Time, a news site and also a print magazine, I came across using Google as a search tool has breaking news, analysis, politics, blogs, and news photos. The site is similar to the NYTimes’ web site in that it’s cluttered with headlines, pictures, and videos. Since there’s so much information on the site, it’s hard for users to find out what stories they’re looking for and usually when this happens users just go to another site to find the stories they’re looking for.

On the right side of the homepage, listed vertically are numerous articles that fall under the category called “Must Read.” Users who decide to read the stories on the Time’s site can not only read the content but can interact with the story using facebook, twitter, digg, and so on. However, they cannot leave comments but they can read related stories that are listed underneath the article. What’s interesting is that users who read the stories on the site can also find out the stories that other users who read that particular story read previously. This feature has to give the site a lot of tracking.

In addition to photo galleries and videos, Time has podcasts as well. The site also allows users to connect with it by not only subscribing to RSS feeds but by becoming a fan on Time’s facebook page, and even following the site on Twitter.

Searching for a web site to critique I came across World News.com under a list of the 20 best news sites on Google. What attracted my attention when I first started to critique the web site was that World News’ main picture changed almost every couple of seconds exhibiting highlights of various events all over the world. This feature is called the “Window on the World” and it does just that; it gives users a chance to see what’s going on in the world and allows them to decide whether or not they want to click on the image and read the article.

Right below this feature, another picture is posted and this particular section is titled “Top Stories Worldwide.” Underneath that are pictures alongside headlines and brief article summaries on both popular and interesting stories worldwide.

World News can viewed in 43 different languages and there are several pages at the very top of the site’s homepage that contains information on countries and topics like the U.S., Africa, Asia, Europe, Mideast, Politics, Entertainment, Science, Health, and so on. If users click on any of these topics a vertical list of specific cities and subjects appear so the search for stories can be limited and can be found right away. Above this list of pages, there is a list of special reports that is placed horizontally at the very top of the site. Some topics listed as special reports are about the Swine Flu, President Barack Obama, and the Economy to name a few.

The site definitely follows the guidelines of web 2.0.; navigation is speedy and no features on the site take long to load. Almost every story has a slideshow, a video, and allows users to post comments, which is very different from other news sites where stories only have one or the other not all three. The vast amount of pictures and videos definitely helps to both attract users to read the content on the page and also adds to the stories as well.

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Christian Science Monitor functions just like a newspaper, except it’s online. The site covers all the popular beats  the average print newspaper covers. It contains countless stories  dealing with the World, USA, Commentary, Money&Values, Environment, Innovation, Arts&Entertainment, and much more.  Like many other newspaper sites, Christian Science Monitor has a main story and a main photo to go along with it. Their main story is usually one that impacts people as whole, something that’s important and pertains to them, which is what attracts them to the story.

To the left of the main picture, there’s a heading that reads “Inside CSMonitor.com.” Underneath this heading are several headlines of stories reporters have covered. It’s really just a combination of different headlines that link directly to their stories so that readers who might not get a chance to read or wouldn’t have known about them are fully aware of their existence because they’re listed. I found this to be very interesting because not many newspaper sites that are online have something like that; however, it’s more common to see that on the front page of an actual print edition.

If you scroll down the Web site’s homepage you’ll also see 10 of the most viewed headlines of stories. Features like this, I feel, is beneficial to any Web site because not only does this allow the site to receive more hits, but it also attracts the interests of readers, who will probably click the link to read what the stories are about.

Christian Science Monitor also has a load of blogs that its writers constantly update just as they do with the news content of the site. They keep their news fresh and new, which is definitely a plus. Well… don’t most online newspaper sites do that anyway?

But something I haven’t seen many newspaper sites do is have a photo gallery of all of the  “Photos of the Day.” I liked that feature the most because they didn’t take pictures from other Web sites and post them, photography is done by their photographers only and like they say “a picture says a thousand words.”

I decided to critique the web design of the Gothamist Web site. The very first thing I noticed when the page finished loading were the pictures at the very top of the homepage. Without even clicking on each one, but just by simply placing my cursor over a picture, a short sentence summarizing what the story is about appeared ontop of the picture in white text with a red background. I found that to be very different since I have never seen that technique used on other web sites. I also found it be convenient because users don’t have to spend time actually clicking on pictures to find out what the story is about but instead just place their cursor over each image their interested in.

The site maintained unity throughout all of its pages not just because the content was all one font, but the text size did not vary much as well. Everything was coherent; headlines were a larger text size than the actual content of the story, of, course so readers can differentiate between the two. All of the site’s text is in black and so are its links; the links are just underlined but in black as well.

No matter what category you’re interested whether it be Entertainment, News, or Food every page of the site has the same white background with one or two ads on the left. The design of the site is created in a horizontal paragraph-like format. And every category of Gothamist is formatted in the same way.

While Gothamist does contain much unity, it does contain contrast as well, but it should probably have more. I’m not too sure every user is able to distinguish what a link is, what a headline is, and what the content of the story is because everything is in black. The only text on the site that’s in a different color is the link to where users can make comments or recommendations.

As far as the hierarchy of the site, I think the editors placed the most important or interesting stories at the top of the page and work their way down to the least important or least interesting. Unlike on other news web sites where there is a main story and picture on the homepage, on Gothamist everything looks the same. It’s hard to tell what’s the site’s main story. There’s no large pictures; every photograph is the same size and is placed on the right of each article summary.

