MTV News versus Australian

OK so the news websites that I picked were mtv.com/news and news.com.au. Both relatively good pages, MTV obviously being more entertainment based, but whatever. First of all on format, both of the websites have their main stories to the left, with the biggest picture and headline. It works well for them, but the main difference that I notice here is that MTV has a picture of the person talked about in the news article- Jennifer Hudson- but the picture has nothing to do with the actual event, which is that she is offering $100,000 to whomever finds her nephew. I'm not hating on this, in fact, this is a normal practice of websites that are more entertainment- related and not directly supported by a news TV station or newspaper. AU, however, has a more news-in-action picture, but the story itself seems to be fluff, a feature piece. It's interesting to me that they would use that as their attention getter- some story about video games and how their fan base is getting older. 

From this point, they kind of use the same format in that they have the rest of their big stories sitting one on top of another in the center of the page, although MTV has little pictures to go with theirs. The MTV site is more flashy, in accordance with the channel on TV, and it has a dark blue patterned background and a few more graphics than does AU, which has a white background. They both feature ads at the top and, scrolling down the page, more ads to the right, but not too many. MTV has their stories in 3 categories, split by parallel vertical lines that are not eye-catching- Music, Movies, and Games news. AU has a better system, which puts each category into a colored box and has a main story for each with a picture.

Both sites have a place to post comments on each story, and a prominent blog section. MTV has a more obvious place for which to view videos, but both of them are generous with their photo galleries. 

The diverse things about them - MTV has a moving graphic which at the top reads 'YOUR OPINION' and scrolls through a few fan comments on the stories. They have a separate video section called 'must see'. Most of their features, in fact, involve viewing videos and pictures. They have an 'ABC' search section at the top of the page, but it's for searching artists, not stories. Again, they are an entertainment based news web page, so whatever. AU, however, has a few interesting things that I don't think that you would find on the NY Times webpage. For example, they offer options to personalize the page by dragging the category boxes around or clicking certain things to expand so that you can see them. They really make this feature obvious. Another thing that I found amusing was their news graphic titled 'WTF (Weird True Freaky)' That had pictures rotating though with headlines on them, a few of which were so interesting sounding that I clicked on them. They refresh every 10 minutes or so, and they have sections like 'breaking news' and 'most popular'. They have their different categories also listed across the top of the page, in case you are too lazy to scroll down. Oh, and they have a section called Stars 'n' Snipes, and guess what country that section is about. Haha. At least they are concerned with affairs outside of their own country. They also feature a horoscope section.

Overall, I'm gonna have to say that personally, AU was the site for me. I just couldn't stop checking out the stories on their page! Crazy Aussies.