It’s time for another free review, and this time it is for Thou Shall Blog, a blog that describes itself as a ‘beginner’s blog for beginners’ and says it’s there to document a ‘personal journey in the blogosphere’.  

I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound like a great start to me. I’m not really fond of newbie blogs about what newbies need to know, much like I don’t like MMO blogs that don’t actually MMO! But I was prepared to give this one a chance because you can’t judge a blog by its niche.

First impressions of this blog, and please remember that it’s first impressions that count, is that the template is boring. Everything is white, grey, or a teal which is suspiciously close to grey. It’s certainly easy to read, but it’s not at all eye-catching. Even the RSS icon is black and white! I realise some people may consider this style to be ‘refined’ but I will always consider it to be just ‘plain’. The layout really needs something extra.

The content is easily browsable from the front page, with a few sentances  of each post visible at the same time. Some people will insist that it should be full posts or nothing, but I don’t really care either way. At least you can browse a wide selection of his recent posts, and hopefully find something that interests you.

Speaking of interest, I wasn’t particularly engaged by the content on offer. It’s certainly very informative, even including samples of code where they’re appropriate, but they’re just not interesting unless you’re desperately seeking help with something. That’s no fault of the blog, just a product of the niche that means casual readers aren’t particularly engaged.

Also, this writer seems to enjoy saying “Content is King but Traffic is Queen”.

Overall I’d give it a …… hmm, that’s a tough one. The blog isn’t bad as such, it just isn’t the sort of things I look for in a blog. I suppose it should get a 5 out of 10.