As you may recall from my Blast from the Past series of music posts a few months ago, music often plays an important role in our lives. Listening to our favorite tunes, old or new, can bring back treasured memories. Of course, listening to those tunes live in concert can bring back old memories as well as help to create new ones, and that is the subject of this paid review.

TicketFeeder offers an online premium event ticket sales services and provides sold out and premium tickets online. They offer more than just Concert Tickets, such as sports and theater tickets, but concerts are the focus of this review.

When you visit the site, the nice thing is that they have Upcoming Events for your area listed on the right side of the page. If your area isn’t shown, don’t worry. You can easily change the location with a link right below the currently listed location. You can enter your city and state or just your zip code, and the information will change to show you what’s coming up soon in your area.

Below that, you can sign up for event alerts to receive notice by eMail of exclusive events, tickets and discounts. You can choose alerts for just concerts, or sports or theater tickets, or any combination thereof. It’s all a matter of your preferences!

Of course, you may not be visiting a site to see what’s coming up, but instead are looking for a particular concert you want to attend. Maybe a concert is sold out—and you forgot to buy tickets!—and are looking to redeem yourself. Since TicketFeeder offers sold out Concert Tickets, you may be able to find just the ticket you are looking for.

You can start in the upper right corner by doing a “Find Ticket” search. Or, you can just go through the listings in the middle of the page. There’s a box that shows different genres, such as Rock, Pop, Jazz & Blues and so on. Further down, there’s an alphabetical listing, by genre and then broken down by performer(s), that you can go through.

If no tickets are available, it’ll tell you. If tickets are available, you’ll see a listing showing the date(s) and location(s). It will also show you a price range. Click the “View” button, and it’ll take you to a page showing you the available tickets, the quantity available, and their seating location. To the right, you’ll also see a map (where available) which will show you the seating sections to give you an idea of where your seats will be. Once you find the tickets you want, you just click the “Buy” button and check out.

Be sure to check out their FAQ for any questions about their service. They also have a toll-free customer service number listed on their site if you have any problems or special requests.

The next time you want to create some new memories listening to your favorite music act, TicketFeeder may be the place to go to get sold out or premium Concert Tickets you might not be able to find elsewhere.

“You need money to make money” is something we’ve all heard at one point or another in our lives. In the case of Currency Trading, it is literally true.

You may have heard of Forex before, or seen it mentioned in ads on popular blogs you may visit, and wondered what it is. Simply put, it is foreign exchange, or the exchange of one currency for another. Like investing in stocks, dabbling in the forex can be risky, but it can also be profitable as well, if you are knowledgeable about what you’re doing. One source of forex information, and the subject of this paid review, is FabForex.com.

FabForex.com offers a variety of articles on forex and related topics. Scanning their home page, you might wonder what articles such as “A Report on Human Rights in Cyprus” have to do with the foreign exchange. The answer is simple: Currency exchange is somewhat complex. You see, trading in foreign currencies isn’t entirely different from the stock exchange. You’ve no doubt noticed that stocks may rise or fall based on factors other than sales volumes and other business issues. The health of a CEO may be cause for concern, for example.

The same is true of foreign currencies. A nation’s stability, as well as other internal factors, all play a role in how much a currency will be valued at. Knowing what’s going on, beyond just the financial markets, will better enable you to make smarter decisions in which currencies to trade.

FabForex.com offers a variety of topics to better arm you for participating in the forex. The only downside to FabForex.com, and something they must remedy in order to build a reputation as a valuable forex resource is the lack of updates and new content. The foreign exchange is something you have to stay current on in order to make and continue to make smart trading decisions. And, to do that, you need up to date information.

If you are looking for information on forex, FabForex.com is a good place to start looking around. Take a peek today, and see what they have to offer.

Over this past week, you’ve enjoyed flashbacks to the 80’s and 90’s with my Blast from the Past series of posts. Unlike those posts, however, this one is a paid review.

The sad thing is that some of those musical artists from back then are no longer with us today. Some of the groups have broken up, and others have passed away. In addition to enjoying their past hits, you wonder what kind of music they would be creating today. Wouldn’t you “Cherish” hearing your old favorites, live and in concert, as well as new songs from your favorite artists? Wouldn’t you like “One More Chance” to see them again?

