Dime Magazine: http://dimemag.com
This blog has a fairly clean design with images that accompany every post. They have a pretty good balance of content, which consists of current basketball events (both news and video footage), less timely (or less important) current happenings, exclusive interviews, and original opinion-based content such as lists. The fact that every article requires another click to read the rest can be annoying, however.
I’d like to incorporate their strong balance of content into my blog. I like the way they report important basketball news, talk about interesting stories and still put out original content that draws upon their knowledge of the topic and history.
NiceKicks.com: http://www.nicekicks.com
Although it’s not the one stop shop for all sneaker-related news, Nicekicks.com has always been one of my favorite sneaker blogs because it has a good balance of important news and creative content. As one of the first major sneakers blogs on the internet, it has continually found ways to improve the site beyond putting out more hard news type posts. Currently, it has a pretty large online video series for various sneaker topics and it often makes list based on their knowledge of the history, performance and styles of sneakers. I also think their (recently updated) blog design is pretty nice. I especially like the menu options at the top which allows people to basically search the major categories of the blog more easily. The release dates section is also really convenient because it makes finding that simply information easy. The design is also very clean and there is a good level of summary for each post to keep someone interested and also make them click to the next page.
I’d like to adopt the clean design of the blog and the good amount of creative original content is has, relative to the amount of hard news. I’d also like to incorporate the different menu categories idea into my blog because I think it makes the site easier to use and can provide people some reference material so they have a better understanding of the blog and the purpose of some posts.
The Basketball Jones: http://blogs.thescore.com/tbj/
What I like about this blog is it’s very clean design, large accompanying images and obscure NBA content, both “news” and original. There is a good amount of the post on the main blog page and the blog uses the power of entertaining or interesting images to draw attention to each post. Even when the post has a larger quantity of writing, it moves most of it to the second page while still keeping one or two large images on the main page.
I plan to incorporate the large, interesting image element of this blog into my own. I think it draws the viewer in very well and by putting a significant chunk of the post on the first page of the blog, it helps further keeps the viewers interest. Since I am not focused on ad revenue from an additional click, I will try to keep most of the posts’ content entirely visible on the home blog page. Also, the original content on this blog is good, but the reader needs to be informed with the nuances of basketball and NBA to understand the purpose for some of the posts and the humor.
Draft Express: http://www.draftexpress.com
This site is almost a combination of a blog and a news site dedicated to the NBA draft. The organization of all posts from recently added is blog like, but there are also a lot of other features and options via their menu. The inclusion of their constantly updated mock draft on the left side of the home page is a strength because that’s the most sought after info leading up to the draft. The tweets section on the home page is also a strong idea because it gives the viewer almost real time updates about what the insiders are saying about the state of the NBA and the draft.
I like the idea of creating a mock draft, or a consensus of other’s mock drafts and putting it in a easy to find or highly trafficked part of the website. I also hope to incorporate the twitter updates of important draft insiders and basketball gurus onto my site in some way.
Deadspin: http://deadspin.com
This is a pretty good blog that benefits from its original content and story ideas. It uses images well to accompany each blog post on the main page and has a nicely structured comment section at the bottom of each post page. I also like the way the side menu does not move with the scroll of the page, allowing for top stories or other important information to remain with the viewer wherever he is on the site. The clean design and unique branding are also strengths for the site.
I hope to incorporate design elements of the comment community section to my blog. I also enjoy the individualism of the voices and creativity of a lot of the writers, however, sometimes they take things too far and come across like assholes.