This year I believe web 2.0 will be strong this year. The reason is because a lot of things has happened near or towards the end of 2007. One popular theme I have realized or picked up was interactive templates or web 2.0 web designs. My template which was create by Brian Gardner is a newspaper themed template, which I added some interaction at the top and front page of my blog.
Interaction with a blog is important as we slowly evolve into web 2.0 and socializing. We as users are getting lazier by the day and year. I think 2008 is that year. But websites are also evolving and even blogs. There is some controversy on blogs looking like newspapers and not the traditional 'scroll' blog.
But I personally like being organized, I'm a Virgo - can't help it =P! We just entered a new year and we need to be better organized. The issue around organizing a blog is the 'moving away' of content scroll. If you go to any blog a traditional blog will have their content and the past content below it, the content is scrolled until it leaves the front page.
I think that is not a good way to have content viewed. The reason for this is because 5 days later no one will see that specific content. You wrote that content and after several days it is gone for no one else to read, I think that content will feel very depressed!
With newspaper themed blogs, the content is more organized and structured. There is more interaction and the content is more organized. There is no more central location of content. usually blog content is on the far left or centered. With newspaper themed blogs, the content can be in multiple places and attracting the eyes to more parts of a user's blog.
You can even divide content into multiple sections, giving more 'home page' time on the front of your website. Some topics may be more popular than others, which you may want to display more on the front. With standard scroll blogs, you do not have the option to create categories, except a 'featured' post. Even using a featured post is exactly similar to having posts categorized on the front page. Giving more exposure gives the chance for your post to be more interactive as well.
More exposure is usually good for an article or post because you would receive more comments and interaction from your readers. At least the article would get more exposure than the traditional blog scroll life, it won't gather digital dust.
Magazine or Newspaper themes are also big to group network bloggers. By this I mean a multi blog author, with multiple posts in a day there is very little chance to have it seen to all readers publicly. So sections or authors are given dedicated categories so posts and articles are thoroughly seen by the reader.
With a lot of new blog designs being designed there are more and more new newspaper themed templates are springing up as well. It seems blogs are looking for more organization and a cleaner layout. Instead of just the traditional 2 to 3 column templates you can have rows interlacing with columns and columns within columns. The design just calls to bloggers because of the neat acoustics that it can bring to many readers.
Here are Some Reasons Why NewsPaper Themes are Perfect for your Blog Redesign
- Better Design Structure
- Users show more interaction with newspaper themed layouts
- Web 2.0 Friendly/ Web 2.0 Interaction
- Multiple Columns
- Posts are more exposed on the front page
- Post can be categorized in stead of 'scrolled'
- More Interaction for the readers
- Reader has more of a peripheral viewing of the blog
- User Group Oriented
With the powers of WordPress a layout can be easily interactive and designed. There are multiple premium themes that are very popular and greatly interactive. Some themes are just basic magazine styled with a clean structure. For example my theme is 3 columned with the third column being split into 2 columns when needed.
My theme's front page is mostly categorized, I like to know that my posts are being seen and getting the well needed exposure. My side bar is 'referenced' information; all the information on the side is meant for reference, ads, featured links, categories, my money makers, etc. My theme fits perfectly for since I enjoy 3 column templates and organization. These types of themes are coming alive to multiple blogs, multi authored or not.
So will web 2.0 blogs be the rave for magazine/ newspaper style templates?