Fortunately, some of those artists are still around today, and still composing new songs as well as performing your old favorites. Take Madonna, for example. The “Material Girl” was born 50 years ago in my home town and is still “Burning Up” the stage today, as well as “Causing a Commotion.”

You’ll remember I mentioned earlier this week “La Isla Bonita,” which hit #4 in 1987, and “Vogue,” which was a #1 hit in 1990. One of my other favorites was one of her three #1 hits from 1986, “Live to Tell.” She continued her success into the 90’s and the current decade, scoring a #3 hit earlier this year, “4 Minutes” with Justin Timberlake. With that song, she broke Elvis’ record for having the most Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 (37 to Elvis’ 36) and she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

A species of water bear, Echiniscus madonnae, is also named for her. How many water bears are named for Elvis?

She’s currently on tour and Madonna Tickets are available from TicketsToGo.com, which has tickets for Madonna and other popular artists. So, “Get Into the Groove” because this can be your opportunity to hear a living legend, live and in-person.

Video production has long been an interest of mine. No doubt you’ve noticed the small number of videos I haven’t posted in a while. Anyway, one of my main interests after graduation was video production. I saved and saved until I had enough money to get the equipment to build my first prosumer studio. I had enough money left over to get a Macintosh PowerBook, and that’s where I got distracted.

At any rate, I have maintained an interest in video production. That sometimes makes TV a pain to watch. Public access is pretty much unwatchable for me. While other people are like, “Oh that’s so cool!” to see local entertainment on the public access channel, I cringe at the poor sound and sloppy video. But, at least I can recognize what they’re doing wrong, because of that backlog of knowledge still stuck in the back of my head. So, given the opportunity to do a paid review for a video production service, I naturally jumped at the chance!

Chicago Video Production by Richter Studios

Richter Studios is a video production service located in Chicago, Illinois, although they have clients across the country and around the world.

They seem to be able to handle any type of video production, from corporate videos to training and marketing videos. They can also do 2D and 3D animation, including logo animation and special effects. In addition to videos, they also do presentations and interactive websites.

If you look at their demo reels on their site, you can see that they do quality work. The video is well-shot and nicely framed; no sloppy and awkward camera work. And, their web site is well-done too, with lots of activity, but not so much that it’s distracting or difficult to look at.

Their video work is all done digitally, and they use 1080p high-definition video cameras, which I think is the highest resolution available today. On top of that, they use Apple Macintosh computers, so you know that these are professionals who know what they are doing.

Going through their site, if there is anything that can be learned, it is how to incorporate video professionally on a website. With a lot of sites, video is somewhat of an afterthought. Web video is the latest trend, so people just slap up a video and pat themselves on the back for being part of the Web 2.0 trend.

But, on Richter Studios’ website, you can see how well video is integrated into the site, demonstrating that they know what they’re doing not just with video, but also with the web. They are truly an experienced multimedia firm.

As an example, take a look at their Contact Us page. Whereas many sites might just have a photo, if that much, they have a video playing of a woman manning the phone. And, where many might have a single video playing, they have a series of videos of this woman. Each time, she may be talking to different people, which is a lot more interesting than viewing the same thing over and over again.

It’s that kind of attention to detail that really showcases their skills. There’s no doubt that if you need video production or other multimedia services, Richter Studios should be on your shortlist of firms to consider.

I decline a lot of reviews, simply for the fact that the ones that come my way generally aren’t anything that would be of interest to me or my readers. Reviewing something that doesn’t fit into my niche (and that’s a rather wide net, considering the number of things I blog about) would be out-of-place and no doubt something you’ll just skip over. But, then this one came my way, and it fits. So, what follows is a paid review.

Create Blog on Thoughts.com

Thoughts.com is a service you can use to create your own blog, like many other blogging services that are available. What makes Thoughts.com different from many of those other blogging services is that they are trying to create a community around their blogs. This could be a great thing for beginning bloggers that often struggle to draw attention to their sites.

First Impressions

The home page displays a number of most recent items, from posts to photos and videos. Apparently, they allow explicit content as well, so if you have a tendency to write explicit content, Thoughts.com may be a welcoming home for you. But, I also see this as a potential downside if this is not handled better. The site currently identifies itself as “beta” so hopefully these are things that would be remedied before it is released from its beta status.

