Triblocal.com

Please evaluate and critique www.triblocal.com.

Triblocal is a publication sponsored by The Chicago Tribune. 42 communities in the southern and western suburbs each have a Triblocal Web site. Anyone can register for Triblocal.com and post their own photos, stories or event listings directly on the site for their town.

Each week, a staff of Chicago Tribune reporters select the best postings to Triblocal.com and publish those postings in a weekly newspaper. The "user-generated" content is supplemented with original reporting and photography by the Chicago Tribune reporters.

Currently there are 10 newspapers serving the 42 communities, with plans to almost double that number by the year's end. Triblocal first launched in August 2007 with two newspapers serving 6 towns.

In your critique, please analyze the design of Triblocal.com. What do you like? What don't you like? What is confusing? What could be better?

Also take a look at the kind of postings Triblocal receives from users. I will bring copies of the printed edition of Triblocal to class on Wednesday so you can see what the final product looks like.

Chicagobreakingnews.com

Please evaluate and critique Chicagobreakingnews.com's Web site.

On Wednesday, Jan. 28 we are going to hear from Bill Adee, who is the editor of digital operations at the Chicago Tribune. A few months ago, Bill launched Chicagobreakingnews.com which draws breaking news content from Chicago Tribune.com, CLTV and WGN.

This week you should pay attention to the content posted on Chicagobreakingnews.com. Questions you might consider:

-Why was this considered breaking news?
-Where did the content come from? Was it a reputable source? How can you tell?
-How quickly after the news broke was this posted to the Chicagobreakingnews.com?
-What kind of holes are in the stories as they are posted to the site? Are those holes later addressed? How?
-Is there any kind of news that the site is not covering that it should be covering? What would be some examples?
-What are the ethical issues that you think ChicagoBreakingNews.com deals with on a daily basis?
-What could this site do to improve? Or does it not need any improving?

USA Today

Please evaluate and critiqueUSA Today's web site.

This week you should pay particular attention to the site's overall design and organization. Questions you might consider:

-What is my first impression of this site? Why did I have that impression? How does it impact my trust of the site's content?
-How easy is the site to navigate? Can I find things easily?
-What does USA Today put a value on? Breaking news? Feature stories? Multimedia? Blogs? How can I tell?
-As I am skimming the site, what catches my eye? Headlines? Decks? Photos? Videos? Ads?
-How organized are the sub-pages such as Travel, Money, Life?
-What about advertising? Did I even notice it? Is that a good thing?
-What is one thing I would do differently with USA Today's design?