Multimedia news websites

Websites are rated on a scale from 1 to 5, with 5 being the best and 1 being …. not so good.

The Times Union is a local newspaper of Albany, NY has a website that is in a very progressive transitional phase. There are videos and many images to support their hard news stories, but not so many polls and user-friendly materials promoted there. My personal favorite is the “Night Cam” where the Times Union reporters go out on the town to interact with the people of Albany and promote the night life to the rest of the world. Since there are not too many interactive parts to the website and multimedia material is on the low end, this website gets a 3 out of 5.

CNN.com is loaded with videos, pictures, text, interactive polls and many other user-friendly materials. This website is the perfect example of informative and innovative. It brings the world of news to the 21st century with the videos to depict the articles and polls to assist in understanding news stories. The current poll on the website is the Candidate Polling for the 2008 election between John McCain and Barak Obama.This gets a 4 out of 5.

If there’s a need for interactivity and user-friendliness, the MSNBC is the place to look. Much like CNN.com, MSNBC has videos, pictures, polls and many other forms of interactive news on their website. The fact that the 2008 election is seen in many different ways on their website shows a good amount of dedication to understanding on their website. The only downside to this website is that it will take a long time to load the home page on a low-end computer. The simplicity of the material is very attractive and navigation through their material is a breeze.This website gets a 4.7 out of 5.

~ by Anand on October 19, 2008.