The Athletic Nerd Featured On THE LAMB!

January 3rd, 2011 | Posted by jasonmckinnon in Web

The Athletic Nerd Movies Screenwriting Independent Film Blog

This week, The Large Association Of Movie Blogs (LAMB) featured my blog on their newest edition of LAMBcast.

It’s an honor to be featured on a podcast that doesn’t merely mention blogs but reviews them in depth.

The Nerd is the Lamb of the Week!

It was fantastic to hear other people’s thoughts on my writing and overall site design. Especially from people who KNOW movie blogs. There are nearly 800 websites listed on the LAMB and they routinely promote as many as they can. I have a tremendous amount of respect for their site.

If you are a fan of film and you haven’t heard of The LAMB be sure to head over and check out their countless original features and articles. While you’re there, don’t forget to explore their huge database of movie blogs. It’s pretty much outstanding.

The Review

I have to say, this was probably the first ‘review’ I’ve had for this site.

For the most part, they seemed to like the overall style of the blog which was encouraging. It was nice to hear them mention the different headers I’ve created for each type of post I write. Many people close to me have heard countless times how proud I am of the evolving visuals on The Athletic Nerd. (Actually, they are probably sick of it by now.)

They spoke a lot about the approach I take with my reviews etc… I think in order to stand out in the blogging world you have to do something different or at least try. It’s nice to see it hasn’t gone unnoticed.

While I truly love to hear the positive comments, I still believe that you can never be satisfied. You always have to find ways to challenge yourself and evolve.

Which is why I was glad they offered some constructive criticisms as well.

I don’t think I’ll ever stop trying to improve this blog. So I’m more than happy to listen to suggestions and concerns people may have.

First and foremost, I agree about The Bird.

I know enough about web design to tweak certain aspects of WordPress themes but getting rid of the big Twitter bird has been tricky. Still, I will admit it’s not a massive priority as it has probably helped me gain a few followers here and there.

I think I’m just terrified that I’ll end up breaking my site by over tweaking…

One of the reviewer’s main complaints was in the way I format my articles. Mostly because there are many headlines and font changes in my posts. I had honestly never thought of it that way before. I’m not saying I’m going to adopt a paragraph driven style right away but it was definitely an interesting point. I’ll be looking into that.

I’m certainly not going to ignore it. Perhaps I could tone it down a bit.

The idea is to find ways to ‘grab’ the readers who simply skim posts. Hopefully, they catch a headline and stick around.

The point is, if you aren’t willing to listen to criticism, how will you ever be able to expand and improve?

For that, I’m grateful they featured me on their podcast this week.

17 West gets plugged!

I can’t possibly ignore the fact that they mentioned 17 West Productions and how it’s integrated into this site. I think it’s one of the defining elements of The Athletic Nerd. At it’s basic level, this blog is amount filmmaking and the movies that inspire. You’ll find tons of articles about my own personal filmmaking journey and the movies that have helped me along the way.

I was thrilled they brought that up.

Blogging is networking.

The one regret I have is forgetting to link back to them. I cringed a little bit when they mentioned it on the podcast.

You have to reciprocate the links you receive. Especially when someone takes the time to review your site. I’m actually considering launching a blog roll at some point in addition to a new advertising ‘division’ which will remain secret for now…

Until then, this was an oversight I was happy to fix. You’ll notice there is now a LAMB image in my sidebar.

It’s a site I’m proud to be a part of.

Click here to check out the post or listen to the podcast below.

The segment starts around the 39:30 mark.