The Space Between Professional and Casual (Entry #0)

Blogs are meant to feel like public diary entries! Professional blogs defeat the entire purpose. As successful as they are, it's best to leave it to the personal writers. The 'famous' Rolling Stone blog has made its huge come up over the years. Since then, they have limited the access to their website. The idea of what a blog should be has flew right past them completely. A great example of a true blog with an acceptable amount of attention is the Cupcakes and Cashmere blog.

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Rolling Stone has a subscription available. However, they ask for $7.99 monthly payments. In reality, no one actually keeps up consistently with ANY paid subscriptions they make.When I find myself paying to get magazines in the mail, I really don't end up reading them- they go straight into the trash and it is just a huge waste of money but we are so oblivious to the fact. That is how big companies like Rolling Stone get to you! Their main focus was to do music journaling but it seems as though they forgot the objective. A feature I really admired on the Rolling Stone website is the separation between music, politics, photos/videos, and sub culture. They have information all over the place but at least it's organized. We love a website with some sense of accommodation for their audience. 

On another note, there are free-access blogs like Cupcakes and Cashmere who offer some sense of comfort to their audience. They don't ask you for your money, they're only here because they want someone to hear them out- and in return, we get advice, tips, and other sorts of helpful information. In this blog, the author Emily Schuman introduces her audience to her life experiences and shares everything she has picked up along the way that others might find useful. She has a personal side of her blog where she speaks of motherhood and another side where she brings in common interests. They're all divided into their own page on the website once clicked. Now that's what I call a real blog. They are more than capable of having both a professional and a casual side.

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There is always a space between professional and casual styles- blogs should be in that gap. There is nothing wrong with a website being "too official", it just may need a new name because 'blog' isn't it!

Stay tuned.

-Yaqueline