I’m fairly new to the blogosphere having started blogging in the middle of last year but I’ve taken a liking to it. If you ask my wife, she might say it’s an obsession but I can’t help it. When I do anything, I like to do it well. Part of that means reading lots of other blogs. One particular blog that provides great information on blogging is Dukeo.
In this post I’m reviewing Dukeo as part of a contest that is going on for the blog’s two-year anniversary. This review could put $200 right into my bank account.
What I like about it
Breadth – My twitter stream consistently produces shares of Dukeo’s content. And by consistently I mean a number of users (many high profile bloggers in their own right) all sharing different posts that I haven’t read yet. For a site that’s only two years old, the breadth of content is quite impressive. If you want to know anything about blogging or just get another perspective on a blog-related topic, you can find it here.
Simplicity – Dukeo’s simple design also ensures that new visitors to the site aren’t overwhelmed by a bunch of different elements they probably will never use.
Downloadable content – Many blogs cover their respective subject matter in depth but don’t provide an easy way for you to access the information when you’re offline. Dukeo provides three ebooks now in exchange for your email address, which I have downloaded already but haven’t gotten around to reading them yet.
Things I don’t like as much
About Page – While I know the author of the blog makes his living on the site, the about page comes off a little too sales-y for my liking and the emotional appeal with an assurance that you can “take care of people you love when they’ll need you”rubs me the wrong way.
Pop-ups – I HATE pop-ups in general but what I don’t like here is that I’ve already provided my email and I still get the pop-ups. Now this could be a result of me using multiple browsers but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating. On a related note, I’ve found the pop-ups to make browsing on my iphone 5 almost impossible because the “x” to close the pop-up window does not get displayed.
Search – If there is a search field somewhere on the site I can’t find it. Given the amount of content on the site, a search option would be a nice add to help parse out the info you’re looking for.
The Bottom Line
Even with the areas of improvement note above, the value Dukeo provides greatly outweighs any of the negatives and I continue to come back to the site.
photo credit: Annie Mole via photopin cc
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