In my last post I discussed Web 2.0 and how the Daily Mail website uses incorporates it into the structure of their site.
Now I know more about Web 2.0 and the ways it can be used, it will be easier to determine which Web 2.0 applications can be used on the Canvas website and how they will work.
In the initial planning stages of the website we decided that we needed to make a website which would encourage communication and interactivity amongst students. So the site is not only a print publication online but also a place for people to involve themselves with the stories and offer their opinions, feedback and information.
There are many Web 2.0 applications which would work well on Canvas, but it may not be wise to include them all as bombarding users with too much would be confusing.
I think comment boxes would work well being placed at the bottom of every story page. The majority of content for Canvas is Student/ University related therefore all students will have an opinion and it’s the perfect place to air their views. This would also add to our aim of having an interactive website where everyone can be involved. But it is important to think about problems that comment boxes may cause us to encounter. For example, how would the comments be moderated to stop abusive comments and spamming?
I think giving users to option to subscribe to an RSS feed would work really well once the site had established its self and was getting regularly updated to make it as worthwhile as possible. I think students would appreciate having news so relevant to them, made so easily accessible.
Another Web 2.0 application, which may work, is a search bar on each page. This would make navigating the site a lot easier and ideal for finding relevant stories, but with a search engine comes the risk of people navigating themselves away from our site.
Another application, which I think is also essential to making the site as interactive as possible, is a message board. This gives users the opportunity not only to discuss stories already on the site or in the paper, but also to submit their own news or opinions, or even images and events.
Overall I think Web 2.0 is a term which needs to be at the top of our priorities when creating the website. Mainly because if we keep going back to what it actually means it will help us create a Student Newspaper Website which uses the possibility of the Internet as a platform to its full potential.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Web 2.0 and the Daily Mail
In my previous post I mentioned that when designing a news site, there is much more to take into consideration than there would be on your average website. One of the main factors when confronting the task of creating a news site is making it more than just a newspaper online, but using the possibilities of the internet to their full potential.
Here is where I am going to introduce the term Web 2.0.
Web 2.0 is a term coined by Tim O’Reilly, the founder of O‘Reilly Media, and refers to the trend in the use of WWW technology, web design than aims to enhance creativity, information sharing and collaboration amongst users. In short the way the Internet is leading media progression.
Tim O’Reilly’s offers his own brief definition.
“Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as a platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform. Chief among those rules is this: Build applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them.”
Here are some of the popular Internet applications, which use Web 2.0 as a basis for their machinery.
Myspace and Facebook – Two popular networking sites where users can upload details, songs, share news, stories and photographs, on a personal basis or for a group or company.
RSS Feeds – Many websites now use RSS feeds to either gather their information or offer it to users in a way which means they don’t even need to visit the website. RSS feeds can be very specific; you can chose to receive news to your desktop on a very refined subject. For example I receive an RSS feed which sends new music news strictly relevant to the indie scene.
Wikipedia – Allows users to add information about any topic imaginable and edit posts made my others.
Blogging – This allows every single user of the Internet to create their own space to write their opinion on anything they want, for anyone to read.
Flash – one of the many web design techniques, which have evolved to improve user experience in browser, based applications.
Many news sites use Web 2.0 applications to do just what we want to do with Canvas, make it more than just a print publication posted on a web page.
To help with deciding how we are going to incorporate these Web 2.0 applications into our website each of us are going to analyse a different National Newspaper website to see how they make use of Web 2.0. I have chosen The Daily Mail.
The way I have decided to analyse this site is to look at it from the top of the homepage and work my way down to see at first glance how obvious the use of Web 2.0 is on this site.
The first thing I noticed is a search box at the top of the page. This application allows users of the site to search their topic of choice through either the whole of the Internet or narrow it down to just the news site. It’s a basic application used on most sites, but a very necessary one.
The use of linking on this site is a vital part of its structure. Almost every other word is a link on the homepage. To a well-experienced user of the site this would seem normal, but to others it could make it difficult to navigate. I would say that links are over used on this site. Because as well as linking to relevant articles in the stories there are also links all round the outside, which remain the same throughout the site.
Right at the bottom of the page there is the option for an RSS feed. It’s good that its there, showing that the Daily Mail is using web 2.0 to its advantage, and it also offers links to explain what RSS is and what different RSS feeds they offer. But the link could be made more obvious, maybe by using a larger button or putting it nearer the top of the page. Maybe they are concerned that by subscribing to RSS feeds users will be less likely to actually visit the site.
At the bottom of each story page there is several options, which are all Web 2.0 applications. For example there are options to share the story on applications such as Digg it and Del.icio.us and also book marking options with Reddit and Newsvine.
