Good Idea: Presenting your video game blog as a blog



A good example of this was recently presented by our very own Jim "Who the #$%^ is" Sterling. By presenting your video game blog as a blog, you create an impression of transparency that helps your credibility amongst your readers. If you make it clear to your readers that the opinions of the writers are their opinions and their's alone, and if you make it clear that these opinions are completely uncensored, you consequently allow your readers to decide who's advice they should take depending on their own opinions and how they line up with the writer's.

Reading something that's presented from a purely neutral stand point is typically boring and stale. I could tell anyone the cold hard facts about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches: they consist of peanut butter, jelly, and bread. This approach, however, wouldn't give them anything to consider. If, on the other hand, I told these same readers that strawberry jam is vastly superior to grape jelly, and explain why I hold this opinion, it would initiate debate and discussion. Perhaps even dissent.

Finally, allowing people to express themselves openly allows your readers to see someone else's point of view. Sometimes in life it's hard to understand the other person's point of view, and that problem leads to most of the worlds conflicts. Blogs bring us one step closer to world peace!

Bad Idea: Presenting your video game blog as a Ziff-Davis publication



If you behave as if you're a real live journalist, and your website is presented as if it's totally serious business; yet the stories you "break" are just tips sent in by readers that were found on another site, and the website you've designed could be described as being similar to eating a cold bologna sandwich, then you've failed. Video game blogs that present themselves as serious business big time important sites behave ridiculously. These sites are never going to be as big as 1up.com or Game$pot (c wat I did thar!!) or Yahoo! Games, yet they keep the same "all work and no play" attitude as these sites. As a blog, your two best inherent quality is to remain completely independent and self-regulated, and to present your opinion in your own personal way. Once you take the personality out of a video game blog, you just have a poorly run video game fan-site.

Worst Idea: Presenting your video game blog as if it were a sick, dead dolphin.



I haven't seen any examples of this yet, but if someone were to present their video game blog as a sick, dead dolphin it would surely be rejected by the internet community and hated for an eternity.

So there you have it, some ideas. It's a good idea to not suck. It's a bad idea to suck. Please, in the future, if at all possible, don't suck.