Wednesday, July 16, 2008

WWW.TIME.COM

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Erin, Bethany, Mike

The top featured stories listed on the home or front page of Time.com are featured in a slide show with a picture, headline, and a brief summary of each top story. By clicking on the numbers below the brief summary changes the top story preview. The top five stories are as followed:

1. "Where Iraq and Iran Meet, Uneasily"
The stretch of border at Iraq's southeastern tip is still the most problematic for Iraqi military commanders despite the many military checkpoints because there are not enough troops to cover the lengthy border between Iran and Iraq.
-This top story does provide an image in the slide show of the Iraqi police patrolling the beach in the border town of Al-Faw.
-Also made available under the brief summary for this top story is a video: "Iraq Journal: The Road to Amara and Basra".

2. "Best (and Worst) Sports Executives"
TIME has chosen some of the distinguished-and not so notable- sports executives and asks for readers to rank each executive on a scale from 1-100.
-This top story does provide an image in the slide show of six sports executives in a box format.

3. "Obama's Conservative Mideast Pick"
The return of Dennis Ross, a career foreign service officer, to Barack Obama's Democratic party is a reassuring message to many in the United States.
-This top story does provide an image in the slide show of Barack Obama and Dennis Ross with very stern faces.

4. "Do Breast Self-Exams Do Any Good?"
A new report, just published, questions the usefulness of breast self-exams finding that they do not save lives and may lead to twice as many unneeded biopsies.
-This top story does provide an image in the slide show of a black women wearing only a thong performing a breast self-exam while standing.
-Also under the top story summary a link is provided to a special report, "The Changing Face of Breast Cancer".

5. "Coming this Fall: Free Textbooks"
A pilot project, Flat World Knowledge, aims to upend the publishing industry, and help strapped students, by offering textbooks free of charge online.
-This top story does provide an image in the slide show of three textbooks (spine facing inward) with an apple on top of the books, a very traditional image of school and books.
- Also provided under the brief summary is a link- "How to Make Great Teachers" -an article about teaching rewards and how they have come by their craft.

Time.com does offer both a list of the most popular and the most emailed articles on their home page that are updated every hour. The most popular and the most emailed articles themselves are different. The most popular articles have to do with the featured articles such as "Do Breast Self-Exams Do Any Good?" and "Obama's Conservative Mideast Pick". They also deal with a wide arrange of other topics from earthquakes to the truth about plastic. The most emailed articles mainly deal with health issues especially focusing on weight and wellness. This is possible because people are more concerned with their well-being and wants to express how they stay healthy. Also, readers find interesting facts that they would like to share with the public therefore they email them to Time.com.
Most Popular/Most Emailed Articles

There are blogs for nearly every category of news, politics, entertainment, work/jobs, technology, etc. The blogs on this site are as followed: Time.com Blogs

1. Swampland - Political
2. Tuned In - Entertainment
3. Curious Capitalist - Business
4. Real Clear Politics - Politics
5. Work in Progress - Jobs/Work
6. Looking Around - Books, Art, & Architecture
7. The Middle East Blog - News
8. Nerd World - Technology & Science
9. The China Blog - News
10. White House Photo Blog - Time Photography

Each blog, listed above, is directly related to a certain category that has authors that are directly related to their field. For instance, the Curious Capitalist blog has two bloggers: Justin Fox who has worked with Fortune for over a decade as the chief economics writer and Barbara Kiviat who has worked with TIME magazine for five years covering business and economics.

Not all blogs seem to be news-worthy. There are a few blogs that have stories that not today's headlines, just topics the authors are interested in. For example, The China Blog posts issues relevant only to China. This blog is written by authors who are experts about Asian culture or more plainly just interested in it. This site does incorporate nontraditional news formats such as the blog Work in Progress where a staff writer blogs about work. The most recent post in this blog is pictures of her new born baby and her decision on maternity leave.

Time.com does not have a discussion board per say but on the blogs people can post comments on the bloggers post. For example, in the Work in Progress blog she has a post about Pantyhose at Work and people have commented on this subject extensively. Most comments on this particular blog talk to the blogger as if they personally know her, as well as conversations between the people who have left comments. Time.com also has a Topics menu that can be used as a discussion board on the most news worthy issues that are listed. People can participate in discussions on any particular subject.

Time.com has an easy to use multimedia source with videos, podcasts, graphics, and photos. The source of this content, such as videos, are mainly posted by Time.com, the source itself. The graphics are unique in that they have graphs, maps, and other sources to help portray statistics. Also, Time.com has very interesting Podcasts categorized by channels such as Special Reports, Entertainment, Politics, and Environmental channels.
Photos
Graphics
Podcasts
Video

4 comments:

wtm said...

Your post looks great-well done! One interesting thing that I have noted looking through the Blogs sections, of the currently posted sites, is the lack of "average everyday" people writing the Blogs. I though that the new, more democratic, aspect of Blogs was that the reader would get to determine what was posted and discussed. Not so! The Blogs of all the sites but MSNBC, of all places, have professional staff reporters. Seems to me, that they have just taken the Blogs and made them an extension of their Web page as a hole. Yet, they do still let the dirty masses comment on their all encompassing wisdom. What would we do without these people?

Dapherdilly said...

I like this particular news website because on the front page it has all the different types of categories to choose from (ex. Health & Science, Multimedia, Entertainment etc.). Also, I like the fact that it has plenty of slides for you to click on right away without having to search for a clip of news. My favorite part of this website is the Time Magazine Archives Collection. You are able to view the best articles that were printed back in 1923 or any other significant chronological event, person, or topic that you wish to read about.

erikaoffer said...

I like the Times.com news sight because it's informative, but not in the boring, traditional news sort of way. It provided me with the top national news stories, but also gave me stories that I would be interested in. If I wanted to watch videos or post a blog, it was all right there. The page was laid out for easy access and I really liked that the top news stories were up at the top in a slide show fashion. In less than a minute I knew all of the breaking news and with a busy life, that's really all the time I have to know what's going on in the world.

Taren Nicole said...

I like how this website is very easy to navigate and also very informative. I like the way the front page is set up with so much information making it easier to see what all is out there without having to search through endless links. They have quotes of the day, blogs, the latest headlines and all the top stories. It is not full of cheesy meaningless information and I like that.