I absolutely love advertisements for “weird” products. I find them interesting, because they know their product is different so they know they have to have a really good ad to get their message across. Vibram is great at doing this.

I am a huge fan of Vibrams, so I might be biased towards their ad.  My favorite thing about this ad is that they state the idea of Vibrams and “toe shoes” is a crazy one. They know that people will stare and think the shoes looks silly, but they have faith in the “barefoot” feeling that their shoes offer. They also poke fun at the sneaker companies who turned them down in the first place, but now make minimalist shoes. I think ads that are honest and up front are some of the best ads. Although they are poking fun at the shoe companies, they do it in a classy way.

This ad does have a lot of body copy in it, but if the audience reads it, it is interesting and teaches you a bit more about Vibrams and the company. I enjoy that the headline “So we had this crazy idea” and the tagline “Welcome to crazy” are in a bold, yellow font so they really stand out. Overall, I love this ad. It’s simple but still teaches you about the product.

My favorite thing about feature stories is being able to learn more about people and connect with them through a story. I decided to review Creator of Twitter sees blur of change by Jon Swartz from USA Today because I really enjoy Twitter and learning about the history of the site and its creators.

The feature story does a great job of hooking you in by mentioning Jack Dorsey, the inventor of Twitter and Square. It mentions how he started both companies and how he is looking into the past to improve the future. I love how the story tells about Dorsey and mentions that he is a soft speaker. I really like this because it allows the reader to get to know Dorsey on a more personal level.

I don’t really like how the story goes more into detail about the future of technology in general. I wish it would stay more on track and talk about Twitter. It also discusses how kids are the masters of technology and technology is growing with the younger generations. If they are going to talk about kids and younger generations, I think they should have stayed on the subject of Twitter.

Finally, I really enjoy that they end the story with a quote. ”California has always had the Go West, can-do spirit of the Gold Rush, Hollywood and Silicon Valley.” This is an inspiring quote and it makes you feel like all your dreams can come true, if you’re in California.

For my review on news release, I decided to find a news release by a company with which I was a familiar. Pfizer is the world’s largest research-based pharmaceutical company. If you have ever seen the movie, Love and other drugs, Pfizer is portrayed as a family business that knows how to get work done.

The things I liked about this news release is how short it is. It follows the inverted pyramid rule and tells the most important information all in the first paragraph. I like that they give all the information for the webcast and how to participate in the second paragraph. That makes it easier on the journalists so that they can lead the audience in the right way.I do like that they have the contact information at the bottom of the page and that they have two different numbers to call to receive more information.

The things that I do not like about this news release are that it does not follow the “normal” news release outline. It is missing the generic headline that most journalists are use too. I also don’t like that there is not a lot of information about the webcast and what information is going to be discussed. The news release state that it will involve an investment analysis and go over the company’s third quarter performance report. It would have been good if they had stated to the audience why they care about the webcast. If you do not have stock or do not work for Pfizer, the webcast probably wouldn’t be that interesting. Also, the news release headline is 16 words long, which is twice as long as it should be for being an online news release and they have every single world capitalized. According to AP style, only the first word and proper nouns are capitalized.

Today I’ll be reviewing College Prep. College Prep is one of my all time favorite blogs, which is saying something because I read A LOT of blogs. I stumbled upon College Prep when I was on Pinterest one day. Someone had pinned one of the posts and after reading one, I was immediately addicted.

I think I love College Prep because Carly (the author and owner of College Prep) writes each blog like she is speaking to her best friend. For example, when writing a post about attending some shows during New York Fashion Week, Carly wrote “If I’m going to be honest, I would say the whole fashion week thing is…. weird.” Which is something, I feel like that I would only tell my best friend because I wouldn’t want to offend any designers. I also like that when Carly gives fashion tips or spotlights a specific item; she links back to the item and give a thorough review. Some blogs will show off the item and say something like “I really like this product,” but Carly makes sure to say everything she likes and dislikes about a product and if she’d recommend it.

When looking at College Prep to review it, I kept trying to find something that I didn’t like. I truly couldn’t find anything. I do wish Carly used more lists to sum up some of her longer posts, but she can get the message across without them. I enjoy her blogs the way they are, short and sweet.

Today I’ll be reviewing USA Today College. I really enjoy this website because it relates to me and my college lifestyle. I love that the articles are written by college students and recent alumni. The stories are easy to relate to and are well written. My favorite thing about this particular website is that most of the articles are broken up into lists. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of lists in my writing, but in this case, they are used very well.

The articles are well written toward the audience of college students. Every once and awhile there will be an article that doesn’t relate to me and most of my friends in college, which annoys me. I could see how the story would relate to other students at different schools. Another thing that annoys me about this website is the headlines. Most the time they are longer than eight words. The headlines are good at explaining what you’re about to read about.

I would highly suggest USA Today  College to any college student who is looking for tips or just looking to stay up to date on the news. Most of the articles are an easy read, but very informative.

Disclaimer: For the next six weeks I will be reviewing different types of writing for my Persuasive Writing class. I’ll continue writing my other posts as well. Thanks for the support and reading my blog!