During the 'Cross-Media Studies' modules we have to look at a variety of different communication methods. One of the most influential and exciting new means of communication is through web-sites. In the 21st Century, we all spend countless hours browsing the internet, seeing what interesting, unusual and entertaining things we can find on websites. Here are a few of my favorites:
IMDB is by far one of my most visited websites. It is full of information about pretty much every film ever made and also provides a message board forum where film fans can discuss their favorite / least-favorite films and compare opinions. It is an incredibly useful resource for whenever I am considering watching a film but don't know if it is worth my time and it also has an outstanding database of film-trailers.
If I were to make a criticism of IMDB however, I would suggest that the design of the site looks quite dated and the graphics look very basic and uninteresting. If I were to redesign the site I night suggest a slightly more interesting colour-scheme and perhaps a new sleeker logo for the site, as the current logo looks very 90's.
Whilst it is more of a blog than a proper website, kottke is one of my favorite places to go on the interenet. Put simply, it is a regularly updated blog where the site's owner posts interesting things that he has found on the internet. This is a useful resource because there is so much information and different websites available, it is very hard to find what's good and what's not without wasting hours and hours. With kottke however, you can be guaranteed that he will find something a little bit unusual or cool to show you.
The fact that it is updated very regularly is a big plus as well - websites which constantly offer you new content are always going to be a lot more successful than less frequently updated ones because people will keep coming back for new updates.
If I were to improve Kottke however, I might include an easier way to browse through older entries (as there have been hundreds and hundreds over the years) and perhaps make a 'Best of Kottke' page where you can find the bits of the site that people enjoy the most.
We Feel Fine (give this site a decent amount of time to load... I promise it's worth the wait)
I like this website purely because I think it is a beautiful idea. The site basically scans every blogpost in the world in the entire internet and creates a weird and beautiful map of how people are feeling on that particular day. You can do all sorts of lovely things with it like find out how people in a particular country are feeling, or find out how people are feeling where there are certain types of weather.
To rearrange the data into lots of different patterns then click on the words at the bottom of the screen in this site (murmurs, madness, mobs, etc.)
Activity
Your task is simple... list your 3 favorite websites. For each one I want you to write 3 paragraphs explaining why you like the website, what makes it better than other websites, and what you might do to improve it.
No comments:
Post a Comment