Wednesdays Post

Online businesses have skyrocketed in the past decade. At first, the only two online retailers were eBay and Amazon. These two companies decided that they were going to take the internet to a different level; they would make it business, not just to goof around. As the users for the sites increase, the internet’s possibilities increase too. Amazon has had its pros and cons online, but they would rather keep the pricing lower to make more growth than raise the price to make more profit. The saying was “get big fast.” In The Long Trail, it talks about how convenient online retailers can be. Between iTunes, Netflix and Amazon, buying and selling have made a big change. Amazon can help sell books that crashed and burned at first by their “we recommend this too.” With movies, if you like documentaries, you won’t find them at Blockbuster, but Netflix is known to have movies of any kind, including documentaries. In the Free! article, I think it’s smart to give something away with another item that people need and want. I typically will buy something if I want to try it out if it is on something I know I need. His boss did have good advice: invent something people could throw away. Many people buy plastic silverware and paper plates so they don’t have to deal with cleaning dishes. EBay and Amazon are still in business because they understand you have to get fundamentally to people. I think the businesses that sell retail online right will stay in business. As long as they have the customer in mind first since they are entrusting their credit card won’t get stolen then they will be ok.

Wednesday

"The lesson: pull consumers down the tail with lower prices," said Chris Anderson.

This was the central statement that clearly illustrates Anderson's theory behind the "The Long Tail" model for online business.

I think consumers and businesses are already aware of the current "free" model where a product is given for free in exchange for the purchase of a separate product or service. Or the "free" model where content is given away while the premium services and additional content is for a price.

So, the question for businesses is whether or not to continue in the "free" veins of models or attempt to implement a strategy more closely resembling the "The Long Tail."

It is easy to see (after Anderson breaks it down) why posting everything, as companies such as Netflix and Amazon have done, is economically sound and how the lower end of the tail can generate large percentages of profit. This theory only works for markets that the product can be sold in a digital format; and as such I think his theory only applies to limited markets.

As Anderson explains, the cost of uploading an obscure, French documentary made in 1975 is practically free for a company like Netflix. Thus, even if only 2 customers select this DVD to rent, Netflix sees profit. The main principle guiding Anderson's theory is that the cost of uploading, hosting, or posting infinite amounts of digital content is so minimal a company should post anything and everything it can and let the product find its niche.

As such, this theory only seems to apply to markets in which the product can be "bought" and "sold" digitally; so music, picture, and text. The other biggest challenge for a company attempting to implement this strategy is breaking into the markets of already-established companies.

The "bubble" video details the boom and and subsequent collapse of '90s internet companies; the "dot coms." The one thing that this era produced was a technological "natural selection." The weakest businesses and those that had the poorest business models and those that did not establish a connection with the customer or the customer to the information were weeded out.

Only the strongest companies with the ability to survive and evolve out of this avoided bankrupcy.

This allowed those select companies to establish a brand name with exponential value and a dominant hold on their marketplace.

Anderson compared Blockbuster to Netflix as an example in one of his articles to illustrate how a company that primarily sells a physical, popular product can miss a large demographic of people that Netflix reaches.

Let's say that Blockbuster listens to this advice, attempts to create something similar to what Anderson suggests. Are customers going to automatically switch to Blockbuster's new service or trust Netflix, which already has established itself and charges pretty low rates? ($7-$10 a month)

I think the one area that could potentially have the most to gain is in the music industry. Because of the IPOD, Apple has had a near monopoly on this market with Itunes. I think the first company that can successfully challenge Itunes in this area and implement some of Anderson's strategies could potentially be very lucrative.

More information on Chris Anderson, his Long Tail theory, and his new book "Free" can be found here at his blog.

SXSW- Eric Harper

The post entitled “bringing the Grand Old Party into the twenty first century” talked about the work Republican National Chairman Michael Steele has done to the party’s website. Establishing an effective online presence is crucial to any entity which wishes to succeed in the technological era. Many voters have gone online for their political updates, so updating a weak website was a reasonable thing for the GOP to do.

