Bloggeries is going to take a look at a blog now that will take you into the future, sort of. The blog is called Smart Homes. The blogger is Sam, a 21 year old living in England. He studies at the ICT at Nottingham Trent University and blogs to keep himself occupied when he is not studying. The blog itself is a blog about how to make your home more independent, how to make it smarter. Here you will find information that was once spoken about in future tense, but is regarding technology that is in the works right now that will make your home a more efficient place to live. Think of things like, being able to turn your thermostat on via text messaging before you leave for work which you can read about in the bloggery “Text Your Homeâ€. These are the concepts you will read about at Smart Homes. Find out what some of Sam’s recent thoughts are by reading some of his most recent bloggeries: Smart Home forums, Dimmable Flourescent Lighting and Home Automation, x10 problems, Insteon Heading to Europe, Popular Trends in Home Technology, Builders and Home Automation, and A Media Center PC Gives You the Ultimate in Home Automation.
The blog is very simple and almost only contains the niche content which makes the blog very easy to navigate. Bloggeries are left marginalized and there is a right navigation bar. Bloggeries are standard black text on white background with links highlighted in red. In the right navigation system you will find a Categories Menu, Advertising, Technology widget, Blog Directory Links, and Subscription Links. The blog is fairly new so the categories menu is not quite built up yet, but here you will find categories on books, features, Insteon, Smart Home Basics, and x10. Missing from the regular blog meat are an Archives Menu, and a Recent Posts Menu would benefit the blogger as this blog grows. I think adding more detail to the About Page would be good for this blog as frankly, it took me some time and reading to really figure out what the blog was about. This is a niche that is very popular and the blogger could make use of a large demographic if he provided more information to the readership.
The blog is new, and lacks some essential blog materials and so I give this blog a 3/5, but I see a tremendous potential for this blog. The idea is unique enough that once the blog gets rolling it will gain some popularity. For navigation, I suggest the blogger add some more content in his navigation bar, like the ones listed above – Archives, Recent Posts Menu, etc. I also think the blogger should be, if he is not already, working on a blogroll to link back to other blogs in the same niche. This would definitely help to bring in traffic. The content is well done, and written in a user friendly style, so that even though it is discussing technology, it does not overwhelm the reader and is easily understood. The activity is not bad, bloggeries are coming in every few days to a week in between. I think the blogger could pick this up in its early stages and post daily if possible, just to keep feeding the search engines good material. Overall however, this is a popular niche, and I think this blog has an excellent potential to do well. It just needs to grow a little bit, and add more material to its navigation system to look more like a blog.
-Chrissie