Honestly, I do not think that I have ever visited this site until this point. I probably would not have ever visited this site either. But now, since it's part of an assignment I had to. I haven't been to this site mainly because I stray away from all news related sites. But I discovered that MSNBC isn't just a "news" site.
In comparison to CNN.com, MSNBC.com had a lot of the same features. For one, it offered a variety of news on a variety of different topics. CNN.com had areas of news that covred entertainment, politics, health, etc. MSNBC.com had many of the same features offered, however it have even more features. Like a feature on Blogs, on Travel, and even local news. Also, MSNBC.com offered certain areas of the site to it's television shows like Dateline or the nightly news. CNN.com did not, at least I didn't think so, feature it's alternate television station. Another aspect of the site was the fact that the front page featured the most important, or even "breaking" stories as did CNN.com. I think MSNBC.com covers all the bases, and it's something that it does do very well.
However, I do feel that offering too much information can also be a bad thing. I think it could be bad because sometimes a person may only want/need a small amount of information. When too much information is offered a person can get overwhelmed by it, or even confused, and can simply go to another news related site for that information. Not only that, but MSNBC.com offers a place to find one's horescope, classified ads, quizzes, message boards, etc. all of that could be too overwhelming for a person, and especially for a news related site. I would have to say that it's abundant amount of information is also something that isn't the greatest feature of the website.
MSNBC.com seemed to be a bit more interactive than CNN.com did. Even though CNN.com did offer a portion of the site to viewers to write their opinions, share videos, it did not offer (at least I didn't see anything) message boards as does MSNBC.com does. People visiting MSNBC.com could also take part in fantasy sports, another option that CNN.com did not offer. I think this interactivity helps make the site more appealing to people who may be viewing the page, and it makes up for the fact that there may be too much information.
In comparision of CNN.com, MSNBC.com did not offer as many links as CNN.com did. When I read several stories it did not offer links to other sites it may have mentioned within the text. Also, it seems that a lot of the news stories come directly from the Associated Press, whereas CNN.com featured a lot of news written by a reporter or by someone else. The only links that I did find on the site was through advertisements, and through the classified ads that the site offered.
I think that both CNN.com and MSNBC.com used about the same amount of multimedia. Both sites offered videos about many of the stories that were featured on the site. MSNBC.com also had a section that was solely used for featured photos. That was one thing that this site had over CNN.com.
I think that both of the sites are good places to go for information and especially for news. Both have a lot of good features, and both have the share of not so good features. I can't say that one site is way better than the other.
1 comment:
I definately agree that the two sites had a lot in common, but I think that they do a lot very differently also. I think CNN had a problem with offering a bit too much information like MSNBC had. When you open a story on CNN, it pops up with a box on top that has story highlights on it (this is a nice feature. It helps you to just find out what's important without having to skim the story) and along the left side, there were boxes that had videos and related story links.
I disagree with the interactivity of MSNBC. I think it was way too hard to get to the interactivity on the site, while CNN had a link for it on the main page.
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