Analyse this: http://www.creativecriminal.blogspot.com

So does Arvind R initiator of the Creative Criminal weblog. He currently lives in Chennai (formerly known as Madras, located at the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal).

I have found two interesting remarks which (1) could illustrates his point of view and (2) could explane his choice of content.

“Smitten by the creative bug a decade ago, I have been treading the hallowed grounds of advertising ever since. A keenness to broaden my horizons is now making me look towards distant lands.” [Creative Criminal]

And:

“The very point of writing this is to get noticed.” [Creative Criminal]

In this individual blog, he emphasizes the beauty and ugliness of commercials and advertisement. In this post, I am not going to criticize the ethics or aesthetics of commercials and advertisement. I am going to briefly analyse the Creative Criminal weblog, because the idea behind this blog is brilliant, but nevertheless seems to have too many flaws.
My criteria, which I have come across at Problogger.net, are influenced by (1) Timothy Ferriss and (2) Haacked.com of Phil Haack. By analysing the Creative Criminal blog, I can point out its flaws, and thereby help this blog rise to its potential.

1. How about the usability? A couple of basic functions are not available that should improve the navigation.
   • The search bar is missing, which – in my opinion – is crucial to properly navigate through the blog’s history.
   • There is no tag-cloud present, which gives a quick overall view of the content on the blog.
   • There is no categorization of the content. It now will take ages to retrieve certain posts.
2. What has the upper hand? The Quality or Quantity of postings. Arvind publishes an average of four posts a month. That is not a lot, but the content is always interesting. He has posted several interesting links that lead towards similar, better looking blogs (Frederik Samuel / Adrants / Ads of the world / Adverbox). The reason why I am still ‘a member’ of his blog is simple. According to me, Arvind selects the best content of these blogs, which find their way into his weekly posts. So in terms of content, he is in favour of quality instead of quantity.
3. Which blog-tools should have been implemented? And which are not useful? I think he should use another utility, such as WordPress. It currently has no searchbar, tag-cloud or categorization. These basic functions should improve the blog’s usability.
4. What are the visual features in this blog? Are there any visual features lacking? Does form follows function? The publisher has chosen not to use a personal logo, which – in my opinion – makes the blog visually less coherent and less recognizable for promotional activities. Every post is based on one or more (motion-) pictures, which are accompanied by text as opposed to text being accompanied by pictures. This decision seems logical considering the subject. So, form follows function…
5. What about its literary content? As we look at the content of an average post, the publisher avoids putting forward a proposition. That is why – in my opinion – he is not able to elicit many comments on his posts. I would suggest to end the posts by putting forward clear propositions, in order to trigger comments. He surely wants to generate lots of traffic, because his blog is making use of advertisements.

Now I will end this brief analysis by summing up my suggestions:

1. Stop using Google’s Blogger utility
2. Insert a search-bar, categorization and a tag-cloud
3. Start using a personal logo to make the blog more coherent and more attractive for promotional purposes.
4. Elaborate more often on the subject matter and start putting forward propositions to elicit comments.