You see, while post content on the home page and other areas (there are sections where you can view a full list of recent posts, random posts, popular blogs, etc.) are clearly marked as “explicit content,” photos and videos may or may not be. While I do not see (at least in the first 22 pages I browsed) any pornographic images, there were two explicit illustrations on the home page when I first checked the site. And, the juxtaposition of an image of Jesus next to an illustration of female private parts was a bit jarring, as well as NSFW! Hopefully, that was a fluke that will be fixed before the site comes out of beta.

According to their Terms of Use, prohibited content includes that which “contains sexually explicit and violent material, including nudity, links to adult websites and any sexual or sexually violent exploitation of another person.” However, they rely on users to mark “explicit content” and other users to flag things as being “Inappropriate” if something does violate the terms of use. That’s not unlike most other services. It may be that, since the site is in beta, more people are “testing the waters” than they might otherwise.

They also have a language filter in place that you can enable or disable as to your preferences.

The odd things is that the site seems to be popular with both religious people and people writing explicit content. I’ve seen more images of Jesus in just a few minutes than in a typical week of surfing blogs. It is very weird seeing words like “incest,” “Jesus,” “sex,” and “Bible” all in the same tag cloud.

Blogging and Sharing

In some respects, Thoughts.com is a like blog service, photo sharing site, video sharing site and community forums all rolled into one, which is something I like a lot. I’ve always been a fan of forums, and they do offer a level of interaction you just cannot get while blog-hopping, and I like the way they’ve rolled everything into one.

I’m not sure how much control you have over the customization of your blog. Many of the blogs I checked out look very much alike. I saw very little customization, just some color changes is all. Whether that’s because a lot of the bloggers are newbie bloggers that don’t know how or want to do much customization or if it’s because a large amount of customization isn’t possible, I don’t know. I don’t see any documentation covering that. Perhaps that information is available once you’ve signed up, but it would be best to show that kind of thing before you sign up, as it is certainly one of those things people are going to want to know beforehand.

I don’t see any option for using your own domain name. You do get a custom URL, so you could forward a domain name to it. Still, it might be nice to have that as an available feature for those who want it. It could also be an additional revenue stream for Thoughts.com if they offer domain name registration services on-site.

It’s All Free?

Speaking of revenue, it is not immediately apparent how Thoughts.com will make money. All the services appear to be free, and you get unlimited free space, so there is no “premium” level of service or anything of that nature that I can find offered on the site.

I see no ads on any of the blogs. And, it is not clear whether users are permitted to run their own ads (whether through Google AdSense or other services) or not.

They also have a Vacation Getaway. But, no indication of how they do, or plan to, make any money on the site. There are also no requests for donations that I can see either.

Perhaps they will add advertising and affiliate programs in the future, as their user base grows.

Also, checking the WHOIS, they have a private registration, which strikes me as odd for an entity that I imagine is a business. In fact, from the site, they appear very tight-lipped as to who they actually are. From the terms of use, you can make an educated guess that they are located in Florida based on the jurisdiction of courts mentioned in the document but, beyond that, it’s anyone’s guess.

Does it matter? Maybe not, but then again if you’re putting your own content on someone else’s site, wouldn’t you like to have some idea who you are dealing with? And, wouldn’t you also like some idea if the site will still be around in the future, especially as your blog grows more popular?

Closing

Despite the reservations I’ve expressed above, I think that Thoughts.com has a lot of potential if managed and promoted properly. For those who want to be on the ground floor of something that could be big, now is the time to sign up and establish a presence. For everyone else, this is one to keep an eye on.

Alex of A Blog that Lies has reviewed me again. Thanks, Alex!

He first reviewed me here and his current review is here.

Overall, it’s a positive review. But, should I be worried about that, since it is A Blog that Lies? Hmmm.

Heehaw, y’all! If you’re hankering to hustle up some green, then this here’s the review for you, partner!

It’s time for another head-to-head review, where two bloggers walk their ten paces, and only one will remain standing. This week’s hustlers offer to help you stirrup some scratch, but do they hitch up to the hype? We’ll slice and dice ‘em, and see if they’re all that. And then we’ll serve ‘em up with some cornbread and home fries on the side, ’cause we know you’re gonna want fries with this shakedown.

Our Hustlin’ Hustlers: My New Hustle and Net Hustlin’. It’s already past high noon, so let’s line our money-slingers up…

About

Net Hustlin’ is a blog with “creative ideas to make money online.”