Additionally, the post in “The art and science of seductive interactions” discussed the techniques designers use to capture audiences. The speaker, Steven Anderson, compared the techniques to ones people would use in dating. This is an effective example of an effective way to captivate audiences, relating to them. People are more likely to respond positively to something that they feel they know something about or may somehow be a part of.

Lastly, the post “Two men dreaming of helping you get paid for your video, can it work,” talked about a group which seeks to launch a video playing system which pays for producers and distributors of online videos. This idea seems up in the air as long as internet users can go elsewhere on the web to see free videos. To make this work, the group would need to do something to get their video player to offer something that the free players can’t.

SXSW- Eric Harper

SXSW- Anita Santa-Coloma

I chose to start of with the inside workings of funnyordie.com because I am a huge fan. It really is incredible how everything is turning to the web. This website was created to have clever sketches that sometimes support a cause. Funnyordie.com has been very successful as they incorporate celebrities in their sketches. They now have a series on HBO and are soon making films. This website is hilarious and definitely worth checking out.

I also found Imageenering the Future to be very interesting. This panel compares our digital technology to that of Star Trek which is very interesting to see how a lot of things that we have now reflect what was projected as the future before.

Taking the grand old party to the twenty first century was also an interesting panel. This is specifically important, because it shows how technology should be embraced by everybody in order to stay ahead. Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, has ensured that the Republican party not only caught up to Democrats but surpassed them in technology.

SXTXST- Peter Halliburton

I decided to start off reading about SX from Sunday, I figured there would be quite a bit going on. The post I was reading was titled, "Covering SXSWi." It basically just had a few photos that gives outsiders an idea of what SX is all about, as well as who all attends. It shows a group of grad students all charging there equipment as well as photos of parts of the conference itself.
My favorite picture however is the one of a huge pile of legos for people to play with to clear there heads from looking at LCD screens all day. I also enjoyed the photo that shows a crowded room, all filled with Mac users. The author made a joke, pointing out one of the fellow grad students who was using a PC.

Another one of the articles that I enjoyed reading was titled, "Process Journalism: Getting it First, While Getting it Right." This article dealt with the importance of utilizing your technological resources to bring breaking news to the media, without sending out/ reporting the incorrect message.
Other than this topic, the session also seemed to focus on programs and there credibility. One that seemed to be discussed in more depth in particular was Wikipedia. the article states that on Wikipedia, "There are 365 million unique visitors a month, with 15 millions articles in over 270 languages." That is an awful lot of potential posting on topics, taking away from the websites overall credibility.

The final article I will be discussing in this post is from Sunday as well and is "The Inside Workings of funnyordie.com." Although, before today, I was not familiar with funnyordie.com, I am now, and I already have enjoyed it a lot. I think that it has an awesome concept in the fact that users can comment/interact with the famous people that created it.
As a strong supporter and follower of numerous HBO series shows, I am very excited to see what comes of this. In a time when shows like SNL, and that sort are not doing exceptional, although it is risky, it is necessary to think outside of the box and head in a new direction.

Monday SXSW

Alright, it looks like I am first post! One of the first articles that I read the whole way through was the one discussing social media and China. It definitely changed some of the stereotypes I had heard about China. I've read several different articles about specific content being restricted by the Chinese government or about specific artists being banned as well. It was interesting to hear the other side of the argument and how involved the country is in expanding social medias.

I also enjoyed reading the summary of the panel addressing "Selling Sub-Culture without Selling Out." I think this is a relevant, sensitive issue that I would have really enjoyed being at to hear more. The conflict between the two ideals of "rich, corporate, evil giant" vs. "poor, hard-working artist with integrity" has been around for quite some time and most people see only one side. I like how this panel is working toward navigating a path between the two. It's particularly relevant with companies, businesses, or websites working to develop their niche audiences and still make a living.

Of note, the video from the Tarantino article is really funny, and it is always funny to see Will Ferrell playing former president Bush.

Web Credibility

The page that I decided to use for the website credibility project is, http://bit.ly/9feGJZ. When searching “9/11 attack” on Google, it was only located three or four spots down on the list. I thought that it would make for a pretty interesting assignment as it a very poorly constructed web site; however, obviously it has received numerous hits and has a counter that says I am visitor number 924, 743.

