blog annoyances

November 17th, 2008 at 9:00 am . Posted in bloggy things .

The other day I cleaned out my reader and twitter. It was long overdue. I’d skip over way too many blogs when they updated and basically it was just taking up space. Since it kind of ties in to my cleaning the house of my internet life, why not blog about it? I know there is a thread going on the 20SB forums about this but not everyone uses the forums so I thought I’d post about it here too. It should make for an interesting discussion!

I’m going to add this as a note before: don’t get all offended if you see something you might do in this post or comments. That doesn’t mean no one likes your blog or you or whatever. We are talking generally here and not pointing fingers. In the end – it’s all about content. Don’t get your internet panties all in a twist!

What makes you click that unsubscribe button? Or click away when you come across a new blog? Or unfollow on twitter? What turns you off?

Let’s hear it.

Mine:

  • Partial feeds. I probably love you and your blog but the partial feed thing kills me! You can say I’m lazy but I’d rather read through my reader and if I have a comment, then I’ll click over.
  • Even worse – no feed. I hate when I try to add something to my reader and am unable to because you have no feed. FeedBurner is your friend. Burn, baby, burn!
  • LOLspeak. I know we all use it occasionally, but if your whole blog is all OMGWTFLOLZBBQ!@?  Well, that can be hard to read unless you are in 8th grade where that is spoke fluently.
  • Excessive emoticons. ‘Nuff said.
  • Light text on dark backgrounds. It’s way too hard on the eyes. Seriously, my glasses could be coke bottles and that makes it just harder!
  • Cluttered blog design. If you have gifs, glittery blinkys, tons of images all of your blog, it is definitely hard to read because I’m too freaking distracted by the rainbow that vomited to tell me how much you luv you have 4 ur gurlz or whatever.
  • Hard to navigate blogs. Plain and simple.
  • If your blog is ugly or boring. Not everyone wants a custom design or can afford one or even cares. I just think it’s nice to have something on it, whether design or something in your sidebars that shows some personality. Something that shows you. If I come across a blog for the first time that has nothing, I’m more than likely going to click away.
  • Blogs that talk shit all the time, are constantly negative or feel the need to attack others to get attention. LAME.
  • Twitter peeve: Don’t twitter your whole story in a flutter of tweets. It’s called microblogging for a reason. Hit up your real blog for that.
  • Trying to hard. Don’t force it. Some people just have a way with words and can make anything sound beautiful. Others don’t. Don’t force it. Don’t try so hard to move your readers to tears or be super deep. It’s obvious when you’re forcing the words.

Overall, remember content is key. If you have great content, people will come back. Everyone has different tastes too. Some people might love your blog, some people might hate it. Don’t take it personal.

Always, have fun with it though.

92 Comments ( Reply )

  1. sizzle
    Nov 18, 2008 @ 11:34 pm

    You took the words right out of my mouth!

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  2. Maris
    Nov 19, 2008 @ 12:04 am

    =Partial reads are SO annoying
    -I also don’t like automatic music..some of us want to read blogs from work without blasting shakira for the whole office to hear
    -Bloggers who gripe/are self centered: if I don’t think I’d like you in real life, I probably won’t read your blog, As snotty as that sounds, I think you can get a vibe from reading a blog for the first time as you would any first conversaion.

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  3. deutlich
    Nov 19, 2008 @ 10:18 am

    DAMN there are a ton of responses to this! Good golly!

    But I also have to say I completely agree with Ang. CONSTANT blogging about the saaame topic bugs me, whether it’s the boy/girlfriend or the wedding or the job or .. just anything.

    Figure out a better topic.

    Yeesh.

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  4. MissB
    Nov 19, 2008 @ 10:20 am

    I totally changed my feed because of you, lol.

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  5. the almost right word
    Nov 19, 2008 @ 11:49 am

    I love how many changes their feed preferences after this post, Jamie! You should post the most common annoyances and then the flipside answers too!

    But I’m totally with everyone regarding the partial feed AND the light text on dark background — that drives me CRAZY.

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  6. Laurie | Your Ill-fitting Overcoat
    Nov 20, 2008 @ 1:45 pm

    My #1 Peeve – Not. Editing. Your. Work.

    I know that a lot of bloggers pride themselves on never editing a post, but I think it’s lazy and an insult to your readers. Most of us wage a daily battle with Google Reader, just trying to keep that “unread” count down to a manageable level. I feel really honored when readers take the time, in that overwhelming sea of content, to read my post. The LEAST I can do is fix the damn typos.

    Most of us aren’t getting paid for this and my posts certainly aren’t publisher-ready, but if a blog has so many typos and spelling/grammatical errors that I frequently struggle to understand the post, I stop reading. Unfortunately, this is the case for some pretty popular blogs and it just amazes me.

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  7. Laurie | Your Ill-fitting Overcoat
    Nov 20, 2008 @ 1:58 pm

    Reading the other comments, it’s interesting to me how many of these are very personal peeves. Like the “theme day” peeve and the “philosophical post” peeve. Even things like “I hate reading about your wedding.” I hope that bloggers don’t take too much of this to heart– it isn’t your job as a blogger to be loved by EVERYONE.

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  8. Miss A
    Nov 22, 2008 @ 6:01 pm

    Light text on dark background – HATE HATE HATE. Unless you’re blog is fabulous then I will probably not persist with it.

    Auto music – Not interested.

    Posts that require too much backreading – rather than hyperlinking to the 2,000 word post that “gives me background”, can’t you just summise in 2-3 sentences?

    Mutliple YouTubes in the one post – not interested at all.

    No “About me” section – I hate visiting a new blog and having no idea about the person who I am reading about.

    No upper case – people who don’t use captial letters in appropriate places…. what are we, 5?

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  9. wishcake
    Nov 24, 2008 @ 7:53 pm

    Things that turn me away:

    Dry, humorless blogs.
    Blogs with partial feeds.
    Bloggers who write like they’re twelve.
    Political craziness, on either side.
    Bloggers who hate things I love.
    Too many memes.

    Aaaaaand yeah. I think that’s it, actually. For a while I felt too bad to delete people from my reader, but I realized that I was getting entirely too overwelmed. I do feel bad when I don’t subscribe to a blog when that blogger is a peach and comments alot (but I really didn’t enjoy their blog). But, really? I can’t subscibe to everything on that basis – to me, those that I follow mean ALOT to me, and I kind of like that, too.

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  10. wishcake
    Nov 24, 2008 @ 7:58 pm

    Oh, and I love what Laurie wrote a few comments back. In all honesty, blogging is a personal thing. If you want to write about your dog, your period, your wedding plans, your favorite kind of pretzel, etc. then you should be able to! We certainly can’t please them all, right?
    :)

    PS: Here’s a confession, though: I usually don’t read any posts pertaining to people’s dogs, because I’m totally not a dog person. And I know you are one, Jamie, so please know that I don’t judge! I’m just not there. Perhaps someday I will be. I’m trying to not limit myself. Heehee.

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  11. sizzle
    Oct 30, 2009 @ 7:47 pm

    You took the words right out of my mouth!

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