Last week I had the pleasure of attending the University of Florida's
Symposium on Converge Journalism.
Though the panel discussions were very interesting, the best part of the day for me was the lunch. I like fried chicken.
And I like interesting conversation. I sat near freelance writer Mark Glaser,
The Orlando Sentinel's Anthony Moor and
The Dallas Morning News' David Leeson. We (or more accurately, they) discussed photos and videos on the Web.
Moor commented that the Orlando Sentinel had just recently decided it was alright to run a stand alone photograph on the Web as has been done for years in print newspapers. He then made a very good point in stating online journalist are having to somewhat reinvent the wheel to figure out what works and what doesn't on the Web.
Standard print practices have been in place for many years. We are still in the infancy of online media, and are to the point that standards are starting to develop.
These standards and practices are ever changing with electronic media because the media are ever-changing. Just when we figure out what works on a website to be viewed on a PC, we have to figure out what will work on a PDA or cell phone.
We are at a very important period for online media and anyone working in the field can help shape how it will be done in many years, and that's just plain old cool.
And the chocolate cake was pretty good too.
A few of my classmates work as writers for
Gainesville24-7.com, so I thought I'd check out the site and review it here.
A great thing about GNV24/7 (as the banner reads) is the
blog section. In fact, that's a big part of what GNV24/7 is about.
The blogs are kept by journalists and are used for reporting and more often commenting on news. My classmate Daniel Silverman recently wrote a great blog entry on the
future of the PC.
As for design, the site is set up in a logical fashion and looks a lot like many other news magazines. I can't stand the puke green throughout the site, but that might just be a personal thing.
Although the search bar is in a great location in the upper-right corner, the choice of color for the box makes it blend in with the background. I think another color could have been selected to go with the scheme but also to stand out a little.
The site also looks great on my computer, but I would be concerned for anyone with smaller resolutions. The site is not designed to be seen well on an 800x600 screen.
Overall GNV24/7 is a great news magazine. The viewpoints are interesting and a little different than the norm and the use of blogs as journalism is really intriguing. If only the color scheme didn't make me want to upchuck, this could become one of my favorite Gainesville sites.