My New Hustle is a blog “about about getting your (legal) hustle on! Whether it’s online or offline, I’ll show you different ways of leveraging opportunities so you can benefit and either add to your existing hustles or jump full-time into a new one.”

With the introductions out of the way, it’s time for our Hustle Hoedown!

Technical

My New Hustle has its own domain name, mynewhustle.com.

Net Hustlin’ is a Blogger blog, workontheweb.blogspot.com.

Having your own domain name is preferable, and gives you more options, such as changing hosts and having a lovely matching eMail address. Now, what cowperson wouldn’t want that?

Branding / Design

Both blogs have blue themes. Both have their names in plain ordinary text against a blue background. My New Hustle is slightly more exciting, but not enough to break a tie.

Content

All righty then! It’s time to make our hustlers take their ten paces. Net Hustlin’ is at a disadvantage, since she doesn’t post as frequently (but more on that later). So, we’ll let her set the pace…

Pace 1 On July 29th, Net Hustlin’ posts about “Playing Guitar Online for Money.” Great for the musically-inclined. My New Hustler fires back with a humorous post, “Hustle Humor: Curse Out Your Boss & Co-Workers for Profit.” Nice, but we’d like to bring home the bacon.

Pace 2 On July 31st, Net Hustlin’ posts about “Social Networking for Money,” but it’s only about one social networking site. But all My New Hustle offers in return is his “Hustle Hookup.”

Pace 3 On August 2nd, Net Hustlin’ posts on how to “Become a Hired Forum Writer.” But, My New Hustler doesn’t post!!!

Pace 4 On August 4th, Net Hustlin’ posts about “Amazon Mechanical Turk.” My New Hustle isn’t taking this one sitting down, and he fires back with “Gettin’ My Hustle On: How To Gain Advantages Over the Competition” and “15th Hustle: Make $100,000 Giving Directions.”

Pace 5 On August 7th, Net Hustlin’ tells you how you can “Get Paid To Try Google Products.” My New Hustle phones in his shot with some hustle humor.

Pace 6 On August 9th, Net Hustlin’ explains how you can “Get Paid To Be An Online Juror.” My New Hustle tries a little bit of reverse psychology and tests you to see if you catch on with his post on how to “Waste Time with Web Contests.”

Pace 7 On August 10th, Net Hustlin’ lets you know how you can “Make Money Writing on Newsvine.” My New Hustle doesn’t post! Where’s he gone!?

Pace 8 On August 15th, Net Hustlin’ shows you different ways to “Sell T-Shirts and Merchandise Online.” My New Hustle highlights One Year Goal .Com. Hey, I did that last week! Sort of.

Pace 9 On August 16th, Net Hustlin’ writes about how to “Make Money Answering Questions.” My New Hustle tells you how to “Legitimize Your Hustle with Credit Cards.”

Pace 10 On August 17th, Net Hustlin’ informs you on “Embedding a Fortune.” My New Hustle has made a run for it! I think he’s headed for the saloon!

Overall, My New Hustle takes the advantage in quality of posts. His posts edge out Net Hustlin’s posts in terms of quality. He has a slight edge too in frequency of posts, but, as you can see, he regularly misses days as well. My New Hustle has a two-month lead on Net Hustlin’, but he still appears to struggle in terms of keeping the blog regularly updated. Net Hustlin’ had 17 posts in July and 8 so far in August. My New Hustle had 25 for July and 15 so far for August. So, he is faring better than Net Hustlin’ for the month. On the flip side, My New Hustle had only 8 posts in his first full month (June) yet Net Hustlin’ had 17 posts in her first full month. But, she’s fallen behind as My New Hustle had 25 posts in his second full month while Net Hustlin’ has only 8 thus far this month, and it’s more than half over.

Popularity

My New Hustle: Technorati 256; Blog Juice 4.2; PR0

Net Hustlin’: Technorati 21; Blog Juice 0.9; PR(n/a)

Hoedown Showdown: Conclusion

In our final point battle, My New Hustle wins by 4 points to Net Hustlin’s 1 point.

But, the point spread doesn’t tell the full story. Net Hustlin’ managed to hold her own against the competition. With more experience, she’ll certainly give My New Hustle a run for his money! Both of our contenders need to work on the frequency of their postings. If time is an issue, they ought to look at scheduling their posts. In either case, keep an eye on both of these newcomers as they continue to grow their blogs.

