The Baltimore Sun’s Web site is set up visually like many other newspaper sites that I’ve seen. Overall, it’s visually appealing. There is a dominant image in the upper left of the home page with a leading news story and a site navigation tool on the left side of the page. There is also a search bar on the top, powered by Google, which I’m sure makes navigating the site for specific coverage easier.
The Sun is clearly also trying to expand upon its traditional news offerings. There are links to pages about pets, jobs, homes and even a page to print out coupon offerings. I think these additions are really important because people will start to go to The Sun to search for information that is more interactive and community based as opposed to just news based. For example, you can search for people who are selling pets or automobiles. This is in direct competition with other sites like Craiglist.
There also is a page to learn about wireless news options from The Sun. I think this is especially important given the changing face of media. As cell phones such as the iPhone increasingly make wireless news more accessible, people will start to turn to this venue more and more.
As for multimedia content on the Web site, there is a decent selection of videos and blogs on the site. However, the information isn’t very accessible because there is no central navigation tool that says where the site reader can find the multimedia content. I think this would be more useful than only embedding multimedia in the specific articles or desk pages that they’re related to. Also, the articles don’t have links within them, which makes them very one-dimensional and doesn’t lead you farther into the site.
1 Comment
December 7, 2007 at 10:02 pm
Everything is organized pretty well at the site. I personally don’t like sites that I have to scroll down forever though.