I'm still waiting...

Good thing I wasn't depending on the Uticaod.com's text messaging service to tell me who won the presidential election.

If I was, I STILL wouldn't know whether it was Barack Obama or John McCain who will be inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States on January 20, 2009.

Last night, I signed up for The Observer-Dispatch's text messaging service called "Text Me OD" as part of an experiment for online journalism class. The objective was to see how soon after the election results were announced I would receive that all-important message alerting me as to who would be our next president.

Well, I still haven't received that message, and if I was truly depending on "Text Me OD" for my news (in this case the election results), I wouldn't be a very happy camper.

Someone's not doing their job...

Election Day - The Aftermath

After the longest - and perhaps the most historic - presidential race in the history of our country, the American people have spoken and Barack Obama has been elected the 44th President of the United States of America.



I hope you all followed along with the online coverage of the election as I suggested in my last post.

If you did, what site(s) did you follow?

Personally, I spent most of my time on CNN.com and my hometown newspaper's site Uticaod.com, refreshing the homepage of each site every few minutes.

Follow along with Election Day Coverage

Just wanted to give everyone a quick reminder to get out and exercise your duty today - VOTE!

And after you do that, go on to virtually any news-related website to follow along with the election results!

Here are a few suggestions:

*The Observer-Dispatch

*The Miami Herald

*CNN

This - tonight's online election coverage - may very well prove to be one of the best examples of online, breaking-news journalism to date!

Uticaod.com evaluation No. 5: Too much clutter

This week's posts will focus exclusively on my hometown newspaper's website, uticaod.com. More specifically, I will be evaluating and critiquing the site based on several of the topics that we have discussed thus far in my online journalism class.

Today's topic: Site design and layout

To make a long story short, The Observer-Dispatch's website has way too much going on at once. It is sometimes difficult to separate featured reports from advertisements, and - in my opinion - a lot of the staff's best work (i.e. news features and special reports) is buried among too much clutter.

The OD is a medium-sized publication with a circulation of just over 40,000 and does not have a particularly large staff, especially when it comes to what we're talking about: the online department. Because of this, much of the burden (practically all) for maintaining and updating the paper's website falls on the shoulders of a few individuals. That is likely one of the biggest reasons for the site's (particularly the home page) relative disorganization.

Here is an example of what I'm referring to when I say the site is "cluttered" and certain features are buried:

At first glance, I mistook "Wicca" banner for an ad, and as I do with most ads, ignored it. Upon closer inspection, I realized that it is indeed its own special feature complete with a story, photo gallery and slide show. But, its close proximity to the banner ad above it (and the ad below it to the right) keep it from sticking out to the viewer (especially the online scanners).

Another aspect that is hidden among the clutter is the box to the right containing "News Features," "Extras," and "Special Sections." While these sections highlight some of the paper's best work, they are unfortunately missed by many readers simply because they blend in with the rest of the page too much and don't catch the viewer's eye.