This site seems to be complete, just poorly completed perhaps. The title of the page for apfn.org is “9-11 TERROR IN AMERICA,” and although it doesn’t have a last updated date at the bottom of the page, toward the top of the page it states, “(all links have been updated on 12/20/08).” I would assume that is the last time that the page has been updated. The audience for this website is very obviously 9/11 conspiracy followers and this is definitely the slant that the site takes as well. This web site is full of external links, all to what they point to as “evidence” of the 9/11 conspiracy that the government was involved with, or responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center. Although it states at the top of the site that links were last updated over 2 years ago, just about all of them seemed to still function. Some of the video clips do support the sites claims, although, some of them are legitimate news coverage that they claim as evidence of a government sponsored/falsified attack.

While the site does not list the person responsible for creating it, it was very obviously created by American Patriot Friends Network, as it says so at the top of the page. The company claims to have begun back in 1993. It also has a link that says “contact” at the bottom of the page that takes you to Outlook to send an email to the webmaster. This is a “.org” site and was very obviously set up by a non-profit organization to spread their beliefs. After back tracking to the home page for APFN, I was able to find out that the founder of the company is Kenneth L. Vardon and shows to have been last updated on 6/19/09. The site looks to be more of a personal stance on a situation as opposed to clear fact or any measurable accuracy. I did not see anything on the web site that mentions anything of a hard copy of this particular information, most of it is comprised of video clips and other external links.

The APFN site is not very professional looking what-so-ever. All text is centered, horrible color combinations for text and background that are very inconsistent and change numerous times while scrolling down the page. The text on the website is somewhat well written, although it is not in a very professional style or context. Merely opinion based text with little fact. The formatting of this site is absolutely horrible, no tables, looks like a basic HTML page like our first project. The headings are appropriate for what it discusses below for the most part and the navigation is pretty much at random. The images work just fine and the web site itself does not have sound, although the video clips all work just fine (although they are all external links, so they should). While most of the clips do support the claims of APFN, the statements that they make about the videos may or may not be credible themselves. As I previously stated, I found this site by searching “9/11 attack” on Google and this was the third or so link down. This is not too surprising to me however, since it has almost a million views, and obviously has numerous other sites linking to it. The site does not contain advertisements within it at all, most likely because at the bottom of the page it asks for “free will” donations. After viewing the sourcing I discovered that the site is set up very easily. It contains a few divs, looked like there was one fairly small table, and overall generally pretty basic.

All in all, APFN’s website is pretty poorly constructed and was set up on a very basic level. I was not impressed with the layout, nor the content of the page itself. I did not find this to be a very credible site and therefore I would not recommend it, even for those interested in 9/11 propaganda. Although it looks like it took the creator some time to collect and assemble his information, he just didn’t spend the time or use proper resources to publish his information.

www.newstreamz.com

I chose newstreamz because it is local news, it's regularly updated, and it is not a well known site. I think they are in the middle of switching their name, because the http reads newstreamz, but the title is San Marcos Local News. So it's partly under construction. On the front is a story done March 3rd, so it has been updated today. Newstreamz seems to stay bias about the information they report. It is focused on local stories in San Marcos. The site has internal links to different types of news, but the only external links come from advertisements. They all work properly. I wish it had some external links, that would improve the stories.

Newstreamz has an About tab that tells who works for the company. As far as who developed the site, it's hard to tell. It is a completely online publication, so I'm supposing everyone contributes something. Each worker has an e-mail to contact them. It has the number for the office. On each story, there is a place to leave a comment, and that is about it for discussion. What would improve the site would be a twitter feed, or at least a link. This is important new technology for the publication world, so Newstreamz needs to hop on it. It is a .com site. There isn't any references to outside sources, but that is to be expected from a news site. Newstreamz is not a print publication, and I wouldn't rely on it as a source like I would the Daily.

