Martha Stewart’s Blog? It’s Not a Good Thing

03/05/2007

Martha Stewart’s Blog? It’s Not a Good Thing

UPDATE 2: Bluelines has since enabled comments. More on that here.

Martha Stewart’s global empire recently joined the blogosphere with Bluelines.

According to the MSLO news release: “Bluelines features fun finds, favorite sources, inspiring ideas, and clever shortcuts for women ages 25-39 who are interested in creating and refining their own personal style.”

The blog’s design is nice enough. So why am I panning it? Two items raise my ire.

You Are Elle?
If you’re news release is about the launch of a blog, you might want to include the blog’s URL. MSLO drives you to the Blueprint Magazine web site to access the blog. This Web 1.0 mindset is made all the more annoying because the blog link is a banner and not an obvious part of the site navigation.

Look at Our Shiny New Blog!
The blog comes complete with social media chicklets for RSS, Digg and Technorati. But it does NOT accept comments.

Having a blog without accepting comments tells me that Martha Stewart wants all of the credit for blogging, but doesn’t want any of the conversation. What’s the point?

How did I get this news release? The domestic doyenne was a frequent blog topic during her ImClone scandal. Thanks to Blogger, Martha Stewart & Public Relations still lives on. And I still get comments from confused consumers complaining about a purchase or asking me to put them in touch with Martha. Does the blog look like an MSLO joint to you?

UPDATE: Bluelines points us to Rasterbator. You can "upload a digital photo, and (for free) they convert it to whatever enormous size you'd like. They send the enlarged version to you as a series of PDFs; print them on regular 8 1/2-by-11 paper and assemble like a puzzle." I'd thank them for the tip, if comments were enabled on their blog. ;-)