Assignment 3

I don't read the news everyday, but when I do want to get information on what is going on, I usually go to CNN for it. Therefor this was my first time even looking at the websites for both Huffington Post and Google News. If it had came down to the "look" of the site, I automatically had Huffington Post in my mind as the winner, but you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. After analyzing both websites and clicking on links of what might interest me, it was then very easy for me to choose Google News as the better news aggregator. Their whole setup and organization just seems so much more professional and gets to the point of what one is actually looking for.

At first glance, the Huffington Post website looks more appealing and organized than Google News, using different fonts, sizes and color choices. Honestly, the only thing I liked about the Huffington Post was their blog like layout and choice of font. Once I started to scroll down the page and click on different links, each page was overwhelming with even more links and pictures and headlines that were odd and didn't make sense at times. It didn't take long for me to almost hate it, it is definitely not a site I would go to get serious news from, to me it was almost like going on Facebook for it. The reason I say that, is because it is hard to take a news story serious and believe it, when right next to it you have another story completely off the wall and most likely not true.

Another thing I didn't like about Huffington Post was that every time you do click on a link it takes you to another page but it is still the Huffington Post website. So if I want to go back to the home page I either have to click the back button or their 'Front Page' button to get there, which also makes it harder to open up different stories at the same time. Google News on the other hand opens up a new tab for each story or link you click on which is highly convenient. So of course it still being Google, it gives you different links to that story so you can choose what news site you want to read it from i.e. CNN, Fox News, CBS News, USA today, etc. I like having these options right in front of me and it makes it easier to navigate from one story to another on different sites.

Although at first, seeing Google News' homepage seemed more overwhelming to me, it really wasn't. It only seemed that way because of how they have everything layed out on the page. They have more of a list of things in which you may be interested in, from top stories to world news, technology, sports, health, etc. They have less and smaller pictures to go along with their links, which makes it less of a distraction, unlike Huffington Post having a picture for almost every single story they post. Google News is definitely the better news aggregator because the amount of links from news stories they share including real time coverage. As I mentioned before, I like how organized Google is and the options they give me for different news sites without me feeling overwhelmed with information. On Google News I feel like I'm the one in control of what I want to see and/or read. Huffington Post makes me feel the opposite, they have scattered information and at times it feels as if they are throwing all this information in your face all at once, making me not want to read anything at all.

Assignment 2: Don't 'like' anything

I have a love/hate thing for Facebook, but mostly hate. It is just a social media site where most people,  probably including most on your "friends" list go when they are bored. A lot of people who are on there constantly, almost as if they have nothing better to do, are just there to be nosy and gossip and complain about everything pretending like they actually mean the "Congratulations" or the "Happy Birthday". Some people just like to stay "relevant" to your life when they were just someone in your high school graduating class. I personally only have a Facebook to stay in touch with my family members who live in other states and also in Mexico. I had deleted it at one point for almost a year and did fine without it.

Therefor, I decided it'd be easiest for me to NOT 'like' anything on Facebook for the past week. Though I do get on when I have down time or yes, if I'm that bored I still scroll down, like a few status', read any links that catch my attention and from time to time I'll post a status. I did catch myself a couple of times really wanting to like something, simply because I REALLY did like what someone posted. I checked my Facebook at least once a day to see if anything changed drastically from me not liking anything, and honestly I saw no difference in how posts were arranged on the timeline. The most liked or commented on posts were usually still at the top whether they were from an hour ago or two days ago. I think there might have been more noticeable differences on my timeline if I had done the experiment for a longer period of time.

Assignment 1

A few days ago the Dallas Morning News tweeted a link for "30 can't-miss fall festivals coming up in Dallas-Fort Worth", this immediately caught my attention and I was curious to see what was in store for this season. This list includes the Dallas Chocolate Festival, Oktoberfest, Fiesta Latino Americana, Cottonwood Art Festival, Dallas Comic Con: Fan Days, and of course the State Fair of Texas. Fall is definitely my favorite season and I highly look forward to hopefully being able to attend most of these festivals.