The site isn't as professional looking as it could be. The text doesn't seem uniform, and it just seems kind of blocky. For the most part, the content is suitable for the stories, and I don't see any publication errors. Everything is pretty simple to use, and I really like the navigation. Probably could have less in the navigation though. Newstreamz uses pictures decently well to work with the stories, but the format seems to be one picture for each story, sometimes none. There is a separate video tab, but Newstreamz doesn't use videos with the stories. I think they could spice things up by adding slideshows, interactive charts, links to other photos, use the photos in different ways, etc. Even short soundbites could be helpful. The editorial and news sections are separate, but the advertising is in all sections. It is kind of distracting. Looking at the source code, it doesn't seem as long as the content on the page. There are alot of links for the main page, connecting all the information together.

Overall, Newstreamz is just alright with me. It would probably be my last resort for a major publication in San Marcos. I would look at the Star before I read Newstreamz, but of course I'm a little bias. The content is O.k., and even thought they have improved on the design, it is still a little unprofessional looking.

Project 3

My project 3 will consist of a health page that instructs viewers on how to live a healthy live ridding of bad foods with health replacements and excercising tips.

statesman.com

The Austin American Statesman (http://www.statesman.com/) is a versatile news website. It encompasses the different angles of news that would interest the inhabitants of Austin. Overall it is a credible website.

The title of the website is statesman, with pages such as news; entertainment; hookem.com; classifieds; cars; homes and jobs, and it is complete. The statesman was created in 1994 and changed in 2009; the statesman updates its content constantly. This website is specifically made for the residents of Austin and has a bias for Austin residents, longhorn fans and people interested in the University of Austin. The website has internal and external links that work properly.

The statesman.com is owned by Cox Enterprises. The website provides a number and email in which they can be contacted under the privacy policy link on the bottom of the page. The website makes it clear that their association is the Austin American Statesman and it’s being sponsored by Cox Enterprise. The website is a .com and it seems to be privately owned by the Austin American Statesman meaning it is exclusively for the residents of Austin. Backtracking in the site indicates information from the news publication which hosts the website. The website seems to be accurate, the information is from reporters and some articles are from outside sources in the entertainment page. There is also a print publication for the Austin American Statesman.

The website is very professional looking, free of errors and has appropriate writing styles. The website’s format is useful and meaningful, having easy navigation and the appropriate headings for news, entertainment, etc. The images and sound are working correctly and support the content they are describing, especially in the music section of entertainment. The search engine is working properly and the news and ad sections have different presentation in which you can distinguish both. The fact that this website allows interaction with its audience through comments and updates, impresses me more as a viewer.

Overall, this website is professional, neat, accurate and credible. The website is a very useful tool for austinites. It allows them to obtain pertinent information in news, entertainment, politics, sports, classifieds and more.

Web Credibility- maddox.xmission.com

This is a personal website created by the personality known as "Maddox," and the line just below his logo is a pretty good introduction as what to expect from his site. It reads "This page is about me and why everything I like is great. If you disagree with anything you find on this page, you are wrong." The website is pretty much a highly developed blog. He posts hundreds of articles, most of which are rants on a specific, hated subject, but his writing is highly entertaining and done well.

As far as the content goes, it is completed. The title of the page is "The Best Page In The Universe" and includes a miniature logo from his website. It was created in 1996, and it looks like it was last updated on January 29, 2010. The audience is anyone who sees humor in his writing. Anyone easily offended by language would probably not enjoy this site. The only slant or bias is his own, but it is mostly done for satirical effect. He often takes an extreme male-chauvinistic viewpoint on certain issues. I think it's mostly done for humor and to irritate people. The majority of the links for his site are all internal, with a few at the bottom of his homepage linking to other sites he enjoys.

The creator of the page is "Maddox" and does not have any credentials besides being creative and knowing enough about creating a website. He has his email address posted several times throughout the site. In fact, one of the navigation links on his main bar is to a section where he receives hate emails and responds to them.

The site could definitely use some work as far as visually speaking. There is actually a spot where Maddox claims that he does not care about what the website looks like because it generates large amounts of "hits" with its current design. It is grammatically correct and is pretty easy to navigate through. There are only a few images on the site and very rarely have sound attached. Most of them are images that he has created as parody relating to an individual article. I found this site by typing in "the best page in the universe" but my friend had suggested I go there, so I already knew what to search for. Some of the other meta tags include: rants, kickass, disgust, apathy, stupid, moron, idiot and dipshit.

