I have just read "What’s next for the GeForce 500-series?", deceptively placed under the heading "Latest Articles" on the Home page. While there are some aspects of the blog post that I disagree with they have been thoroughly covered in the comments so I won't repeat them here. The issue I would like to raise is about the placement and presentation of blog posts on the Home page. I think it would generally be agreed that blogs are not news articles. They are opinion pieces that represent the thoughts of the author and can be quite subjective. An article (to me at least) implies at least an attempt at objectivity. Both have their place. Presenting something in a list with an entry that contrasts with the others is a form of satire that demeans all the entries in the list. For example one might say that the Ferrari Enzo was a beautiful car up there with the Lamborghini Diablo, Porsche 911 Carrera and the Mazda 323. The casual reader (ie non-regular Bit-tech reader) may read a blog post in amongst a group of reviews and news articles. They would then be quite within their rights to call into question the legitimacy of all that they have read on the site, as there is little to distinguish the subjective from the objective. I am well aware of the 'blog', 'hardware', 'gaming' etc. tags on articles. However that does not lessen the subconscious association one makes. The author is faceless so I, and no doubt many others, associate the source with Bit-tech. One of the reasons I'm a regular reader of Bit-tech is its' objective reporting and great community. I don't want to see the integrity of the reporting eroded or the community alienated by Bit-tech appearing biased.
I agree that blogs are distinct in that they are personal opinion pieces, but I think that's fairly communicated in the site design. Blogs are tagged with their own colour so that they can be easily distinguished, are clearly labelled as 'BLOG' in the latest articles feed, are deliberately in the first person to make it obvious that it's a personal opinion and even have a layout that's distinctly bloggish and separate from other news stories and blogs. As for the author being faceless, I don't think that's true either. The author is clearly labelled at the top of the blog, just as with other articles. In fact, given that blogs are written in first person and with a generally more personal feel and tone, I think that the author is more obvious - especially considering the fact that blogs are structured as open discussions. I wouldn't say it's fair to say the standards are slipping either - the objective reviews and other content still remain, they are just now complemented by personal musings and columns.
