Once again, we had another great guest speaker on Thursday. Joel Sucherman is the Executive Producer of USA Today. He spoke to our class about USA Today's massive upgrade to their online website. It's not that USA today has invented anything new, but instead they are just catching up. However, their new site is remarkably different than their old site and it is now what of the cleanest and consistent interfaces in the business.
Of course, the website has taken giant steps towards interacting with their audience through blogs and message boards. This again brought up the issue of journalism that is less credible. However, was is special about USA Today in my opinion is that they still focus on stories written by their own writers. Therefore what the audience has to say is just in addition to the articles that the professionals write. It is a mix of credible journalism and user journalism.
USA Today has been punished for their remodeling so far with some very discouraging emails sent by users. I found it interesting how much people really do dislike change. Change is inevitable however, and I'm sure the users will adjust to the new format and then appreciate it.
Another very interesting class!
Friday, March 9, 2007
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