This is definitely a website designed for a niche audience. There are going to be people who hate it and find it offensive and others who enjoy it. He has a cult following and recently published a book titled "The Alphabet of Manliness." Here is the link to his site.

Creditability Check-Theybf.com

Everyone enjoys their own source of entertainment. In today's society there is such a craze about celebrities and what they do in their life. I must admit sometimes I like to peek and stay updated on the latest dish of gossips or "news". Maybe one I might be an infotainer dishing out the daily entertainment, but for now I like to monitor different website to see what's going on.

The website, theybf.com is one of those fun spots I like to visit. Y-B-F is an acronym for young, black and fabulous. It does have a bit of a slant because it focuses on minority celebrities. The audience would include people who like to know about celebrities, so that may not be everyone. It's considered a gossip site and not all the information is accurate or credible. The website was created June 29th 2005, and is continually updated. It is a colorful page and attractive to look at, full of pictures, videos and different typography. The links are internal and external and do work properly, although there are times when the site is down due to maintenance and can not be accessed.

Natasha Eubanks created the site. She is obsessed with celebrities, and not a professional but considered one in celeb gossip. There are outlets to contact the editor , give tips and participate in chat rooms. The association to the information is not made clear. It's a .com page so it's a public website that someone created. I am not able to backtrack the website to find out more information about the creator.

It is not professional looking, it looks as though someone took on a hobby. The information is all over the page and not very organized. It is easy to use all a reader has to do is scroll down the page although at the bottom of the page, you have to click on the numbers to get to the previous page, which can take awhile and cause the page to loose traffic if people don't want to wait. Most of the time the images and sounds work on the site, although there is room for improvement. The site is easy to find, when you type in ybf at a search engine it instantly pops up. The news and advertisements line the page of the website, while the main material is in the center, it's alot of activity at once. Comments, dates do help to influence readers about the information.

Overall it's fun to read and look at. It's not the best site out there but with improvement it could look better.

~Selina

Web Credibility: nationalgeographic.com

One magazine that I have enjoyed reading since elementary school has been National Geographic, so I chose to do my Web credibility assignment on their Web site. The magazine has been circulation since 1888 and became available to Web users in 1996. The site, like the magazine, focuses on geography, popular science, world history, culture, current events and photography of places and things all over the world. The site is updated daily and is available to all ages. They even have a specific page dedicated to kids and a link where readers can and go and blog about various subject matters pertaining to the content available on the site.

The “Contact” page is a little overwhelming as there are several contacts to choose from. However, after reading over the options, I noticed that the different means of contact just depend on what the reader needs help with. The domain name is just the same as the magazine, nationalgeographic.com, which makes it easier for a reader of the magazine to find the Web site because it isn’t shortened, abbreviated, or called something else all together. The user can also backtrack in the URL to get more information about the site.

As far as appearance, the site was put together very professionally and is very easy to navigate through. The typography and color choices go very well with the content of the Web site and each individual page. For example, the “Kids” page is decorated with bright colors (yellows, greens, etc.) and easy-to-read typography and content that would be appealing to a child’s eye, whereas the page titled “Environment”—which is aimed for a more mature audience—has neutral colors and basic typography. The different pages on the site are free of GSP errors and are designed/ written specifically to the audience that would be viewing /reading it. The articles, photos and videos (which function properly and have great quality) are all credited.

Overall, the way the site is set up is very professional and appropriate for the different audiences that are viewing the site. The articles, pictures and videos are from professional sources which makes the site credible. After stemming from a world-wide published magazine available in 32 different languages, so credibility isn’t a concern of mine. My only concern is that some of the pages contain a lot of text and links and user could get easily lost and overwhelmed. However, since there is so much to choose from, this could work as an advantage.

Project 3

My project will be healthy recipes for students. It will cover how to make these meals and will also have the costs per meal or serving.

Credibility Assignment

Mensfitness.com

I like to read and stay up-to-date on health and fitness issues so I initially wanted to evaluate Menshealth.com but I decided to examine its affiliate Mensfitness.com which I know little about. The page offers a variety of content from workouts and healthy recipes to dating tips.