Until next time, heehaw, y’all!

Let’s get ready to rumba!

It’s time for another rumblin’ review, where two bloggers go head to head, and only one will emerge victorious. Polish your pistols, ready your whips and sharpen your swords, but refrain from whittlin’ your thumbs, as we answer the question: who will lose their head and who will taste the Quickening?

Our One Doubles: One Man’s Goal and One Year Goal. Seeing double?

About

OneMansGoal.com is a blog by a man determined to harness the Internet to earn a full-time income entirely online. Bryan writes, “Give me 365 Days and I will attempt… I WILL… create a viable source of income by harnessing the power of the net. I am not a guru, techie, coder, blogger, or a professional. I hope to learn these things as I go and pass them on to others.”

One Year Goal .com is a blog by a man dedicated to earning $100,000 online in one year. One Man writes, “This blog is about the true American dream for the 21st century. The dream of being an entrepreneur online. The dream of being your own boss. The dream of being free to set your hours and never be chained to a desk.”

With the introductions out of the way, let’s let our Duel of Ones begin!

Risk / Reward

Both our competitors have stated bold goals online. Stating your goals publicly and online is a pretty bold move, wouldn’t you say? Bryan Clark wants to earn a full-time income and One Man wants to earn $100,000. Hey… wait a minute… Did you notice that?

We know who the man is behind OneMansGoal.com. His name is Bryan Clark. He even has his picture on his blog. If he fails to achieve his goal, everyone will know.

On the other hand, who is One Man? His name isn’t on his blog and his domain name registration is private, so no clues there either. If he fails to achieve his goal, who will know, besides a small group of people (like me) who know his real name? He can easily disappear from the blogosphere and start all over.

(The score here is based on boldness.)

Originality

Both OneMansGoal.com and One Year Goal .com have similar goals, as well as domain names. In fact, I think I initially started reading One Year Goal .com because I thought it was OneMansGoal.com. It has even come up in discussions on other blogs as to whether one copied the other. Hmmm. Let’s see…

OneMansGoal.com was registered on July 2, 2007.

OneYearGoal.com was registered on July 3, 2007.

Bryan’s first post on OneMansGoal.com was on June 28, 2007. He started out on a free blog, which is how he was able to post before he had registered his domain name. One Man’s first post was on July 4, 2007.

So, did One Man copy Bryan Clark? Did he feel the Buzz? Does it really matter? Both have original content (we’ll get to that later), and there’s really nothing original in trying to make a full-time income online. So, really, it’s a wash.

Technical

If you visit OneMansGoal.com as www.onemansgoal.com, you will be redirected to onemansgoal.com (no www). Good.

If you visit One Year Goal .com as www.oneyeargoal.com, you will arrive at www.oneyeargoal.com. Visit as oneyeargoal.com and you will arrive at oneyeargoal.com. Bad.

Such a setup can lead to duplicate content issues with Google and other search engines. You see, the search engines will see www.yourdomain.dom and yourdomain.dom as two different sites displaying the same content. Yes, the search engines are that dumb. Since the search engines view duplicate content as having less value than original content, your site can get demoted in the rankings.

Branding

OneMansGoal.com has a big, bold logo graphic across the top of his blog. OneMansGoal.com is prominently displayed in blue with a white outline and shadow effects to differentiate from the blue background. The name really pops out at you, and the graphics with the plain ol’ vanilla gang with the lone red individual leading the pack is a nice touch.

One Year Goal .com is in plain black type against a dark blue background. It also has the tagline of “Can one man really make $100,000 in just one year?” in white type. The tagline stands out more than the blog’s name. It really should be easier to read the blog’s name though.

Diversification

Both blogs share the goal of making money–lots of money–online.

One Man has plans to do this with other projects in addition to his main blog. Early on, he started with plans for TerriblyFunny.com and a dating eBook. Both have since taken a backseat to his other blog, A Man’s Man. A Man’s Man had a good early start, but has been sidelined as One Man focuses on his Fireboard plugin and OYG Ads. And, this week he started yet another project, MOL Talk.

