This is a paid review from www.thoughts.com
Thoughts.com is something different altogether. It is a community of bloggers all with free blogs provided by thoughts.com. All the blogs are visible within the main window, which means easier navigation for the readers.
The blogs are not traditional blogs from a design viewpoint rather posts which other community members can comment on.
The design
The design of the blog is clean, simple, and very appealing to the eye as you can see from the screenshot above.
The navigation of the site is very user friendly and easy to navigate even for the most computer illiterate person. The navigation links are clear and are not too crowded as to confuse the reader; there are less than 30 links on the main page. This might sound a lot but compared with other sites, which can have 70-100 links on the main page it is not a lot.
Sky blue and white are the predominant colours of the site, which again is very appealing.
The Concept
The thoughts behind the site is to involve the community from the word go. There is a user rating system so each user can rate everyone else's blog posts, photos, videos and podcasts. If a particular blogger has an overall user rating of 4 they will then be rewarded and allowed to post on the community blogs section of the site, which are the most read section on the site.
It is a good thing to be able to post in the community section of the site however, thoughts.com do not stop there. They are planning to reward their top bloggers with an all expenses paid trip every year, this year it is Las Vegas. I don't know of any other community site that does this. Read more about it here
Signing up
Signing up is a very easy affair and it can be done within a minute or two. There are various features to let other bloggers to get to know you better. The usual photo and bio.
Videos, podcasts and more
The cool thing about the site, and indeed one of its main features, is the easy way you can add a podcast, a video, a photo and indeed a post.
There is no need for HTML knowledge; it's a case of browsing for the file on your computer and saving it on the site, easy!
Possible downsides
I have spent an hour or two on the site over the last few days and it seems to me that the site is for a specific age group from the 20 "“ 40's age group. This is my initial thoughts and I do not know the demographics. However, if this is the case it seems that there are two vital age groups that are not catered for, one being the 15-20 age group and the other being the over 40's. From a marketing point of view it might be a good idea to have a sister site for these age groups.
Conclusion
My overall impression of the site is a professional, clean, easy to navigate site. It is very much community focused and I can see it growing into a big community of bloggers. The fact that you can very easily add videos, podcasts, photos and posts will ensure that the site will get a lot of exposure over the coming months.
I expect you will be hearing a lot more of thoughts.com
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