Comparison of three news websites: Online journalism Assignment.

Here's an analysis of three news websites, i.e., msnbc.com, timesofindia.com and thehindu.com.

msnbc.com

The most important characteristic of a good website is the amount of 'breathing space'/ white space it provides to the reader. And this fact, largely, in my opinion, determines the amount of popularity of a website. Usage of more pictures also communicates the message easily.

For a newswebsite to be attractive and at the same time appealing, it has to reduce on clutter and make the it more colourful so that the it doesn't look like 'a lot of words' at the first look.

Msnbc.com follows the diktat which makes it a 'pleasing' news website to look upon.

Usage of shorter sentences and bigger font are easy steps which can be followed while building a website, in order to attract hits.

Colours draw attention. This website has also used the colours to good effect.

The biggest drawback of the website is that the user has to scroll a lot to enter into different sections of news which is very irritating.Taking into consideration, the time spent by an average internet user on a web page compared to other forms of media, is very less, it becomes really important for a website to be concise and at the same time very easily accessible.

timesofindia.com

Compared to its print version, The times of India, dissapoints from its website, the first thing which one notices while on the site that its full of text and which eventually is seen as clutter by the user.

However, the fact that it provides sub-sections below the masthead, and different categories in the sub-sections is a plus point of the site.

Colours are not used well, and lesser breathing space (which follows from the newspaper) makes the site look difficult.

thehindu.com(beta version)

The Hindu, and its recently launched beta version is a great improvement from its earlier version which was no good than a newspaper.

Its probably the best news website, in terms of designing. Soft and soothing colour scheme, good balance between white spaces and words, bigger font in contrast to its previous version.

thehindu.com v msnbc.com v timesofindia.com

The fact that internet is more interactive than any other means of communication, it becomes more necessary for a website based on news, to involve its users into the communication process.

timesofindia.com comes out as the best in these terms. Below every news story it gives you space to leave your comments on the story. Now, leaving space for viewer comments on the story and leaving a link which leads you to another web page for the comments are two very different things. This is where timesofindia gains ground over the other two websites.

msnbc.com inspite of its good designing and more 'eye value' has a drawback of long webpages and stories. thehindu on the other hand, is a classic mixture of both the websites but it totally falls back when feedback is taken into consideration. Again, thehindu.com gives you sub-sections below the masthead, which is a common feature of almost all the indian news websites.

This age has been called by many, as the information age, primarily because of the internet. Conveying the message in the best possible manner, is what the news makers should be looking for, the internet provides more ways than any other medium to communicate better.

Usage of videos in news stories were found more consistent in msnbc.com than the other two websites. People will opt for timesofindia.com or thehindu.com for short newsstories,but they will still find the story being told through videos easy to understand.

None of the websites can be touted as the best, but timesofindia.com can be termed as better than others.

Hindustan times in indian websites and theguardian.co.uk are probably the best examples of good news websites.

‘Why don’t you become a Pilot?’

For once I had thought of this question when I passed out of my
school, but I opted for journalism because spending 20 lakhs on his
son to make him learn flying was certainly not what my father wanted.
And I personally never wanted to be a Pilot because of the reason
that I have been a very down-to-earth person and would love to say
grounded for life(pun intended)!!

As I entered exactly half an hour late for the first orientation with
the class, I was asked this question again by one of our senior
teacher. A ‘culture shock’ was what I had expected coming from Delhi
University to Jamia Millia Islamia but a ‘professional shock’ was
really something which I was not ready for. But it was really my fault
when i came late. . .the night before. . .i had slept at 2.30 am
watching Prison break, and was dreaming about tattoos.
Making it to jamia is certainly an achievement for me, people think
Asian college of journalism is the toughest but i felt jamia is
tougher.

While studying here in the first week, i was sure that it will be pure
theory at first, and i had already done this in the past 3 years. So,
it lead to information overload(sources from facebook and gmail
status) for almost all of us.
There were some issues which 'lit my bulb' -as we see in Looney tunes-
and most intriguing of all was Media Literacy. . And I officially
announce this as my prospective research topic.
Photography is something which has got me looking for answers, the day
I get them, I will probably end up being a photojournalist.
Coming to our class and my classmates. We deal here with communication, so i feel that we as students of this field will learn equally outside the classrooms as
we communicate with each other. And I in that case have to learn a lot
from my classmates, in fact, that is what i felt when i first met you
all.

Here, I would also like to point out that we all have done a lot in
our pasts(i flunked many times in school) and have excelled at it and
consequently we all have very big egos. But if we can drop that for
some time and become more interactive individually, then i guess we
can learn the art of communicating better.
The week was good, not too many assignments but i guess its just the
calm before the thunderstorm. I don't know about anyone but i like
Thumbs up!!