The websites I'm dating (2nd version)

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Every website has its day.

What does WWW stand for? To me, it's Worth Watching Website.

Every website has a certain value to grab our attention.

I divide the websites I check out regularly in three categories in terms of the way I see them.

 

Part Zero: Just as Ground Zero, I should start from the most important part: US-based national opinion sites.

 

1. http://www.cjr.org/

 

  Frankly speaking, I'm never a politics-mania, or more specifically, I'm a politics-phobia. As a student from a country where politics is never a topic allowed in public conversations, I seldom got the opportunity to speak out, or even to form my own perspectives. This explains why all those political issues were like the characters carved on the Pyramids to me, irresolvable.

 

  However, I still like to talk a little bit about you political tastes. Any party that could provide us Chinese a more freely environment to express our own opinions gets my vote! (We don't vote in China, though. At least not everyone has the rights to choose their own president.) I'm a non-partisan, and I think the idea of the Communist Party is great, it's just something wrong with our Chinese Communist Party.

 

  All the online journalism review websites just astounded me the moment I browsed all the titles on the front page. How come they write out their views so freely? Aren't their works being blocked? And after a while, I realized, I am in the United States of America, not the People's Republic (to me, more of a communist partisans' republic) of China. I'm saying all these not because I don't love my country, it is my love and hope for a better China that propels me to speak out loud.

 

 

2. http://www.ojr.org/

 

  This is all about the current situation and future of online journalism, which increasingly calls for our greater attention.

 

  In the digital-dominated world of Journalism, the voice from this website really weighs a lot when we are trying to shape our own opinion as a new-era journalist.

 

  The color of the whole page is pretty viewer-friendly, and this is the best way to help the readers concentrate on nothing but the contents, not the font styles or fancy colors.

 

3. http://www.nationalreview.com/

 

  Political issues are always main topics on most of American review websites. It seems to me, the health care issue always gets the most eyeballs and the fewest applauds in the US. As for me, I'm more interested in the improvement of all the Asian-Americans' rights, especially Chinese-Americans. China is the only country that the US has ever enacted a law to fortify the anti-Chinese movement, the Chinese Exclusion Act, in 1882.  The Act was repealed, in 1943, though.

  Always in pursuit of the better days for my fellows and introducing a better China to the whole world, this is my political opinion, if it can be called a political opinion.

 

Part I: nothing is sweeter than home sites.

  No matter where I am, I have been and always will be a Chinese.

  Checking out what is going on around my country and all the amazing things happen on my buddies back in Beijing are my routines.

1. http://www.danwei.org/

  Danwei is a Chinese website having a fate as all the American sites. It's always blocked when some certain sensitive events took place, like the Xinjiang riot in July.

  There are more critics than praises on Chinese issues published on this site, which more or less explains why it's blocked sometimes.

  But to me, only by revealing the truth and criticizing the dark part can we move on to the brighter days, so this is a website I'm always a pro in.

  This website is the first news website in terms of blog I've ever followed. They tend to publish articles more pointedly and directly. This is an unusual website in China since most of Chinese websites prefer eulogizing to criticizing. After checking out the LA Observed, I think it's proper to name danwei.org "CHN Observed".


2. http://forum.byr.edu.cn

 It is a tradition that every Chinese university has an online forum open to all their students. We can use the forum to discuss whatever topics we are interested in. Also we can share information, songs, videos and any interesting stuff.

What makes it different from Renren, is that students care more about the comments, the replies to the posts. While in Renren, the topic one opens attracts more eyeballs.

3.http://home.renren.com/Home.do

 This is like a Chinese Facebook, with the name :Renren, meaning everyone. We Chinese students log on the website everyday to update our status, share photos, sites, videos and any information that we think worth sharing with friends. The only difference between Facebook and Renren is the users of Renren are all Chinese speakers. But Facebook is on an international base.

 Renren is not a news website, but it's a news sharing site, just as forum.bry.edu.cn.
 

Part II: nothing is better than being connected to the whole world.

  One of the best part I find on every website, is the "Most" section. Under the section, the articles are listed in different columns such as "Most Viewed", "Most E-mailed", "Most Recommended" and "most Commented". This is a smart idea which can save people a lot of time from browsing through the long page in order not to miss the stuff most people find worth reading.

  As for the differences, I think it is their different focuses.

1. www.yahoo.com 
  In my opinion, the reader-friendly, concise homepage is what YAHOO! shines among all the main news websites. The twenty features neatly displayed (View image) on the left side on the homepage make it much simpler for browsers to navigate the information sea.

  According to the way YAHOO! organizes the categories, it is a more entertainment-orientated website with the Featured, Entertainment, Sports and Life sections above the News, World, Local and Finance sections.





yahoo home.JPG
 

 2.http://www.newsweek.com/

  If YAHOO! is for spare time, then Newsweek is for serious moment.

  National, political, international news as well as business, high-tech and cultural issues always come first.




newsweek.JPG

   Before moving on, I'd like to talk a little bit more about the way TIME and NEWSWEEK reporting China issues. TIME usually picks a strong and critical tone, concentrating on Taiwan, Tibet and Tiananmen which are considered as the three taboos in China. Meanwhile, NEWSWEEK emphasize more on economy and other related stuff that is less provocative to Chinese readers.

3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

  Every day I wake up wondering what the day is all about in history. That's what makes me a wiki-mania.

   Unlike the news websites, only publishing articles by the professionals, Wikipedia is a platform for people from all over the world to share knowledge of everything. There is no certain style for the writing, like the AP style in newswriting.

  And no websites have more language versions than Wiki does. Just as the slogan on the homepage says, "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." That's what makes Wiki unique.


Part III: nothing is more amazing than sticking to basketball, to me

1.  www.nba.com

  No where else is more ideal than NBA-dot-com to get as close as possible to all the players, to keep ourselves updated of our teams new move. Take the articles about games as an example. The tone is more objective and official, just focusing on describing the game by providing some interesting notes and details about the super stars' performance.

 

2. http://hoopchina.com

  This website covers both domestic and foreign basketball news. All the writers for this site share some humor that is highly praised by Chinese basketball fans.

 

  Humor is always a must for eye-catching websites.

 

 

Different websites have their different approach to attract readers and get full-time followers. The layout of a website does matter a lot as readers are becoming pickier these days. So does the topic and tone it focuses on.

 

If we want readers, we should know what the readers want first.



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