Dooce.com - Real Life On The Web

Heather Armstrong is just a regular person, like anyone of us, right? Wrong. She has one of the most popular blogs on the Web, which has already won various blogging awards. Using her daily life as inspiration for writing her entries, she uses a comic style of writing which is sure to make users check her site regularly to see what she has been up to. Heather, or Dooce, as she has self proclaimed herself, speaks of everything that happens to her in her life, with no restrains or taboos, even telling how she ended up at a psychiatric institution after a postpartum depression. Her site has caught the attention of big companies, such as Hewlett-Packard and McDonald’s, which have advertisement on her site, among others. A new feature on her site is the shop, which sells t-shirts and calendars.

“My name is Heather B. Armstrong. Some of you may remember me as Heather B. Hamilton. I am married to a charming geek named Jon. We live in Salt Lake City, Utah, with our three-year-old daughter, Leta Elise, and our five-year-old dog, Chuck. In a previous life I was a web designer. I lived in Los Angeles, California, for several years where I worked for drug-addicted executives and discovered what life was like as a recovering Mormon. This means that life was filled with PowerPoint templates and lethal amounts of tequila. I dated several actors and met a handful of celebrities. Everything you’ve ever heard about Los Angeles is absolutely true, especially the parts about traffic and actors: they really are that bad.”

Dooce’s way of writing is sure to entertain anyone who visits her site, and you can even learn something from their entries. Navigation through her site is easy and completely free. Apart from her entries you can enjoy her everyday photos of her and her family, which will help you relate to her, realizing she’s a normal person… or is she?

Won’t the fact that entries are not posted everyday, will end up tiring the user? Isn’t the esthetic of the site somewhat boring and monotonous? Wouldn’t a periodical video conference or chat with her be a good way of attracting users?