Jessjahart’s Weblog
It’s Jess’ blog!!Archive for group project
Orlando Sentinel vs. the Virginia Pilot
My initial response to both news sites was that the Virginia Pilot is most visually appealing and the Orlando Sentinel is most dull and less colorful.
When you first enter the website it is plain like most news sites seem to be, but then when you click on the “media, entertainment or video” tab, you will find much more interesting and high tech videos to watch.
The Orlando Sentinel had on its video page, a huge screen where you could watch short or long clips of several news stories. This section was very easy to follow in a sense that there were tabs listed with cateogories such as: Top video, News, Sports, Business, Entertainment, Lifestyle, Weather. There were lots of pages of videos listed for the audience to view and I felt like this was a more extensive video selection than most news sites I have visited!! I was pretty impressed with the layout and selection of the videos present in the Orlando. The quality of the videos were also impressive.
I did however also like how Virginia Pilot had flashy videos to play that switched to different stories while you were viewing the front page! And then when you click on “Video” it directs you to a video screen. The video player is small but clear and there are many cateogories to choose from under the video player such as: New, Entertainment, local life, News, Viewer video, Traffic cams, local experts, autos, career, real estate. And you can type in a search in the search engine and look for videos within the last 90 days. I was very impressed with this use of media!
Overall, I would have to say that these two have been the best of the new sites in terms of video media. Both sites have a clear video player, sound quality sounded great, and selection was large and relevant to what the audience wants to see! Aside from the video’s The Orlando Sentinel was also impressive in their multimedia section in that there were gallaries, slideshows, photos, historical videos, and there were images of Florida and places around the world that were updated throughout the day. So I guess I would have to say that I most enjoyed the Orlando Sentinel for its variety it offered.
Pittsburgh Post Gazzette and The Star Ledger (NJ).
I chose to analyze both Pittsburgh Post Gazzette and the Star Ledger (NJ). I am comparing and contrasting the two and making note as to why I did not like either of them too much. Both were VERY plain and dull. Lack of color, especially on the main page where I feel that it matters most!
My initial response to both sites where that Pittsburgh Post Gazzette is mpre presentable. I liked the latest local news coveraged up top where you can scroll down to exactly what you want to view. There is only one picture on the front page and pretty much no color other than that on the page except for the weather. I was impressed with the multimedia section that Pittsburgh had; they had a large index of articles, especially sports. I was surprised when I saw that they had podcasts as an option because very few had that option. Overall, a dull site, but great multimedia with podcasts.
The Star Ledger, looks as though I was re-directed to a false advertising site. You have to put your zip code, birthdate and gender in before you can even be fully directed to the correct site, which discouraged me from even continuing on to the site. I was shocked that this was a website for a newspaper, like the Pittsburgh paper, it was very unprofessional. I did however, enjoy the many photos with color on the page under entertainment. I also thought that this was a great social site with forums and blogs. I will have to say that I did like this site better out of the two. I did not see any podcasts, but their multimedia section was also extensive. Overall, both newsites were okay and after this being my second blog on newsites, I am beginning to wonder if newsites are not allowed to have color and spunk and must keep in plain and simple?
Contra Costa News Vs. Dayton Daily News
While I was observing both news sites on-line I found that both Contra Costa and Dayton Daily News felt similar. As I was navigating on one and then the other, they both felt very close in comparison. I like Contra Costa better overall because in the end it came across as more user friendly. I liked how the RSS search was in the upper right hand corner like I was expecting whereas in the Dayton News, it was at the very bottom in small print with about ten other options below making it slightly more confusing. Both sites had upper tabs where you can just click on a subject like news or sports and below it automatically pulls up sub categories to choose from. I found this very efficient. Both sites had blogs sites, but it was hard for me to determine how to post a blog myself if I wanted to. I feel that Contra Costa was interesting in that as a reader you can post comments to articles that you read. I have never seen this before or have actually paid attention to this in the past, but now I will since I have seen it done on Contra Costa News. Surprisingly I did not see any podcasts available on both news sites, but I may just not have been able to find them. I even went under entertainment to search and came across nothing. I did a general search on both sites for podcasts and it came up with websites that I could go to and order podcasts. Lastly, I thought both sites were plain and blue and could use some more color and spice. Not necessarily more pictures or video, but more colors added to make it more vivid and drastic.
Overall, I was very surprised that both a CA news site and Ohio News site were similar in their format and structure. I enjoyed a few things about each that were different; those being, the bold letters on the main page of Dayton News and the Rss button and color coded sections on the main page of Contra Costa. Both sites did seem easy to use making it user friendly to a large audience.
