It’s Blusterin’ Time!
If you’re new to this feature or need a refresher, click the label at the bottom of this post and see the previous posts. Otherwise, here are the basics:
What I do is list a site; you critique it. But here’s the catch: to induce the most honest reactions, don’t leave the comment using your normal alias/login – instead, go anonymous, and be as brutally honest (or complimentary) as you wish to be. Also, be specific, and naturally, don’t be rude. If I deem anything inappropriate, I’ll have no problem deleting the comment.
So, go to the site listed below, familiarize yourself with it for a few minutes, then come back and leave some constructive criticism and/or comments that you have.
And remember: Blustering should be a two-way street; if you’ve asked to be blustered, you better be a blusterer.
Site: Blueprint – Review
LAMB#: 1036
URL: http://blueprintreview.co.uk/
If you would like to have your blog blustered by fellow LAMBs, please send me an email containing your site’s info and “Bluster Me!” in the subject line.
That is a special-looking site. Beautiful layout, interesting commentary and well worth a read.
Not for me. It took too long for it to load, and once I got into the site’s content I didn’t discover anything special enough to warrant repeated visits. It’s an uphill battle for any new film site to gain readership, and this one doesn’t seem to be doing anything original enough to draw readers away from established sites.
Is this a reviews site? If so then say it loud and clear; or is it a news site? A one stop shop?
What does the site name mean? How is it relevant? I think of blueprints as the plans for building something from the ground up. The name is almost suggestive of … instruction. What is the connection between the name of the site and the site’s content? The name implies that there is something unique and original to be found here, but the site comes off like countless others: generic.
There are a lot of things I really liked about your site. I read two of the editorials and they were very good, as were the reviews. I also liked the weekly “What To See” feature. I’m also a fan of Short Films, so I liked that you have some reviews of those, but wish that there were even more of them.
But my absolute favorite thing was the Haiku reviews. If I knew that those were going to come out at a specific time and on a regular rotation (every Friday for example), then I would definitely make a point of stopping by to read those. Instead of a big batch all at once, you might want to post one or two a week, and put them in a prominent place on the front page. Because they are clever and quick to read, they may draw people back to the site on a regular basis. And once they’re there, they become more likely to look around at the longer postings.
My biggest problem with the site was that it took forever for the front page to load the five images (I think it’s called a magazine view.) This would be a detriment to me coming back, and they took so long to load that I almost left without even reading through to do the blustering.
The other critique I would make is that it seems difficult to find things on the site. The tabs at the top (News, Reviews, Podcasts, Features, Videos, Links) didn’t seem to match up with your content in an organic way. For example, the Features section included everything from competitions to editorials to polls. I didn’t see how those fit together.
On the other side of the spectrum in terms of organization, you also broke thing up that I would put together. For example, you have “Short Film Focus” under features and “Short Film Showcase” under videos. As someone who would come to your site to learn about short films, I wouldn’t want to have to check two different places.
Similarly with trailers. You’ve got them split up into “What To See”, “Trailer Story”, “Trailer Watch”, and “Trailers Video.” I’d recommend creating one spot for all of them.
So I think that there is a lot of original content here. It’s just hard for the reader to get to it.
Keep up the good work!
this site took forever to load wow. Might want to do something about that