LOS Angeles Timeswww.latimes.com
Gossip Blog:www.couturecandy.comwww.couturecandy.com
MSNBC is an online news organization.
On the MSNBC website there is one featured story that has a red border and labeled “breaking news in world news.” It is the primary focus on the homepage but it you scroll down a little the Honda Accord advertisement is a much bigger picture then the featured story. The left hand side has categories about world news, politics, health, science, business, entertainment, travel, sports, technology and other tabs. However if you scroll down, the categories are showing horizontally with articles underneath. Each category has its own multimedia section for videos. Ironically CBS has the same format. CBS also has a featured story but it’s advertisement on the right side (in the same place as MSNBC’s advertisement) is also bigger than the featured story picture. The columns are horizontal and marked by categories. Each column has articles to link to and multimedia with RSS feeds. They both had a section for crossword puzzles and comics on the left hand side. The CBS news website had fewer advertisements than the MSNBC site, with less clutter and more stories. The MSNBC had a bigger masthead then CBS and embraced their rainbow colors that brand their name. CBS also did not put up times for when they revised or updated a story. So I never knew what time an article was published, unless I did an estimate from the times when users left comments. The cool thing about both news sites is their wide use of multimedia. Both sites use RSS feeds, podcasts, email and mobile updates.
The Los Angeles Times online newspaper website has its typical paper font (almost identical to the NY Times font) used on the website for the masthead. The categories were on the right hand side organizing the news into science, sports, business, entertainment and so on. I like the fact that the NY Times categories even have sub- categories. For example, Underneath the Arts category is links to books, movies, music, television and theatre. They really break it down and make searching for things very accessible. If you scroll down the page it’s also available in a larger font, incase if your eyes glaze over the categories. The large, centered photograph distinguishes the article as the featured story. There is another advertisement in the same section as the MSNBC and CBS websites. However the LA Times advertisement is not bigger than the featured story photograph. I feel the LA Times website is cluttered and my eyes tend to wander. The LA Times site has a section on the right side for the most viewed and most emailed, but the NY Times sight has almost the same sidebar labeled “most popular.” It contains the articles that were most emailed, blogged and searched for. It’s hard to compare any newspaper to the NY Times, because they’re the most credible and reputable new organization. There is just no comparing! The NY Times advertisements are even considerably small and disassociated with the website off to the lower left hand side. The NY Times has made such a name for themselves that the advertisements don’t own them and over crowd the website. My favorite thing about the NY Times is it’s expansive archive and the tabs on top of the masthead. If I missed the day before, I can click on today’s paper and scroll down to the calendar and click on any day to find out all the headlines. It’s so accessible! The LA Times search engine is nothing in comparison. Oh, another cool thing- The Times reader, which is a digital newspaper that reads like the real thing!
Finally…The Gossip Blog CoutureCandy.com
It’s So similar to its rival PerezHilton.com! When I logged on the page, that was my immediate thought. There is a big difference between them though; the couturecandy website has a sidebar next to every picture of a celebrity, which has an advertisement for clothes that look like what the celebrity is wearing. This is perfect for the fan obsessed with looking like their favorite celebrity, and it’s a great way to advertise. The couturecandy website also copied Perezhilton with the type written over the photographs. However the couturecandy page had nicer things to say about the celebrities then Perezhilton. Both websites are a fan of pink….hmmm, don’t know why? But it has become the color to brand perezhilton into the top gossip blog. Perezhilton is a fan of using advertising for the website back drop and not afraid of throwing them all over the website. I actually liked the style of the Perezhilton page, and I like the big masthead that has the Perezhilton font look similar to the Hollywood sign in California. Wow and some of the ads on Perezhilton are quite provocative. There is an adult sex dvd advertisement and a sex toy ad. Both sites allow comments, but (obviously) Perezhilton has comments for photographs that range in the hundreds. The site has become very popular and therefore more users are on it interacting.
In observing all three news/blog websites and their competitors, I noticed how similar all these sites look. The column set up, the colors, the placement of advertisements and use of similar fonts. It makes me wonder…why do we sometimes always go to one website over another?
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