When I started blogging, I was a loner. I didn’t really follow a lot of blogs. In the past few months I started to become very interested in other peoples writing and artistic styles. I personally love blogs because they give the blogger an opportunity to be creative on many levels, from the writing, to the layout, and other points in between. I am going to list a handful of my favorite blogs and why I love them. I am going to avoid talking about the bigger blogging for profit sites because many people talk about those daily. I still read and love Problogger and Dosh Dosh, for example, but I have discussed those blogs many times before. These are ones you may not have heard of (although a few of them are quite large, such as the Simple Dollar). I encourage everyone to comment with links to their favorite blogs as well.
I used to be horrible with money. Okay, okay. I still am horrible with money. As soon as I earn a dollar, I spend a dollar. As I have gotten older, I have started to see the importance of wise investing and proper use of the money that I earn. Author Trent Hamm has tremendous insight on how to get your finances on track. His story is similar to many who have amassed a lot of credit card debt and attempted to learn how to budget properly, but he has developed effective habits to erase his debt. He is an excellent writer, and his posts are always helpful and insightful. The layout of the blog is simplistic and not overrun with advertisements, but it could probably use a little spice. You can tell in his writing that Trent really loves to help people. I read this blog every single day.
I am not off to a good start with not discussing the blogs everyone has already heard of because Dooce.com is massively popular. That is because it is a fantastic, edgy and interesting blog. Heather Armstrong has been featured on many other websites and television shows, and rightfully so. She has been at this for many, many years. Her website is classified as a ‘mommy blog’, but her blog has been running since long before she became a mother. She offers excellent layout, photography, and day to day posting. One of the parts I love the most is her running journal to her child. She is very detailed, sometimes graphic, but always entertaining and insightful. She has a dry sense of humor and it shows.
I discovered this blog early on in my niche blogging experimenting. I was reading a post on another blog that discussed using a point system to help increase traffic. Eve, the author of Confessions of a Housewife, developed a system that I started using immediately. What I noticed after a few days, however, is Eve’s blog isn’t really a how to make money niche blog. It is actually very well thought out and interesting to read. I think I live vicariously through blogs like this because I am not married and find married life intriguing. Aside from the blog, there are lots of wonderful resources on the website.
Zack Hample is crazy. That is the first thing you will notice about him. His blog covers how he has snagged almost 4000 baseballs in major league stadiums. It is an interesting hobby that I am partial towards because I also collect baseballs. What stands out about this blog isn’t what he does, it is how well he writes about it. Zack is an established author (he has two popular baseball books to his credit) and he uses those skills on a day to day basis with his blog. This was one of the first blogs I started reading on a regular basis several years ago, and I still read it to this day. The layout is generic because it is hosted by Major League Baseball but it gets the job done. Check out his blog and when you are done, purchase his new book Watching Baseball Smarter. It is an excellent read.
What can I say? I am a sucker for pastels and great writing. Selina’s blog is basically just a day to day diary blog. It isn’t really a profit niche site, but it is more along the lines of Dooce.com. I stumbled upon her blog when going through my Twitter promotion. I was adding people of interest and her website stood out, so I started reading on a daily basis. She puts herself out there a lot more than most bloggers, as her about page is just loaded. But I think that is a very endearing quality of a blogger. While not as detailed, I made sure to have my personal MySpace, Facebook, and my band names on my About page so people can learn more about me if they so choose. The layout of her blog is just fantastic, as I said before, I love pastels, especially in blog themes.
I started following this website a few years back and it is flat out consistant. It is an outstanding music industry blog. I know there are many of those out there but I have found few as opinionated and right on the point as Kings of AR. They are music snobs, but for the right reasons. They also break industry news and have a history of bands they feature becoming signed to record labels. Since I have been an active musician for the last 10 years, I can really appreciate the advice on this website. The layout is very easy to follow and unlike many industry blogs, it is not overridden with advertisements.
I know this isn’t a blog, but Richard Roeper is my favorite columnist of all time. I have been reading his column for long before he became famous as a move critic. His column is a general opinion column, and it is very well thought out. When I was in high school, they used to sell the Sun Times in the morning for 25 cents to students. I would buy the paper and go straight to his column. He was the sole reason I became interested in writing. Without discovering his column, I wouldn’t be blogging currently.
Those are just a few of the websites I read on a day to day basis. My RSS reader is overloaded with lots of great blogs, but I always look for new posts by the ones I listed before moving on to others.
What are some of your daily destinations?
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