it's all in the website

These days, a website is just about all anyone has to tell their story. Whether it is something as grandiose as a presidential campaign or as small as a local cupcake bakery in Georgetown - a website builds awareness and creates an identity for anyone - be it a company, organization or individual. 

So, what makes a good one? 

Based on our class last week, I started scouring the web to rant and rave about some frequented sites on the web. I like to save the best for last so I'll do my rants first.

Sites I dislike:

MySpace

• Intrusive advertising (large ads, sound, multiple ads)  
• Unorganized home page 
  
• Uncategorized users (ie bands and individuals come up in same search results) 
  
• Users have too much autonomy - pages can have sound, pictures, slideshows, customized design and users can be of any age

Drudge Report 

• Too much text 
  
• Too much content 
  
• No multimedia 
  
• Minimal color
  
• Too many links
  
• No categories or organization 
  

My raves:

Yelp

• Organized content and searching 
  
• Easy to navigate 
  
• Easy to share input with users (rating system) 
  
• Encourages participation (users can write reviews) 
  
• Multiple categories 
  

All Recipes

• User friendly
  
• Multimedia elements (photos and videos)
  
• Encourages user input (share reviews, pictures and advice)
  
• Organized in several ways 
  
• Users can search by category, cuisine, event, season, etc. 
  

Washingtonian

• Several multimedia elements (photos and videos)
  
• Email subscription
  
• No intrusive advertising 
  
• Easy searching across all content (restaurants, travel guides, night life, upcoming events)
  
• Social media (Twitter, Facebook) 
  

a step in the right direction?

NY Times launches: TimesReader 2.0

"we've all become mentally obese"

I came across this article in NY Magazine - an eight page piece titled "In Defense of Distraction." In it, Sam Anderson discusses how new technologies - everything from Twitter and tabbed Internet browsers to your Blackberry or Flickr page - have significantly affected our attention span. Well, I'm sure this is not too surprising considering I have five tabs open in my Firefox browser right now and I'm balancing this blog post with two Gtalk conversations and refreshing my work email.

Sometimes I forget how dependent I am in using some kind of digital tool to do pretty much everything in my life - work, socializing, research, shopping and everything in between.

Anderson states, "Adopting the Internet as the hub of our work, play, and commerce has been the intellectual equivalent of adopting corn syrup as the center of our national diet, and we’ve all become mentally obese."

He spends a good amount of time discussing how we should adapt to the overflow of information. While much of his analysis focuses on psychological implications and solutions, the premise of his article raises an interesting question: how do we keep up?

We're clearly in the midst of a multimedia frenzy - new avenues and tools to communicate and receive information are constantly appearing. These tools, coupled with a superfluous amount of information, make it extremely important for media professionals to create strategies that will adapt to the shortened attention spans of the digitally connected generation.

What do you think? How are our shortened attention spans affecting not only how we retain the news, but how news is communicated to us? Is this why sites like Twitter are popular? How should media organizations adapt to this undeniable trend?

I have vowed not to make this blog depressing because unlike the number of people who believe that journalism is dying, I think the media is on the brink of a new era of innovation. And though the news is becoming less institutionalized, it cannot be denied that information (and the need to communicate it) will never disappear.

My entire background has been in public relations. But before you write me off as a nuisance, I have to say that the recent trends in the media industry have changed my job quite a bit. I am now immersed in this new world of digital multimedia and I have been learning how to use Internet tools (i.e. You Tube, Facebook, blogs, Twitter) to deliver messages to the public. I am completely fascinated by the number of options we now have to communicate, socialize and build communities by using the Internet. That being said, I hope to use this blog as an opportunity to share these innovations, discuss how these multimedia tools will positively impact news and engage in some positive dialogue to make us all hopeful that the news (though it may not be delivered to your doorstep anymore) is not going anywhere.

I came across an article in FORTUNE titled, “How Facebook is taking over our lives,” where writer Jessi Hempel made a strong case for this social networking site that now has a user base of more than three billion people. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg aspires “to turn Facebook into the planet's standardized communication (and marketing) platform, as ubiquitous and intuitive as the telephone but far more interactive, multidimensional - and indispensable.”

The site has definitely changed full circle since I joined as a college senior back in 2005 and, I think it is safe to say that the possibilities are endless. What do you think of Zuckerberg’s goal? And, as Facebook proceeds in the direction to be the world’s standardized communication platform – what implications does this have on the news?