I evaluated the Mensfitness website, which was created by American Media Inc., and last updated some time this year. The page is complete but is always being updated with various types of content. This site is obviously intended to reach men who workout and who are interested in leading a healthy lifestyle. the majority of the links is internal and lead to other articles, recipes or workouts. There are external links such as its affiliates' websites and American Media's page. the articles do not have references to outside sources and the credibility of the content can be questionable. At first glance, it might seem is there just to push ad revenue. There could be a better way to separate the content from the advertisements. There are so many spaces it looks busy. Maybe they could give each page exclusive rights to advertisers.

There is no email for the author but you can submit any questions or comments to them. the site does have a blog link, but from it looks like they are not very successful. There are no comments on any posted articles or blogs. On the bottom of the page it says, "mensfitness.com is part of the American Media Inc. Fitness &Health Network," and it is a subsidiary of American Media Inc. Other online publications include: Fit Pregnancy, Flex, iShape and Muscle and Fitness among others. There are various "experts" for the site and they each cover different topics ranging from "training" to "career counseling," but there are no credentials listed for any of these experts. Mensfitness is also available in print. You can find it anywhere you would purchase a Men's Health issue or Muscle and Fitness magazine. The print version looks and feels more professional and makes multiple references in their articles thus, making it seem more credible.

The website is very easy to navigate and is ascetically pleasing. There are no gsp errors that I noticed and I really like the writing style. The articles are short and concise which helps because the pages are so busy with multiple advertisements and pictures that it is hard to read long paragraphs or stories without being distracted. It is hard to distinguish content from advertisements, and the layout of the homepage sort of bombards the reader and you don't know where to start.

Overall this website is pretty good. It has some good content but lacks overall creativity. Most of the content is present to fuel advertising which is common with health and fitness sites.

Credibility--Wired.com

www.wired.com

I chose this site to really take a look at it before Adobe steps in this summer. The page is complete. The title is Wired News. The site was created 8/28/2008 and last updated 2/26/2010. The audience consists of those interested and familiar with technology and tends to focus on issues close to technology and issues close to the people who are close to technology. This site contains many working internal and reliable external links. Outside sources support the information. Since this is a news-reporting site, each article is supported by different, but valid sources.
Wired Magazine created the site and controls its content. The entire editorial team of the site may be contacted by E-mail and in addition to that— a few members of the team may be Instant Messaged or followed on twitter. There are a few advertisements from various companies, but the sponsor of the website is clearly Wired Magazine. The domain name www.wired.com tells me that the site is likely to be affiliated with Wired Magazine and is professional enough to have its own domain name. The site is supported by a printed medium giving it more credibility.
The site is mostly professional looking, and lacks grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors. The site has a professional sound, but is not above using popular web and tech slang. This makes it an appropriate match for the audience who can trust and relate to the site. The format is acceptable. It is fairly easy to navigate, but looks sloppy: particularly towards the bottom. Headings are appropriate. Images support the content and seem edited to look clear, but may give slower computers with lower bandwidths problems. I Googled the word “wired” to find the site, but it is a popular and well-known site and magazine making it easy to locate. There are some Meta tags in the code, but no alt text that I can find. Content and editorial get a little jumbled, but Advertisements are clearly marked.
The only mark against credibility on this site is that a viewer cannot immediately distinguish content from editorial. It is still possible to tell and even though the format could be better, I would still trust this site and its content. I would like to point out that my professor is right—more should be expected from such a prominent tech focused publication.

PolitiFact.com -- checking up on the fact-checkers

PolitiFact.com is just a fun site. Elected officials, and those wo wish they were, love to run their mouth. Sometimes it’s hard to keep up with whose wrong and whose even more wrong. PolitiFact is a nice resource to have when sifting through political rhetoric.

PolitiFact is a project of the St. Petersburg Times. Politifact.com was created in August 2007 and modeled after FactCheck.org. It is updated throughout the day and likely appeals to well-educates, political astute individuals between the ages of 30 and 60. The stories and data are easy to read, making it easy for someone from any background knowledge American politics to access and understand information. They use both internal and external links. PolitiFace.com provides examples on their site, but sourcing the examples through external links to other articles and publications.

