For the final Web site critique I have decided to critique my friend Thomas Cain’s blog. He is a photojournalist and he has a blog for his photography.

He told me the clicks on his sight are not that high so I think that the audience of this blog are his friends and possibly other photographers in the field. He puts the link on his Facebook and his Twitter in order to let people know when there is a new post. I really enjoy looking at his blog, because he talks about a lot of the pictures he plans on taking and I like seeing the finished product.

The site is somewhat interactive because he allows for comments on his posts.

I think this blog is interesting to read because their is not a lot of text. It’s looking at pictures with a little bit of text so it is easy and entertaining to look at. For the journalistic intent, I think the stuff that is meant to be journalistic is reliable. But he also has posts that are for fun, like his family or pictures from San Diego.

One thing I think should be improved on in his blog is how much he updates it. I think it should be updated every day, but he usually only updates it three to four times a week. If he were able to update more often I think he would be able to acquire more clicks.

When I used to Pole Vault and was a member of USA Track and Field, I got the magazine Track and Field News for free. The magazine has a Web site to go along with it. 

On the main page of the site there is a section for “Today’s Headlines.” This section is just an aggregator from other news sites with anything related to track and field. The site is up to date on current happenings in the track and field world, but it is not their own news content.

The people who visit this site are track athletes, former track athletes, or avid fans of track. This is an example of a Web site that has a niche audience. The audience is specific.

There are forums that are very popular among visitors on the site. I remember looking at the site when I used to to do track and not understand how people could become so heated debating a topic related to track. There are also photo galleries of track and cross country events, and they also have video.

There are lists of results, rankings, and competitions on the site, but in order to see the actual articles that are in the magazine you have to have a subscription to the magazine.

This isn’t a newspaper site, but I still think it some what qualifies as a news site, albeit not a very good site.

I never really read the Connecticut Post because it doesn’t write about anywhere near where I live, but I began checking it sometimes last semester while I was in JRN 300 because we wrote for the newspaper.

I really liked the top of this page. There are three places that have different sections or articles that a reader can go to. There is the navigation bar at the top, another sort of navigation bar on the right, and a section where the articles each have a picture and it alternates between four stories.

This Web site is interactive. There is a whole separate section for multi-media, and comments are allowed on

This paper is one of the biggest in the state so I think the journalistic quality in it is very good. A lot of people just got laid off from that area of the state from newspapers, so we will see if the journalistic quality stays the same. It possible could suffer from the cut backs.

I think the readers are older people who live in that area and want to get semi-local news.

One issue I had was that I couldn’t tell between the ads and the pictures. The top of the page is nice, but the bottom becomes cluttered. My guess would be that if someone were to scroll down the page they would click on a story if they knew what they were looking for, but if they were just browsing this could turn them off.

The Charlotte Observer

Unity- The initial theme I got from the page was blue. All the headlines are blue, and all the text looks the same. I think this is a unified, simple Web site. It is set up in a grid format, and they group the different sections in these areas. There are no elements that are floating, or seem to be off on their own.

Contrast- There is a nice contrast between the the blue and the white. Although there are all different blues, they use the dark blues to their advantage. The top bar is dark blue and it is the navigational bar. This is a contrast to the rest of the site and it sets it apart. Then at the bottom there is a dark blue bar which has videos and photo galleries. This is also a contrast because it is a thick blue bar which sets it apart from the rest, but it still goes with the theme.

Heirarchy- I didn’t think the most important stories were on top. The first story I noticed on the site was a feature/evergreen story. It has a nice picture to go along with it so I’m guessing that is why it was put on top. There is not much above the “scroll.” The bulk of the stories the reader has to scroll down to find them. I felt like stories were buried because they did not have good pictures.

Consistency- I thought this page was consistent. It was simple but all of the text and fonts looked the same. All of the different sections had the same font and same concept as the main page as well, which I thought was nice.

Blogging also works really well because it can be updated constantly. It is a Web site where people can go every day to read something new on a topic they are interested in. It allows for those little niche’s that people may not normally get to read about in their newspaper.

The Downside
A con is that to have a successful blog is to have an interesting topic to write about. No one is going to want to read a generic blog. Courchesne has an interesting niche that get’s him a following and a lot of traffic.

Another con is that people may not take it like serious news. All of what Courchesne writes about is straight news. Before I started this class I took all blogs as opinion sites where bloggers just rant about what they feel. One of the most interesting things Ken said was that he considers the blog as an extension of the newspaper.

Another aspect that I can’t figure out about whether it’s a pro or a con is that articles have to be short. Readers are not going to want to read a long article on a blog, as with any news Web site. I don’t think blogging allows for the long in-depth articles, but I don’t think people would read long articles on a blog.

Perezhilton.com is the Web site I check most often. Although he has been getting on my nerves a little lately, I still check this site first and the most often.

One of the things I love about this site is that he keeps his articles short. He has it right in this department. His posts are all about one or two paragraphs long. This is enough to tell the Who broke up, What caused it, Where the big fight went down, Why they split , and When they plan on getting back together, and get in a catty comment or two. This is all I really want to read on a site like this.

His sight is very interactive. He has a section called “Perez TV” where he uploads videos. It’s nice because it doesn’t link away to Youtube or another sight, it keeps it all on his web page. He had photo galleries, and he had a thing called the “Perrezies” where he had people vote in the categories. People like to leave a lot of comments on his posts, and sometimes he likes to post mean e-mails people have sent him.

I have been annoyed lately that he has been too self promotional but I guess I kind of forget it’s his blog, and he doesn’t claim to be objective or fair. He posts what he wants to post. He also posts charities and does a lot of stuff with gay rights activism on his site, which it’s nice to see his celebrity going for a cause.

I’m guessing the audience is mostly women, even though I do have a few guy friends who have admitted they check the site from time to time. He will attribute where he gets his information from. He is friends with a lot of celebrities so some of the information he will say that he got it exclusively from the celebrity. And he posts A LOT, which I love and which keeps me coming back for more.

The majority All of the blogs I read are about celebrity news. The newest one I have started reading is Dlisted.com.

This blog is constantly updated. Even if it is something little that has happened to a celebrity he will post it.

The site is extremely interactive. In my opinion it is more interactive than Perez Hilton, and TMZ. He does stuff where he will post a ridiculous picture and have people write captions of it. Then he picks the winner.

He also has things where the readers of his site vote for “Hot Slut of The Month.” This is pretty much a person or thing that has been in the news a lot in the month who is not usually in the celebrity news.For example, this month it was a cat who had a fur disease.

Another way the site is interactive is that he will post photo galleries with a lot of his articles. I have not seen a lot of other Web sites do this. As in print, a lot of blogs will pick the best picture. The Web has the ability to post multiple pictures, and this blogger takes advantage of it.

For journalistic intent, this site has to be taken with a grain of salt. It must be taken for what it is worth. In a lot of his articles the first paragraph will be the news then he will go off into talking about his view of this or some random story.

I think the audience of this Web site are mainly young women and people who like celebrity news. I think he can get away with saying some of the things he does because he knows people who go to his site are expecting celebrity news, not real hard news.