Lastly, the site definitely has great usuability. I don’t have to click through tons of pages to get back to the homepage if I decide to read more of an article. Gothamist is also consistent with it’s design like I stated previously. This may be boring to some people, but it helps to not confuse readers and create a brand for itself.

 Bossip  is a blogging Web site dedicated to celebrities and who’s not more eager to read dirty little secrets about artists such as Chris Brown, Chingy, and Beyonce than the average member of the public. Face it, whether we want to admit it or not, many of us have a hunger for celebrity gossip and if that’s the case, Bossip is the place to be. You can even get your blog posted if you call the Bossip Hotline and reveal your “juicy tip.”
The site is similar to D-list in the respect that it contains tons of blogs and images on celebs. The only difference is all the celebrities are Black. From Oprah Winfrey to Lil’ Wayne, Bossip covers it all. On the right side of Bossip’s homepage there’s a category that states “We broke it here first!” which lists all of the sites’ top and most interesting blog entries. On the left of the homepage tons of celebrity names are listed alphabetically under the Celebrities category. There’s also a category called Blogroll, which lists countless other blog sites users can visit. In addition, Bossip has an archive section with blogs dating all the way back to 2005.
What I like about Bossip is that I don’t have to read the whole blog to find out what it’s about. Not only does every blog include a picture, but the headline and the two-sentence summaries provides me with all the information I need. When you click on next page, at the bottom of the homepage, you’ll realize that site has so many blogs that it would take days even weeks just to read them all –it’s never-ending. You’ll also notice that there’s a new category on the following blog pages that wasn’t on Bossip’s mainpage. This section just lists all different category topics from American Idol to Weddings. A lot of the category titles ask a question and since the site is essentially a blog, people answer the questions by submitting comments. That’s something else I like about the site is that you can view how many people commented on a particular blog, you can comment on it yourself, and you can send the story to your e-mail, your cell phone, or your Facebook.
Bottom line, Bossip is the site to go to if you have a crave for celebrity gossip. Even though, I didn’t see any videos on the site, the humorous paparazzi snap shots are to die for.

I’ve always heard so much about Fark and I can’t really remember  what exactly I heard so I decided why not complete a Web site critique on its site. First of all, Fark is very unique. It’s a news aggregator and an edited social networking news site. The site has subcatergories for stories already listed under main sections such as– Not News, Sports, Business, Geek, Showbiz, Politics, and so forth. Some of the subcategories are quite humorous. For example, Unlikely, Cool, Fail, Follow Up, Interesting, Obvious, Scary, and Strange. I think the subcategories are both formulated based on the general opinion of users and the topic of the story itself.

The target audience, I think, is mostly college students and those in the news industry. People in the news industry have to up-to-date with what’s going on constantly and Fark is a good Web site to utilize when trying to do so. The site is so straight-forward and conversational, which is why I think it would attract college students.

On another note, I like that users can not only view the number of people who commented on any given story, but they can view those comments and post comments themselves. This allows the site to be interactive, which is definitely a plus for online journalism guidelines.

Fark gathers information from all different sites and allows users to be able to read about a variety of news without having to actually visit those sites individually. This feature definitely provides lots of traffic for those sites, I would assume, and most certainly saves time for users.

Not to mention, the site has tons of interesting and newsworthy videos, also gathered from other Web sites, a majority of them from good old YouTube.

To gain access to TotalFark, users must subscribe, which is five dollars per month, and from there subscribers can create their own profile page, also known as MyFark.

I love the About/FarQ section because it has tons of information on the site and it’s very beneficial for people like me who have had no clue of the site’s purpose. You can really find out a lot from looking at the site’s most frequently asked questions. Trust me, whatever question you have, I’m sure it’s answered in About/ FarQ.

Besides the site’s very plain and unattractive web design, it has a good amount of interesting news. I just wish some of the headlines actually stood out. It’s kind of hard to find a story when every headline looks exactly the same. The site could definitely can use improvements in that department.

Reuters, a site that looks similar to Aol.com and Yahoo.com, is uncluttered and very easy to navigate. Something I’m not too fond of is at the top of the web site’s homepage instead of having the main pictures change, a different headline pops up every couple of seconds under the latest news category. Though seeing catchy one line headlines at the top of the page constantly change did grab my attention, I still feel that pictures definitely would attract more readers. A picture most certainly attracts the human eye more than words. I mean hey, it’s true.

The site seems to stay ontop of the news. Reuters has nothing but fresh and updated content on its site. It also has offbeat news under the Oddly Enough category.

I like that the site has list of several different news categories on the left side of the main page. This is beneficial to readers because they don’t have to spend a long time searching for certain stories that interest them; they can just click on the news story category and then find the article. Either that or they can type in the article’s title or even key words from the article in the site’s search engine.

If you don’t want to go to click on the link of a particular news category, you can just scroll down the page and find the same categories at the bottom. The only difference is that each category has several headlines that link you to the pages of its top stories.

The site also keeps readers posted on market updates and even commodities. I can’t forget that Reuters has blogs, slideshows, and videos, but unlike many other news sites readers cannot comment on stories. So, even though Reuters pretty much follows web 2.0 guidelines, not being able to comment on the stories definitely doesn’t allow the site to be as interactive as it could be.

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