Website Critique: Gazzetta.it (Sports News Website)

Gazzetta.it front page

1. First Impressions

The first impression is two-fold.

Firstly, the site is visually cluttered. The very top has links to a number of Italian media outlets, then the Banner with a number of navigation tools, and then the first story.

Secondly, the colour scheme revolves mainly around the colour pink.

This is important, as La Gazzetta is the only pink newspaper in the country, instantly recognizable and highly valued as a source of information on all sports (though mostly football).

The fact that the colour scheme has carried through evokes the same trust in the website.

It’s been pointed out that there are too many shades of pink, and that the grey and orange links (multimedia and text, respectively) don’t match, but personally I find the colours work well with each other, despite perhaps not being all coherent.

There are a lot of links on the page, but and while they look cluttered and thick, they are also consistently organised.

There is not that much free space and a lot of text, unlike award-winning sites like Flickr and Facebook.

While there is a certain amount of multimedia and live feeds on the right, the right hand side of the very long page is cluttered by ads and links to things, like online games, far removed from Gazzetta’s normal beat.

2. Writing

The front page does follow Nielsen’s “F-rule”, the first story and live feed taking up the upper part of the F, the second most important section (a toolbar on all Italian serie A football teams) located on the second “F” and all the stories placed vertically on the left.

The writing is exceptional, as La Gazzetta only hires the best sports writers in the country, of whom there are plenty. However, it is not structured very well. There are subtitles, but no paragraphs, so articles look like they are four different walls of text.

The first paragraph is indeed bold, and there is a picture after it, but it does not follow the F-shape suggested by Nielsen.

The whole lay-out of single articles is very vertical, dense and requires a lot of scrolling, and this should be changed to allow for easier reading.

An article page within Gazzetta.it

There are no links within the articles themselves, but there is a bar on the left with links related to the story.

The vast majority of links are internal, but then, the website is so famous in Italy it need not link out to up its google rank.

I doubt anyone even looks for La Gazzetta on google, as everyone knows what the url is.

3. Content

There is plenty of space dedicated to multimedia on the website.

There is a link on the right to La Gazzetta’s own online TV service (which doesn’t have a broadcast equivalent) with a useful toolbar with a wide variety of videos to watch, from football round-ups to interviews to gossip.

The content is mainly based around football and only superficially cover most other sports, but there are many multimedia contributions.

La Gazzetta has many exclusive interviews, and often hosts videochats with sport personalities when users can type in questions and the interviewee can answer live.

Blogs are present, but they are fairly hard to find and are not a major selling point of the website.

On Sundays, or during important games, La Gazzetta has a live minute-by-minute coverage page for every game played, with plenty of statistics, round-ups and comments.

The live-coverage page during a serie A game

They cannot show live video due to broadcasting rights, but for many football gans, especially abroad, this is the next best thing.

Users are allowed to comment, but the commenting format does not encourage one to read through all the posts.

There is also a section to the website entirely in English, a direct translation of all the best articles on the site.

Ultimately, La Gazzetta is the best source for information on Italian sports, unrivalled in its accuracy and scope of coverage, especially in football.

4. Navigation

The navigation is consistent throughout the website, but also consistently disorganized and clunky.

At the top of the front page is a number of drop down menus with their own sub-menus which, while intuitive, are so large and take up so much space that navigating on them covers a great deal of the headlines below.

Within article pages, navigation is quite handy.

On the right is a toolbar with links to related stories, both background pieces and “other side of the coin” pieces, and links going back to the sports game or event mentioned in the story.

Also on this toolbar, which isn’t present on the main website, are a list of the most read articles in the last day, week and month.

This is a great tool, and I fail to see why it isn’t included in all pages, much like timesonline.co.uk.

The front page does have a rolling “latest news” section, but that is actually below the fold, as are all the articles apart from the headlining one.

On the right, the button which takes to a list of games being covered minute-by-minute is constantly present.

This is good because it is the first feature many users will look for, and it’s in the F-shape advocated by Nielsen, but it is useless when there are no games being covered.

Conclusion: The website is well designed, but badly organised. Good designs, colour schemes and excellent news and multimedia initiatives are all good in themselves, but they need to be reshuffled and reorganized for optimum use.

The Mp3 Garage Sale

Bopaboo, an internet service which allows you to buy and sell second-hand mp3s, is starting to make its way into the public eye.

Recent media coverage on the Guardian three days ago was the first mention in the national media, but perhaps the attention will come for the wrong reasons.

