competitor analysis

I chose to analyse The Sun website, I believe it to be one of the best examples of Web 2.0 being used at full potential.
The site uses all the new tools to its potential but still chooses to re purpose stories from the paper. It doesn’t include links within the text and hasn’t been cropped to fit the web page. This would be a problem for many news websites as lengthy stories would tire the eye and prevent further reading. Luckily this works for The Sun as stories are short and punchy with lots of humour, they also have a large type size making stories very easily readable. I can understand why this strategy works for The Sun, why would you add links that take traffic away from your site when you don’t need to?
The Sun has placed itself well within the news media market, it is not just a news site but an interactive activity comprised of many interactive elements, these include:

Flash, the website homepage is filled with flash players showing the extent of this weeks high winds. Most stories are accompanied with a flash player enhancing the main point of the story. Flash works to add an element of newsworthiness to the story and also manages to tell a story without reading a word. The site works on the premise that any person should be able to access news however intellectual you are.

Links, every word or picture on the homepage has a link to an internal story; it is a very accessible site. From the front page you are able to access all parts of the site just through links but there are no external links to outside pages. This is probably a technique to keep people on their site, the only external links are to advertisers which makes complete business sense.

Comment, after every story there is a comment box; the site seems to crave comment and feedback on every story. This invites the sense of community that is born out of Web 2.0. There is also discussion boards after every piece, it give users a chance to discuss current issues together with The Sun that is the mediator between the users.

Audio and visuals, the homepage has an audio flash player, they use this medium to look at side issues in a current news story. I think this is a great strategy as users get bored easily, this way they stay on the site longer and consume more information. Most main stories are paired up with a flash player that includes audiovisuals. The site has a whole section dedicated to this medium where new music videos can be viewed and video specials watched.

RSS feeds, The Sun has its own feed personalised so users can join it and constantly read up-to-date Sun specific news. This means that users are constantly connected to the news agenda and are constantly informed of news.

Text and email alerts, these again have the function of keeping the user informed and on top of news. It is usually used for sport than general news but the function is the same, it keeps users connected to the site so they are more likely to get the alert then check the site for further information.

Instillation features, the most interesting feature of this news site are the ability to customise it. After Murdoch bought MySpace he used it on his news site as well, due to Web2.0 you can now control how you see your page and have the ability to ‘jazz’ it up. You can also set the site as your homepage making it ever more accessible to the user.