The site is easy to navigate, with multiple folders which all come from the home URL, www.politifact.com. I really like the mute color palette: dark grey, light blue and white. The words “We want to hear from you” are on the right-hand side, however, no emails are provided on the site. They do provide a street address and phone number. The “Contact Us” link prompts them to send the message from their site. They do provide interactive media sites such as Facebook and Twitter as well as the opportunity to sign up for weekly email or RSS feed.

The site is really clean and easy to use. It does not allow users to comment on articles, but gives the allusion of interactivity to the “Truth-O-Meter” and other such quirky gauges of accuracy.

Interestingly, there are no ads on the site, which is likely to appear as non-partisan and non-biased as possible. I believe this source to be credible because the articles in which their conclusions are formed are always provided. Additionally, PolitiFact contracts with other news outlets and won a Pulitzer Prize in 2009.

It’s a fun site. You should check it out!

chron.com

I chose to do chron.com, the Houston Chronicle website, for my web credibility Evaluation.

The content of the article gives it great credibility. The information is up to date and the audience is clearly stated. The information is exactly what you would expect it to be from a daily newspaper website. The page also has external links which are useful and work properly.

The site is authored by the Houston Chronicle, a very credible source. The paper can also be seen in a print publication format, increasing further its credibility. The publication is part of Hearst Newspapers, another very credible source. The only concern would be the fact that it’s somewhat difficult to see the tiny link at the bottom of the page to contact info, but otherwise the authority portion of this sight leaves little to question.

The site looks professional. The navigation is fairly self explanatory and there is a lot of pertinent information or guides to where to find more within the homepage of the site. The writing style is appropriate and the setup makes sense for a newspaper web version. The images all work and there are no obvious spelling or grammar errors.

Overall, this site looks professional and is from a professional source, which makes it pretty credible. Perhaps some of the layout could be better, but overall I would not worry about the credibility of the site’s content.

mySA.com

The site I chose to do my credibility assignment on is the San Antonio Express-News Web site, http://www.mysanantonio.com. I chose this site because it is local, updated at several different times daily and -- though it is a well-known site -- contains both positive and negative aspects that are considered in one's assesment of its credibility.

The site's overall content meets the criteria of being credible. The home page title is "San Antonio News, Weather, Sports : mySA.com | Express-News," indicating it is the Express-News' official home page. The most recent content (as of 8:30 p.m. Sunday evening) was added nearly an hour ago and was an article on the USA hockey team losing to Canada in the gold medal game of the Olympics, written by an Associated Press reporter. The site includes numerous internal links to other stories, blog posts, slideshows and other multimedia elements that work, as well as an external link to Hearst Newspapers, which works as well. According to its content, the site suggests its prime audience is consisted of San Antonio residents, though it does provide national and international stories as well. The news and features sections of the site seemed mostly unbiased. However, the sports sections, which includes its own link to stories only about the San Antonio Spurs, seem slightly biased (though sports sections in various large city's newspaper Web sites have similar sections for their towns' respective sports teams).

The site displays proper authority, according to Web Evaluation Checklist. Contact information is located at the bottom of the home page and a link to its Web content management site, clickability.com, is apparent in the same location as well. The domain name is .com and the user can backtrack in the URL to get to the source and find out information about the site and the newspaper itself. From the various articles I read on the site, compared to other sites with similar stories, the information is accurate and many stories provide links to other news sites or provide photos (which all include credits as well). There is also, of course, a print version of the site in the Express-News newspaper, which adds to the site's credibility.

The presentation is the one aspect, however, that may cause the user to judge the mySA Web site harshly. Though the navigation, images and links all work and are pleasing to the eye, what is just the opposite is the crowding and near-overload of information on the page. When the user scrolls down the page, it becomes hard to distinguish the advertisements from the content and there is such a plethora of information, one may not know where to begin. The source code seems clear and free of hidden comments/keywords. One other negative aspect is the search engine, which when one tries searching for a specific author, random stories come up in the results without mention of the search term.

The mysanantonio.com Web site may have its flaws, as any site does. However, it meets most of the requirements on the Web Evaluation Checklist and can therefore be considered a credible site.