The private Beta version of the website, effectively a test run conducted by selected users, launched in May this year.

Since then the website’s blog had been not been updated until two days ago, when Bopaboo.com announced it was looking for Java programmers and website designers.

The Guardian speculated last week that the website might soon be investigated by the FBI, and called the venture another “crackpot web 2.0 idea that never found its angel investors.”

How it Works

The site requires that users delete the mp3s they have uploaded from their hard-drive, and will only allow legally-obtained mp3s to be sold, forcing the users to sign a contract to insure this, said the Guardian.

But the potential for abuse is very large, as it will be extremely difficult to police whether users delete their files after uploading or not.

Another option would be making hundreds of copies of mp3s and then uploading them, to make a quick and easy profit selling them at the base price of 25 cents.

Initial Comments

One commentator on the blogosphere has even said that “only time and lawsuits will tell” if the service is to be successful.

However, if the potential for user abuse is cut out, the website could be a profitable business, undercutting iTunes and other first-hand-mp3 sales services.

Bury the Lead contacted Bopaboo.com, but they were not available for comment.
A background to online mp3s and file sharing

Internet problems plagueHarrow Campus

Internet problems plaguing Westminster University’s Harrow Halls since September might be resolved in two weeks, campus IT technician Jorge Brugos said.

Brugos was being optimistic when he said in a phonecall that the problem “could be fixed overnight”.

More realistically though, he said “I am hoping it will work by the 15th of December.”

This is a shorter wait than was Brugos had previously anticipated, as last month he said that students might have to wait until after Christmas for the internet to function properly.

This was because it was not viable to shut the internet down during term time, as the “high number of users accessing it every day” would have been deprived of the resource.

Two months without Facebook

Since the beginning of the academic year in September, students have been complaining that they cannot access sites such as Hotmail and the social network Facebook from their student accommodation.

A representative of Keycom, the company that supplies Internet to Harrow Campus, said at the time that they were unaware the problem still existed. “The engineers told us they had fixed it,” she said.

The problem, according to Brugos, might lie in the equipment in use at Keycom. He said: “Everything that could be done on this (Harrow Halls) end has been done.”

“The internet is far too slow and I’m unable to access my emails, which I regularly need. I get sent emails from my tutors and I cannot read them. It’s a nightmare,” said Emily Bamforth, a first year Fine Arts student living on Campus.

History and Solutions

The university issued an apology to the students in mid-October, saying the problem was due to faulty servers, and should be fixed “by next weekend”.

This isn’t the first time Harrow Campus has had problems with its Internet service. Raquel Villanueva, who lived in the halls in 2006, said: “The Internet was really really slow, and it wasn’t wireless… sometimes it would go out, it was out for the first two weeks.”

Meanwhile, students have found ways to work around the problem by using proxy websites for Hotmail.

Facebook Mobile is being used as a substitute for the full version of the social networking site, and students are walking to the nearby university library, which has not had any problems with its internet access.

Westminster staff wounded in Mumbai terror attacks

The Taj Mahal Hotel, Mumbai

A University of Westminster professor was wounded in the terrorist attacks in Mumbai this wednesday, the institution has revealed today.

Simon Healeas, Director of the Business Experience and International Unit in the Westminster Business School was wounded in the attack.

He was shot in the right arm while staying at the Taj Mahal hotel in the centre of Mumbai on the day of the attacks.

He is now receiving medical attention at Bombay Hospital and his condition is stable.

The University has stated that the other 12 members of the delegation, in India for a conference, are safe and away from the disturbances.

Their Indian colleagues, including businessmen, academics and city officers, are also safe and have been advised to stay indoors.

University Staff Return

Arrangements are being made for the possibility of an early return for the staff.

Speaking to Bury the Lead, the University Press Officer Rob Watson said that most staff “will be able to travel back on or before Sunday evening.”

The thirteen members of the University were attending events with the British Council and working on projects with the University of Mumbai.

Within the group of Indian colleagues were also the Mumbai sheriff, Indu Shahani, and Vikram Mathur, who is alumni president for the University of Mumbai as well as deputy head for Rolls Royce in India.

One professor, Ashif Tejani of the Computer Science Department, has already boarded a flight back to the U.K.

Background to the Terror attacks in Mumbai

UPDATE: 1/12/2008

The University of Westminster staff have returned to the UK at the time of this update.

Simon Healeas and his wife will be returning sometime later this week, or next week, together with professor Director of Scholarships Colin Matheson, who is extending his stay in order to continue to coordinate actions on the ground.