s blog. This decision, is ultimately, left to you, the reader. Although Mr. Chow’s posts are quite intuitive and interesting, he has been banned from Digg. What impact does that have? I do not think it has any significant impact on Mr. Chow, however, it does impact those who are not aware of his blog and thus may not realize some of his invaluable advice. Mr. Chow’s blog has inspired me greatly. As an avid writer, I have longed for motivation to continue writing for my blog. After discovering his blog, I have learned how to organize my writings and thoughts and share them with the world. As I continue to grow, I continually look to Mr. Chow’s blog for ways to not only improve my writings, but also my blog. Where appropriate, I credit him for this newfound inspiration.

I am in no position to argue what Mr. Chow should do to improve his blog. That is a matter best left for him to decide. I offer my own thoughts and advice for whatever value others might agree upon. In addition, I am biased towards sites that use advertising as a revenue source. This is not because I am envious of others’ success, but rather, my own opinion. I am open to the idea of having advertisements on my own blog should the need arise. However, my goal is to be able to sustain my blog without any advertising. Nevertheless, Mr. Chow’s blog does an excellent job of presenting the ads in a non-obtrusive manner. However, I do question the placement of some of the ads on his blog. In terms of advertising, I am strong supporter of text-based ads versus any ad that uses graphics.

Mr. Chow’s blog is quite insightful and definitely worth reading. I encourage all of my friends to at least take a look at his blog and see what they think. Some have chosen to read his blog daily and others simply disdain his writings. So for those of you who want to know my final word, give it a shot. See for yourself how John Chow’s blog can help you. If you are looking for ways to find your million on the Internet, you cannot afford to surpass an opportunity to read the miscellaneous ramblings of a dot com mogul.

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