toot: The Arab blog network

Toot is like safat but instead of it focusing only on Kuwait Blogs, Toot focuses on all Arab blogs in the region.

The idea is good but I just haven’t been able to use Toot the way I use Safat. In Safat I scroll down the page reading a “post title” followed by reading a sentence or two from that post. If the post preview sounds interesting I open it in a new tab and continue reading the full post on that bloggers site.

With Toot I can’t do that since the only thing I see is the post title and the blog its from.. no post preview. Sure they have a section on the main page called tootreads but these are a few handpicked posts and they are not updated very often. Even the tootstream where all the latest post titles are displayed isn’t easy to use since the name of the blog is highlighted more then the post title itself. I would think the title of the post would be more important then the title of the blog since you are there to find new posts to read and not to read blog names. Another issue I have is with the voting system. If you like a certain blogger you can vote for them and give them a rating. The problem is its not an easy procedure, to vote you need to give them your email address and they will send you an email with a link to confirm your vote. They are doing this I am guessing to keep away cheaters but this isn’t a full proof plan and it makes voting a pain in the ass.

I do like the general visual theme of Toot and I really think Safat needs to get redesigned into something thats as appealing. Even the “new” Safatoo isn’t any better and if anything its a lot worse then the classic safat. Safat is lacking an identity and thats where Toot is succeeding the most. Anyway if you haven’t checked Toot out yet please do and tell them what you think. [itoot]