Thursday 6 May 2010

State of the Blog: obsessed yet?

Thursday 6 May 2010
A quick update about my plans now we're in May and summer's in the air. As usual, many TV shows are drawing to an end (24, Ashes To Ashes, Chuck, Fringe, Lost and V), while others are halfway through their run (Breaking Bad, Glee, The Pacific), and all will continue to be reviewed every week. The pacing has changed for Fringe because Sky have fallen behind with the US, so I'll now be following Fox's Thursday night airings with weekend reviews.

I have no way of knowing, but I assume everyone's been following my links to the exclusive reviews I've written for Obsessed With Film (Happy Town, The Wire Season 2, Luther)? And as I said last week, OWF is now where the majority of TV news content will be posted, although I may do weekly "roundups" at DMD every Friday and link to occasional OWF news items to inspire discussion.

OWF is still in the throes of its "Beta Testing" process (not sure how long that'll last, maybe a few months), so things aren't as smooth and polished as they'll hopefully become. There's complex HTML coding involved, etc. So be patient for design, aesthetic and functionality to come good over there.

However, here are four ways to keep abreast of my writing at OWF:
  • Subscribe to OWF's website in a feedreader and that will catch updates, but it's a bit messy and not targeted to my specific work.
  • Keep reading DMD and click through using the links I'll be posting (but beware you may not get all the TV news content, just reviews.)
  • Follow my Twitter feed for update alerts for OWF and DMD content.
  • Bookmark my OWF "author page" and just keep referring to it whenever you want.
So yes, there are ways and means, just choose what works best for you.

I was delighted by the response over my decision to partner OWF. It's been a worry that nobody will be bothered to follow my writing at OWF (when it's all been so readily available here, exclusively), but people seem very positive. I was relieved and very pleased to see that my Wire Season 2 review is already one of OWF's most popular posts of the past four weeks!

Regarding the commenting system at OWF: unfortunately, they have restrictions to avoid spam, meaning you need to register to leave a message. I know, I hate that too. It means OWF doesn't get the comment traffic it deserves, so I appreciate your comments there all the more. There's a chance OWF will relax its policy one day, as I've raised this issue with the Editor there. But if you still can't be bothered to signup with them, comments at DMD relating to reviews hosted at OWF are more than welcome.