MARIKENYA.com

Last week, my blogger friend Rizza told me she saw my site being included in the featured blogs of Rate My Philippines, Best Philippines Sites Portal. In this site, you can rate and vote for the featured travel blogs. Needless to say, I am very grateful to Rate My Philippines for featuring Marikenya and all those who voted and rated this blog.

The review of Marikenya.com has provided me good insights on how to further develop this blog. If you’ll visit my Marikina page, you would notice some of the changes I already made as a start of the development I am envisioning for this site. More changes will follow in the future.

Here are some excerpts from the review of Rate My Philippines on Marikenya:

The layout and design of the blog is very welcoming. In every post, you can see the dedication the blogger puts in her work from the well-written articles to its photos and other details.

Marikenya.com gives us the feeling that Marikina City is just as alive and colorful as the blog portrays it to be! There is real pride, respect and camaraderie among its residents and it shows on the reader’s comments and Marikina residents writing the author either to announce something, seek help or just give kudos that they finally have a place in the internet they can call “home” and be really at home with. We want to relocate in Marikina!

Unfortunately, there is a downside. After staying on it for a little while, we found that despite its number of contents, the website is still short on things that we want to know about Marikina. For one, there is no quick facts and figures (population, landmarks, best known for, popular residents, current mayor, local economy, etc). We’re suckers for quick numbers and statistics and we were looking for that. We know that we can get it at Wikipedia or somewhere else but we were already on a Marikina website, weren’t we?

We have to dig into the About Marikina section only to find small bits and pieces of its history and there aren’t enough photos and information! Case in point: the Shoe Museum article. It mentioned the history of the museum which felt like more like reading a brochure than a personal account, and the photo while very nice, professional (brochure) looking and all is just too small to appreciate the museum plus it only shows one area of the museum. We clicked on the photo to get a zoom but it lead us to photobucket.com. (We realize later that most [all?] of the photos either link to the website or photobucket.com- disappointingly, it doesn’t zoom.)

Where is the rest of the article on the Shoe Museum? The history doesn’t make the museum. We want photos. We want information. Is there a website we can go to get more info? We thought Marikenya.com is THE info for Marikina… What is it like inside the museum? How big is it? Can you buy shoes there? Are some of the infamous Imelda Marcos’ shoes donated to Marikina really there? How many? What is its showroom hours? Is there a fee to get inside? Where is it even located?

We’ve never even heard such a museum exist in the Philippines! The article would have been perfect if all questions were answered so those who have never been there will see it through the article- and as sort of promotion, Philippine residents could go there easy after reading the basic information that should have been on the article.

Same with the rest of the historical houses/buildings featured. Is it open to the public? Where is its exact locations? The article “Are There Museums in Marikina?” is a great question, but should we have asked more to get more answers? Seems like the author literally just answered the question, yes there museums and their names are and then stopped and have us wait on the answers… We’re still waiting.

Our modest evaluation is meant to be beneficial in the long run. We would be negligent and sloppy if we would not make mention of it on our reviews. We mean well and hold the utmost regard for bloggers and publishers because we are one and we know how hard it is to create and maintain a website where our only consolation is reaching out to as many people in the internet and give meaning to their browsing experience.

With that, we wish Marikenya.com more power! It is still one of the most reputable, professional, authoritative blogs we have ever seen covering a particular niche. We can see it becoming more popular and ever growing as it ages. A good read not only for Marikenyas and Marikenyos but for anyone wanting a taste of the city life of Marikina!

For the complete site review and to vote for Marikenya, visit Rate My Philippines Portal now.

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