As I’m sure most bloggers do, I read quite a few other blogs every day. Partly for information and partly for inspiration it is now entrenched in my daily routine. One of the blogs that I have been following for quite a while is the John Chow dot com website.
Back in December John offered his review my blog and get a linkback offer and to date it looks like there have been over two hundred and fifty reviews.
What finally motivated me to do a review was John’s comment that:
I never started John Chow dot Com to make money. This was just a place for me to post my miscellaneous ramblings about whatever was on my mind.
Although the website has been around for just over a year, it has really taken off in the last few months. I’m sure the reason for that is partly John’s marketing savvy and partly that he keeps providing interesting content.
While I am also a Canadian living in British Columbia, to be honest I don’t quite get the restaurant and food reviews, but it did inspire me to take my own food photos. Do I really care about what Sally’s fish looked like? Maybe if I lived in Vancouver. Although it doesn’t really appeal to me, the eclectic mixture of personal notes, photos, car stuff, blogging insights and miscellaneous technical ramblings are certainly drawing a large following. John Chow is a Web 2.0 celebrity.
A couple of months ago I found the layout much simpler, however now I rarely if ever visit the website. In my opinion it seems to be crowded with ads and therefore more complicated. I prefer to just get the RSS feed. Although the website has been producing great income, I really wonder if that will be sustained or if people will stop visiting the site because of the barrage of ads.
I think the greatest strength of the site is John’s insights on how to provide great content. He certainly seems to excel at that. And if you are interested in marketing you’ll find that he always has a new idea up his sleeve.
What I like:
- Solid content
- John Chow’s practical business intelligence
- Innovative ideas
- Keeps people engaged
What I dislike:
- Too many ads
- Layout has gotten too busy
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