Makezine: A Blog Site Analysis

What is a “maker?” What does it take to be considered a “maker?” For this blog post I will be analyzing the blog makezine.com, this blog is about the maker scene. It is written by many different authors that are sharing about what they have made and how they made it. These authors all come from many backgrounds and they are not all the same. They each have their own personalities and have their own individual preferences. A lot of them are very technology oriented people, that are in with the latest and greatest tech innovations of the current time, while others are more very traditional in your garage workshop type of person. These authors differ greatly from mechanical engineering to computer savvy individuals to artists to parents making something great for their children, they all differ in some way or another but they have come together for this blog to share what they have made. They are trying to show their audience that anyone can be a part of the growing maker community, it does not matter what your background or knowledge is, if you can imagine it, you can probably make it.

The site is presented in a way that show articles by many different authors on the front page. When you click on one of these post, they for the most part are showing off a creation made by someone or even made by the author of the blog post. An interesting to note about how the blog this blog is presented is in the way that once you scroll to the bottom of a blog post instead of it ending, the blog post is seamlessly connected to the next blog post. Although these blog post are not the same, the blog site seamlessly connects them together. When reading through this blog and start on one post about making a self feeding fire pit, you will continue on to read about a motorized fish bowl that moves based on tracking the location of where the fish is inside the bowl. Then after scrolling to the end of the fish bowl blog post, the next blog post about 3D printing a superhero mask appears right after it. The breaks between blog post is completely non existent and there is no transition between blog post.

While scrolling through the blog post that a person would be interested in, when they are finished they are presented with another blog post that does not relate to the one that they had been reading. The next blog post will simply appear right at the end of last blog post that you have read and will keep continuing as you scroll down more. One very essential point to make here is that the next blog post is completely irrelevant to the last one you were reading, it is written by a different author and may or may not be in a different format from the last blog post. The topics discussed in the last post will be unrelated to the next blog post. One blog post could be a tutorial on how to make a certain do it yourself weekend project, then it will seamlessly continue on about an experience the next author had in seeing a another maker’s great invention. Then it will continue on to the next blog post that is written by another author with a different writing style than the last two authors.

This blog has many different authors for each of their blog post. Sometimes you will have an author showcasing their invention, other times it will be an author making a tutorial on how they were able to efficiently store their tools in their garage, or sometimes it is an artist that is show what they made for their art piece. One instance it was a parent that made their child a transforming Optimus Prime cake for their birthday. The authors of this blog come from a variety of different backgrounds. They all have different personalities and styles in how they write and present their blog post, and they all come from different disciplines and perspectives such as science, engineering, music, and other topics. But they all share one common interest in making and see themselves as part of the “maker” community.

I think this is the reason why the blog opted to make their blog post to keep continuing to the next blog post, even if they are completely different topics. The blog as a whole is trying to show their audience that the maker community is made of many different types of people with different ideas and backgrounds, but they all have the same passion for making things and sharing it to the rest of the community.