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[Tellemurius]

So a buddy of mine started a kinda of a review site and is looking for people to do reviews for them. a explanation:

ManicMonster helps give you the low down on everything you want to know about Via entertainment! See a shitty movie lately? Swing by, we may be able to give you better directions toward the next one you should see. Tired of your music or just looking to listen to something new? We have a cure for that. Just finished reading that tower of a book series? we do our best to suggest a new one for you. I know every one wants to know whats up with there favorite vidja games! we'll be your gaming shoulder!
MANIC gots ya back!
From articles to reviews to just thing we find damn interesting your sure to find something cool and intriguing!

I read their old stuff and its not bad, good for writing skills and what not. go ahead and try.
http://www.facebook.com/ManicEntertainment?sk=info

Im not good at advertising ill tell you that, better off doing it in person (damn plus-sale job ) but i see potential for this.

[Zaerosz]

I almost called you a spambot, but then I recognized you.

[G-Flex]

What exactly is "Via entertainment"? Is that a company I don't know about?

Also, it would probably help if he proofread his stuff more. When you're trying to be at all professional, or taken seriously, you can't have typographical, grammatical, or spelling errors, or anything like that, but I see a ton of it all over their facebook page.

Also, calling yourself the "CEO" of an unknown web-zine thing with a small handful of contributors and probably no organizational hierarchy at all is sort of like a little kid with an e-z-bake oven calling himself a "restauranteur". Just saying.


EDIT: Looking at their (old?) website itself, I'm spotting a lot of reviews with odd grammar, poor writing, run-on sentences, and other things of that nature. You really can't have that in anything you expect people to take time out of their day to read; the instant someone runs into things like that, their patience for what they're reading is shot.

[Tellemurius]

And the grammar police drops by. Considering this is collaboration between friends on Facebook that just rebooted recently it would take them a while before they go serious.

[sluissa]

It costs them nothing but a bit of time to write well and proofread.

[RedKing]

And the grammar police drops by. Considering this is collaboration between friends on Facebook that just rebooted recently it would take them a while before they go serious.

And therein lies the problem. It reads like a couple of guys posting on Facebook rather than a website I'd actually visit for information. Presentation is important.

[Vector]

... The top of SH's face on his page looks exactly like the expression of my favorite mathematician in one of the only available photographs of him.

Wow, that is pretty cool.

[Tellemurius]

It costs them nothing but a bit of time to write well and proofread.

Think so too, had a argument with them considering they found a editor, apparently he wanted some of the errors in as thats how he reads it, dunno why considering this was meant to convince people not irk them, then again i expected this reaction from you guys and i needed this to smack him around more.

[Tellemurius]

Well just email the guy (acidkaleidoscopefilmsATyahoo.com) and tell them what to fix.

[G-Flex]

What, you want us to do the editing for him? If they don't have a single writer or editor on board who knows English well enough to fix the mistakes himself, then that's a problem.

It's not like I'm about to email a complete stranger and say "fix the writing on your website".

[Tellemurius]

What, you want us to do the editing for him? If they don't have a single writer or editor on board who knows English well enough to fix the mistakes himself, then that's a problem.

It's not like I'm about to email a complete stranger and say "fix the writing on your website".

Well he wants people to send suggestions to him even if i did mention what was wrong. he wants criticism so give it to him im not the spokesperson i already represent two companies.

[G-Flex]

This isn't a "company". Starting a facebook page and a small website doesn't make you a "company".

I don't have specific suggestions except the things I've already said: Mostly, proofread the writing and actually do some editing to make sure the flow and structure of it is also up to par. There's not much more to say than that.

[Flying Dice]

Frankly, I don't even consider typing out "Fix your grammar and bother taking the time to think about what you're writing." to be criticism or proofreading. Common sense says that if you want people to read something you write, especially something that is explicitly supposed to be informational, you need to make it at the very least bland, preferably enjoyable. To be honest, though, this looks like what it apparently is: a couple of guys who saw some of the more successful review sites on the internet, (likely along with a certain list-based comedy site) and decided "Oh, cool, we can do something like that!". The thing is, even reviews of 'vidja games' on a smalltime website need to be at least somewhat professional to attract readers, going beyond simple grammar and organization to include some touch that makes their reviews different, that gives them something to distinguish themselves from the thousands of other reviewers who are already established names with followings.

Of course, if they were really going at this seriously, all of this should already have come up in a discussion of their mission plan for the site. As some other people have pointed out, having a not-for-profit review site doesn't mean they're a company. Although there was one post mentioning that they're hoping for some sort of nebulous profit to come their way somehow, and that anything left over after paying for keeping the site up would go to any potential authors they bring onto the staff. Suggestion: Banner ads.

That said, if your friends went at this idea properly, setting up a way to pay for the site, and ensuring a decent standard of quality on the writing, they could probably be moderately successful, as the idea of throwing up short expos on a wide range of media and genres probably has enough room for them to dig out a little niche if they apply themselves to it. In all seriousness, though: proofreading_{random comic sans horror} may be painful and evil if they aren't used to keeping quality up in their writing, but they won't get anywhere with work filled with grammatical and spelling errors. Except possibly fanfiction.net.