Bryan Clark only has his main blog at the moment. In an eMail, he tells me that he doesn’t want to start another blog until he feels his current one is established. At the time of this writing, OneMansGoal.com has a Technorati Authority rating of 146, while One Year Goal .com has a rating of 32. Whether he realizes it or not, OneMansGoal.com is established, and Bryan should really start diversifying.

While there is certainly wisdom in Bryan’s approach, and One Man’s project hopping reveals the difficulties of heating several pots with one burner, the edge here has to go to One Man for trying so early in the game. Whether he ultimately succeeds or gets burned will remain to be seen. But, for now, the point is his.

Ouch! It has been a bloodbath thus far in our duel, and the fight has not gone well for One Year Goal .com. OneMansGoal.com leads by 3 to 1. Let’s see how our challengers fare as we begin the second part of our raging review…

Design

Since both these blogs have moneymaking as their goal, it should be no surprise that both are filled with ads and other monetizing links. Both blogs appear to have a similar number of ads and both blogs use a three column layout. However, OneMansGoal.com looks less cluttered because his content area is the middle column, which splits up the ads and links visually, leading to a more organized appearance. His color scheme also gives the blog appearance an extra punch, and the light gray shading further helps separate the different content areas.

One Year Goal .com’s smaller blog header allows for more ads and links to appear above the “fold,” which is more attractive to advertisers and gives him an advantage in monetization. OneMansGoal.com’s header occupies more screen real estate and pushes ads and links below the fold. His header could be made half the height, while retaining the advantages mentioned under Branding, simply by cropping it to half the height and making the people smaller. Making the people smaller would also mean there would be room to add more of the vanilla guys, which would further enhance the effect of the leading red man.

For some reason, comments on OneMansGoal.com do not display in Safari (Mac). You just get the commentator’s name and date and a blank area where the comment should be.

Content

As with our last review, we’re going to examine some sample posts from our dueling duo, comparing posts made on the same days in a series of days more or less chosen by random. (In other words, I thought to myself, Hey, how about last week?)

On July 29th, One Man posts a retraction and a problem, while Bryan posts an end of the month summary. Sorry, but, YAWN!

On July 30th, Bryan posts a help request for a friend, which is nice, so we’ll cut him some slack here. Meanwhile, One Man posts an article on getting started with affiliate programs, an announcement (a.k.a. YAWN!), and a reason to review him.

On July 31st, One Man informs you how to track your visitors, a blog milestone (a.k.a. YAWN!) and an Ask One Man feature where he talks about loving to answer reader questions and invites readers to ask questions which then don’t get answered until about a week later, which is an eternity in the blogosphere. Meanwhile, Bryan posts about Jill Koenig the “Goal Guru” which is largely a sales pitch but does have some useful tidbits he learned. He also posts about another blog’s review of his blog (a.k.a. YAWN!)

On August 1st, Bryan posts “Understanding Your Alexa Ranking.” Back at One Year Goal .com, One Man posts about a reader dinner (a.k.a. YAWN!), getting rich quickly, a weekly summary (a.k.a. YAWN!), Bourne mania (a.k.a. YAWN!) and an announcement (a.k.a. YAWN!) of a forthcoming series of hosting reviews.

On August 2nd, Bryan posts about a blogger challenge (which, for non-contestants, is a.k.a. YAWN!) and “5 Simple Tips to Increase Adsense Income.” One Man posts about Prosper and “How and Why to Poll Your Readers.”

On August 3rd, which is the final day in what has turned out to largely be a snore-fest, One Man has a weekly review review (a.k.a. YAWN!), a Prosper reminder (a.k.a. YAWN!) and a list of his past posts you “MUST” read. Bryan has a site review sale and talks about Text Link Ads’ affiliate program (a.k.a. YAWN!).

At this point, lest ye get the wrong impression, it’s pretty certain I chose a weak week for both contestants. Despite the veritable insomnia-busting series we’ve just gone through, both sites do offer a lot of great content. To be fair, I’ll list a few of the great posts from this past week.

In addition to his Hosting Battle Royale series, One Man also posted the following this past week:

This past week, Bryan posted the following:

So, despite one poor week which I just happened to more or less randomly choose to review, both sites really do have great content and a lot of good information to share. Though frequently distracted by other projects, One Man tends to blog more frequently than Bryan. At OneMansGoal.com, there seems to be an average of only one post per day. Few are the days when you’ll see more than one. At One Year Goal .com, there are more days when you’ll see multiple posts in a day.

