I enjoy technology, which is evident in the fact that I am the author of a technology blog. Since I have started writing free reviews, I haven’t really reviewed many technology-related blog.
This week I will look at a blog that actually has a very long title, but I will shorten it to Upcoming Technolgies. In case you are curious, the full title I was given was “Upcoming Technologies,Current Technologies,Reviews,News,Info and more!”
Web Site: Upcoming Technologies
Description: Explore the “most” interesting stuff of today and tomorrow!
Design 
The design of Upcoming Technologies consists of a content section on the left and a single navigation sidebar on the right.
The content section is well designed in that the text is very easy to read and the many posts are easily recognized and distinct. The content section is the best part of the blog, and the sidebar the weakest.
The sidebar of a blog is traditionally used for navigation and advertising. In this case, it is used more for the latter, which makes it more difficult to navigate around the blog. The author has chosen to only include archive links of the blog posts as a means of navigating.
The remaining portions of the sidebar is a mismatch of various advertising units and widgets. Some of the widgets seem out of place in a technology blog, such as an online dictionary, word of the day, and quote of the day widgets. These widgets not only take up valuable real estate, but they also slow the loading of the blog.
If the author were to include more navigation links, such as categories, a smaller version of the archives, and an about me page link, it would definitely make the blog much better.
Focus 
The focus is specific to technology of all forms, and each post appears to provide technology related news. A visitor reading the blog for the first time will easily determine the focus of the blog.
Content
As I read through the various posts on the blog, I was impressed with the author’s writing style. There were a few spelling mistakes, but overall the blog was well written, and I thought the author knew how to write great posts. This was until I looked a little deeper.
Many of the news related posts are simply copies of articles from various news sources. While I definitely hate a blogger copying other’s work, the author does site the source (a link to an online article) at the end of each article.
I would rather have had the author simply write a brief introduction or outline of the article, and then provide the link to the actual article. This allows the author to have unique content, that isn’t copied, and also provides a visitor with more information in the linked article.
For many of the posts, the author has included various images that are related to the topic of the post. This helps add colour to both the blog and the post. Keep in mind that some of the images are also copied from the new source as well.
I feel the author should copy less from articles and provide more of their own work, since I frown upon copying.
Spelling and Grammar 
I found the spelling and grammar mistakes in the posts very interesting. Many of the mistakes I found were in articles that were copied from various news sources.
I didn’t read the actual articles closely from the news source, but the ones I did read also contained the mistake on both sites. I find it interesting that an article can be published twice and still have the same spelling and grammar mistakes.
Overall
The design is not as good as it could be because of the disorder in the sidebar. Cleaning up the navigation links on the sidebar, and removing unnecessary widgets should be the first step to fixing the design.
Much of the content is copied directly, images included, from a trusted news source. The author, however, has provided a link to the original article. For the articles, the author should have written a brief overview, or introduction to the article instead of copying the entire article in a post.
This blog overall could be better, but has potential if the author puts a bit more effort into managing Upcoming Technologies.
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