Blog Comparison

I choose to look through two blogs, one from the New York Times and another from the Washington Post. The Post’s blog is called “Short Stack” and it’s a blog where the staff of “book world” chooses five favorite books a week. The books usually had something in common with each other. Last week’s was “Serious novels for people who’d rather be reading romance novels.” The Times had a slightly different approach. The blog is written by the editors of the book review, and most of the articles posted either focus on a specific book, or on a trend in the literary world. This blog also tends to report on more than just novels, articles on recent studies, interviews with writers, and other literature-related pieces. Last week’s post detailed how different newspapers and magazines reviewed recently released books.
While the Post sticks to short, sweet blogs, the Times manages to cram more information and opinions on the blog by having a “read more” optional link. Each blog was written by a different person each week, and both were published weekly.
I felt that the Times blog allowed for a bit more consumer-engagement. The blog had a place to fill out your name and email address to receive updates on related stories, as well as a place to write one’s own views and comments on the stories that were posted. I felt the Post’s blog could have included more links to related articles and more opportunities for the reader to get involved in the story and the website in general
The Post’s blog, however, seemed to be more user friendly when it came to the titles of the different posts. While the Times kept titles small and subject matter dense, the Post managed to hook the reader with short, concise, and rather puffy articles about books new and old. The link between the five chosen books really helped to give the articles on the blog a cohesive quality. I did not feel that the Times articles lacked cohesion, but that their unity was sometimes buried and required a bit more reading to find. Unfortunately, a bit more reading is more than the average blogger is willing to indulge in.
I don’t think that one blog was better than the other, but that each of them had different strengths and would cater to a slightly different audience. While the Post would probably be ideal for a casual reader without any expertise in literature or any vested interest in the publishing scene, the Times would probably appeal to someone looking for a more in-depth analysis of the current literary climate. The blogs really weren’t that different though, each found a common theme between different types of literature and used this theme to tell a story about the subjects.
-Tess Nowadly

Links to Blogs

http://papercuts.blogs.nytimes.com/?8dpc

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/shortstack/