Pop-art Bus! The Guardian’s virtual tour
In The Guardian’s culture section today, Tim Jonze twittered us through his tour on Peter Blake’s Art Bus, visiting various rock and roll sights in London. Read the rest of this entry »
The Star online: a newspaper?
On Googling The Star, and clicking on the link, this is what appeared before me:
All newspapers need advertising funds, but to have that as an online publications opening page is a little bit much. It would be more fitting on the Paddy Powers website.
Inside the paper doesn’t improve, using pictures and videos of “vixens” and “babes” to entice the reader. This online version is more fitting as an ‘adult’ site than a news paper.
Dire.
Time online
Time Magazines online version is a far cry from the wordy, thin papered print paper. It is a joy to read. Interesting, informative and very diverse, it covers everything from U.S politics to beauty pagent scandals, and does so in an aesthetically pleasing way.
It has sections devoted to health, science, business and technology and travel. The travel section was particularly informative, and there was a global advisor showing readers what is going on around the world.
The site is very well linked, and uses interactivity and blogs to further readers understand of articles and ideas. It is a prime example of an excellent online publication, and is what other magazines should strive for.
BBC News vs Google News
Google News has gained a name for itself as a one-stop shop for news worldwide. This is true, as I pointed out in another post, but in this I completely forgot to mention one of the other media giants who cover news comprehensively worldwide, BBC News. Unlike Google, BBC News uses all it’s own material (unless its material from Reuters etc.) and is not just a collection of links to other news sites.
It is covering the Indian elections extensively, unlike other large western news groups, and is using innovative ways to promote interactivity and through this, understanding.
This “BBC Election Train” allows users to visit the various cities interactively and listen to audio and view video from the different locations.
BBC's election train
This is an example to other news organisations on how to run an innovative and interesting online news network, and shows Google how international news is done properly.
The Guardian and the “face transplant”: visual impact
The story of Connie Culp, a woman who was shot in the face and underwent the most advanced facial transplant story is one that would intrigue a lot of people. People love to read about this kind of scientific advance, because it is real life.This story would have packed half the punch if it hadn’t been for the accompanying video on The Guardian’s website.
It will make you shudder a little and leave you peering bemused and interested at the screen. But a newspaper telling the story with still images would not have had the same effect. No way. It’s transfixing. And it’s all thanks to on-line journalism.
The video, when uploaded with VodPod, is incorrect, so it can be viewed on The Guardian’s site here.
Pictures speak a thousand words
The visual element of news can often be the one that lingers longest in you mind. We all recall the images of the Twin Towers, and iconic images like the girl from Afghanistan.
Images like these make us remember the news, and online news sources are fast learning the value of providing a quality visual element to their pages.
Google News
Google News is a revolution in online news. The provides news stories from other news organisations all over the world, and you select which countries news you want to view. This morning, the top three stories in the Irish news section came from The Irish Times, BBC News and from Chinese newspaper Xinhua, in that order. Read the rest of this entry »
Tradition vs Tech
The use of technologically advanced news media in conmparison to tradition ones is a controversial topic. The Irish Times or the Irish Time.com?
Personally, I prefer to consume my news from online sources, including the online verisons of The Irish Times, the New York Times and Reuters. The stories are updated frequently and the are often blogs, videos and audio available to accompany stories. Read the rest of this entry »
To France… to Spain…maybe not to Sweden
It is easy to sometimes forget about continental online newspapers when looking at online news quality. The language barrier plays a huge role in this, and we tend to consult only Irish, British and America newspapers.
However, looking at the number 1 online newspaper sites from France (Le Monde) and Spain (El Mundo), it is clear that it is not only our news organisations that are concentrating effort on their online publications. Read the rest of this entry »
DCU’s Flashback “online”
After reading Ronan’s post regarding the online version of The College View, I decied to visit the CV site and ended up on DCUs Flashback magazine’s online version.
I was shocked to see just how dire it really was. Read the rest of this entry »