Still, though, I think both blogs are worth reading and no one takes a strong lead in this category.

Popularity

OneMansGoal.com: Technorati 146; Blog Juice 3.4; PR(n/a)

One Year Goal .com: Technorati 32; Blog Juice 2.0; PR0

In the End, There Can Be Only One: Conclusion

In our final point battle, OneMansGoal.com wins by 6 points to One Year Goal .com’s 3 points.

In reality, there can be more than One. I hope that both will achieve their goals! In any case, both these blogs are worth watching along the way. They share what they learn and we can learn as they learn.

A lot of bloggers review other blogs, but how many do two at the same time, eh? Yes, that’s right. In the spirit of dueling banjos, I am going to review not one, but two–yes two–blogs at once. First, we must ask ourselves, which one has the prettier mouth?

Our Dynamic Duo: Chris Bloczynski dot Com and ChrisBlogging.

About

As described on his blog, Chris Bloczynski dot Com is “a blog about entrepreneurship. It’s targeted towards business owners and bloggers….”

Meanwhile, ChrisBlogging reveals “tips, tricks, and strategy for earning a full-time income through writing, blogging and internet marketing.”

With the introductions out of the way, let’s let our Blogger Death Match begin!

Design

Both blogs are reasonably easy to read. Chris Bloczynski dot Com features a gray/platinum/steel/this-is-so-two-years-ago color theme with a touch of orange highlight to complement the RSS feed logo. ChrisBlogging takes the edge, with a crisp blue and green theme that’s bright and cheerful and not terribly hard on the eyes. Chris Bloczynski dot Com is a newer blog, but already cluttered with ads and links, though not terribly so when compared to a number of blogs out there these days. ChrisBlogging, while the slightly elder blog, is amazingly ad free, which is interesting for a blog about earning a full-time income with blogging.

ChrisBlogging takes the lead in navigation. Chris Bloczynski dot Com appears to lack a “Previous Entries” link to view older posts. While he does list earlier posts in an end-of-the-month summary post, that’s not as easy as flipping through the pages. Plus, why have an “Archives” link if you cannot easily skim through those archives? The month of July indicates 24 posts, yet you can only reach 10 of them through the Archives link, except if you read the posts one by one by following the links in his summary post. That’s contrary to the way most blogs work, and makes the site less intuitive to navigate. ChrisBlogging uses typical navigation tools, and is much easier to browse.

I also like the little calendar icons that ChrisBlogging uses to indicate the posting dates.

Content

Both of our competitors come out swinging here. ChrisBlogging has a nifty article titled “Give People a Reason to Read your Blog” and mentions that some blogs attract readers because they have “pictures of scantily clad celebrities.” Chris Bloczynski dot Com tosses in the occasional pretty girl in a sweater.

Yes, I poke fun, but, as I said, both blogs come out swinging in this arena. Let’s take a look at some examples. And, since we’ve got a dueling duo, let’s compare posts made on the same days!

On July 22nd, ChrisBlogging throws down the gauntlet with an insightful post on “The Topics and Subtopics of your Blog.” Chris Bloczynski dot Com battles back with an impressive post on “10 Techniques to Make Your Brand Memorable.”

On July 24th, ChrisBlogging has a great post on “Tips for Managing Multiple Blogs.” Not to be outdone, Chris Bloczynski dot Com has an excellent post on “Branding on the Web.”

On July 28th, ChrisBlogging battles back with “Give People a Reason to Read your Blog.” Chris Bloczynski dot Com responds with a post about John Chow.

And the rumble rages on!

Both sites have some excellent and insightful posts that are well-worth reading. ChrisBlogging takes an edge in blogging more frequently and consistently than Chris Bloczynski dot Com.

Popularity

Judging by both the number of comments and their respective Technorati ratings, ChrisBlogging is the more popular blog. Of course, he also has about a month’s lead on Chris Bloczynski dot Com. With the quality of content Chris Bloczynski dot Com has to offer, and if he can increase his posting frequency, he will certainly catch up with ChrisBlogging.

Who Has the Prettier Mouth: Conclusion

The duel of two Chris’s will no doubt continue for many months to come. Both offer a great selection of content and are well worth a regular visit and reading. Be sure to check them out today!