If you are into gaming, then you may want to take a minute to check out Lagorama: Sucking Up Your Bandwidth to Discuss Mine… I have to admit, it took me some time to find out what this blog was really about. It doesn’t really say anywhere for us ‘non-gamers’, Hey! This is a Gaming blog! If you have any experience in gaming, then you know there is a tendency to fall into the lingo, and only fellow gamers, can speak and understand the lingo the way that you can. I do have acronymed convos myself in IM or the like, but this was a whole new world to me. Nothing wrong with getting an education though. The Lagorama blog is about a gamer that essentially got into the gaming experience, albeit ‘late to the party’ as he states. The game (I think) is called MMO, and like many other gamers, he was succumbed by its appeal. But this gamer took his fun and experiences a step further and uses his decades of experience in the broadcasting industry to start Internet radio broadcasting an Internet Radio Station called Paragon Radio to broadcast the gaming experience. It has been, quite a success. And you can read more about it through this bloggers recent bloggeries: A Brand New Day for Marvel Online, Chinese TV is Specced for Graphics Theft, Valkyre Needs Caffeine…..Badly, Starcraft online is a Definite Maybe, Shadowbane Starting from Scratch, The LagORama List of MMORPG Cliches, The Perpetual Lawsuit that Wasn’t, and Age of Conan Delays Release for Orken Army Time.
The blog is neatly laid out which makes it very easy to navigate. Bloggeries are centralized and there are both left and right navigation bars as well as a small top navigation system. Bloggeries are in black text on white background and the odd one is associated with a relevant picture. In the top navigation bar you will find the Home page, About page, and contact page. In the left navigation bar you will find Subscription buttons, Entrecard, AdSense, and Archives Menu. In the right navigation bar you will find email subscription links, ads, MyBlogLog Widget, Lagtastic Audio Menu, The ‘Must Read’ List, Things of Interest, Video Gamers Media Network, and Webmaster and Blogger Resources.
I give this blog a 3.5 at this point. My only complaint about this blog is that it is not initially clear what it is about. Perhaps this is intentional to get the stray reader to spend some time on the blog, but perhaps not, I am not sure. However, it did take some time for me to figure out this was a gaming blog as so many acronyms and game slang were used I honestly had no clue. The blogger could take advantage of the About Page to explain to new readers what the blog is actually about. Navigation and appearance scores were good, though I would suggest the use of more pictures associated with the bloggeries. I would also suggest adding a categories menu, as I think this niche is well served by a little more organization. The content is well done and is certainly active enough, so the blogger does not lose marks there. The blog clearly has a good readership as is evidenced by the feedburner and by the good amount of comments. I think this blog has nothing but continued growth in its future and could maximize that by making just a few tweaks to the blog.
-Chrissie