There is also the option the share the story with a friend by email, and to save the story so it can be read later on.
The only thing the story pages lack in terms of Web 2.0 are comment boxes so readers can give their opinions. I think interactivity on the net is a vital part of Web 2.0. Although there is a message forum for the site which gives readers an opportunity to comment on story’s. This is probably a much easier way for the site to moderate the comments they receive and can guarantee that nothing offensive gets through the system. But the worry of moderation is the possibility that by too much moderation it defeats the object of Web 2.0 because honest opinions may be deleted if the site moderators do not agree with them.
Here is where I am going to introduce the term Web 2.0.
Web 2.0 is a term coined by Tim O’Reilly, the founder of O‘Reilly Media, and refers to the trend in the use of WWW technology, web design than aims to enhance creativity, information sharing and collaboration amongst users. In short the way the Internet is leading media progression.
Tim O’Reilly’s offers his own brief definition.
“Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as a platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform. Chief among those rules is this: Build applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them.”
Here are some of the popular Internet applications, which use Web 2.0 as a basis for their machinery.
Myspace and Facebook – Two popular networking sites where users can upload details, songs, share news, stories and photographs, on a personal basis or for a group or company.
RSS Feeds – Many websites now use RSS feeds to either gather their information or offer it to users in a way which means they don’t even need to visit the website. RSS feeds can be very specific; you can chose to receive news to your desktop on a very refined subject. For example I receive an RSS feed which sends new music news strictly relevant to the indie scene.
Wikipedia – Allows users to add information about any topic imaginable and edit posts made my others.
Blogging – This allows every single user of the Internet to create their own space to write their opinion on anything they want, for anyone to read.
Flash – one of the many web design techniques, which have evolved to improve user experience in browser, based applications.
Many news sites use Web 2.0 applications to do just what we want to do with Canvas, make it more than just a print publication posted on a web page.
To help with deciding how we are going to incorporate these Web 2.0 applications into our website each of us are going to analyse a different National Newspaper website to see how they make use of Web 2.0. I have chosen The Daily Mail.
The way I have decided to analyse this site is to look at it from the top of the homepage and work my way down to see at first glance how obvious the use of Web 2.0 is on this site.
The first thing I noticed is a search box at the top of the page. This application allows users of the site to search their topic of choice through either the whole of the Internet or narrow it down to just the news site. It’s a basic application used on most sites, but a very necessary one.
The use of linking on this site is a vital part of its structure. Almost every other word is a link on the homepage. To a well-experienced user of the site this would seem normal, but to others it could make it difficult to navigate. I would say that links are over used on this site. Because as well as linking to relevant articles in the stories there are also links all round the outside, which remain the same throughout the site.
Right at the bottom of the page there is the option for an RSS feed. It’s good that its there, showing that the Daily Mail is using web 2.0 to its advantage, and it also offers links to explain what RSS is and what different RSS feeds they offer. But the link could be made more obvious, maybe by using a larger button or putting it nearer the top of the page. Maybe they are concerned that by subscribing to RSS feeds users will be less likely to actually visit the site.
At the bottom of each story page there is several options, which are all Web 2.0 applications. For example there are options to share the story on applications such as Digg it and Del.icio.us and also book marking options with Reddit and Newsvine.
There is also the option the share the story with a friend by email, and to save the story so it can be read later on.
The only thing the story pages lack in terms of Web 2.0 are comment boxes so readers can give their opinions. I think interactivity on the net is a vital part of Web 2.0. Although there is a message forum for the site which gives readers an opportunity to comment on story’s. This is probably a much easier way for the site to moderate the comments they receive and can guarantee that nothing offensive gets through the system. But the worry of moderation is the possibility that by too much moderation it defeats the object of Web 2.0 because honest opinions may be deleted if the site moderators do not agree with them.
Competitor Analysis
For the first part of our online assessment we have been set the group task of creating a website for the Student Newspaper Canvas. Although we have all tried our hand at web design, there is a lot more to creating a news site.
The best way to start is by looking at other student newspaper sites and doing a competitor analysis to see what ones work and what ones really do not work, and the reasons for this.
I decided to do a Google search for ‘student newspaper website’ to see what the first few things to come up would be. At the top of the list was Varsity – The independent Cambridge student newspaper since 1947.
The first thing that struck me about this site is how professional it looks. It uses a very traditional Dreamweaver news site layout, not unlike that of the BBC. With a banner at the top, section buttons down the left hand side and the top stories in section boxes on the homepage.
Although it is professional looking there is nothing to flashy or complicated about the design. There is not necessarily a need for anything special to be done to the site; after all it seems to fit its purpose. But as a student site I would have expected something a little more exciting.
The second major thing I noticed was the amount of links used on the homepage. Right at the top there is a link to the paper edition and also a podcast. This further links to a place where you can subscribe to the podcast through Itunes or an RSS feed. I think this is a brilliant example of how the Internet can make something as basic as a student newspaper into something more interactive and universal. If I wanted I could subscribe to an RSS feed of all news related to Cambridge University without even paying the university a visit. This really shows how the Internet is dominating media progression.
It is very obvious even without knowing how long the website has been running that the creators have established themselves and the newspaper well into the endless possibilities of the Internet. They have built themselves a list of sponsors at the bottom of the homepage, and a reasonable amount of advertising, which is enough to keep the site and paper funded but not so much as to bombard those visiting the site.
I think Varsity is a student newspaper site, which works really well. Although the look of the site may not be the most exciting, it is traditional and professional which is the most important thing, and it obviously serves its purpose.
The second site I came across was FELIX – The student newspaper of Imperial College London. I would say without being too harsh that this site from first impression is completely the opposite of Varsity, and certainly does not serve its purpose at all.
My first impression was ‘boring’. There is simply nothing exciting to look at. A basic banner, no images and a bunch of boxes laid out in what appears to be an unorganised fashion on the homepage, which include the first few lines of a story and a read more link. But that is just what it looks like at the first glance.
Further investigation lead me to discover that my first impressions were not wrong. This site fails to recognise the potential of the Internet. There are a few links at the bottom of the homepage but there is where it ends. It is nothing more than the actual paper on a screen. There appears to be a real lack of organisation, and no real design. I may of course be wrong, but most sites there is at least a theme of colours, fonts or images running throughout, but here although the font remains the same, colours, and images change regularly. This factor, as not only an online student, but as a regular Internet user, who uses news sites as my main news resource, is quite alienating. It’s confusing, not easy to follow and without structure it fails to make me want to look at it any further.
I think these two examples show how the Internet can be used to its full potential to make a student newspaper site work online, and how the point of it all can be completely missed.
The best way to start is by looking at other student newspaper sites and doing a competitor analysis to see what ones work and what ones really do not work, and the reasons for this.
I decided to do a Google search for ‘student newspaper website’ to see what the first few things to come up would be. At the top of the list was Varsity – The independent Cambridge student newspaper since 1947.
The first thing that struck me about this site is how professional it looks. It uses a very traditional Dreamweaver news site layout, not unlike that of the BBC. With a banner at the top, section buttons down the left hand side and the top stories in section boxes on the homepage.
Although it is professional looking there is nothing to flashy or complicated about the design. There is not necessarily a need for anything special to be done to the site; after all it seems to fit its purpose. But as a student site I would have expected something a little more exciting.
The second major thing I noticed was the amount of links used on the homepage. Right at the top there is a link to the paper edition and also a podcast. This further links to a place where you can subscribe to the podcast through Itunes or an RSS feed. I think this is a brilliant example of how the Internet can make something as basic as a student newspaper into something more interactive and universal. If I wanted I could subscribe to an RSS feed of all news related to Cambridge University without even paying the university a visit. This really shows how the Internet is dominating media progression.
It is very obvious even without knowing how long the website has been running that the creators have established themselves and the newspaper well into the endless possibilities of the Internet. They have built themselves a list of sponsors at the bottom of the homepage, and a reasonable amount of advertising, which is enough to keep the site and paper funded but not so much as to bombard those visiting the site.
I think Varsity is a student newspaper site, which works really well. Although the look of the site may not be the most exciting, it is traditional and professional which is the most important thing, and it obviously serves its purpose.
The second site I came across was FELIX – The student newspaper of Imperial College London. I would say without being too harsh that this site from first impression is completely the opposite of Varsity, and certainly does not serve its purpose at all.
My first impression was ‘boring’. There is simply nothing exciting to look at. A basic banner, no images and a bunch of boxes laid out in what appears to be an unorganised fashion on the homepage, which include the first few lines of a story and a read more link. But that is just what it looks like at the first glance.
Further investigation lead me to discover that my first impressions were not wrong. This site fails to recognise the potential of the Internet. There are a few links at the bottom of the homepage but there is where it ends. It is nothing more than the actual paper on a screen. There appears to be a real lack of organisation, and no real design. I may of course be wrong, but most sites there is at least a theme of colours, fonts or images running throughout, but here although the font remains the same, colours, and images change regularly. This factor, as not only an online student, but as a regular Internet user, who uses news sites as my main news resource, is quite alienating. It’s confusing, not easy to follow and without structure it fails to make me want to look at it any further.
I think these two examples show how the Internet can be used to its full potential to make a student newspaper site work online, and how the point of it all can be completely missed.
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