New Media Communication @ Tunxis CC - Spring 2007

For readers who stumble upon this post and want a little bit of context, here is the assignment, and here is a link to Amanita: Samorost and to Zork.
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Amanita: Samorost is a game with no instructions. At the start, it doesn’t look like a game at all. There is some music playing in the background and an interesting collage/image with a few scattered animations (blinking lights). The whole thing just sits there. If the player shows no initiative and gives up, the game is over. If the player begins to wonder what the hell he is looking at, he starts exploring the game space with his mouse cursor. When it changes from the traditional arrow pointer icon into the hand clicker icon, he clicks. Something finally happens!

The player learns that he must look for his cues on what to do next. The opening graphic screen of Amanita: Samorost has what appears to be a bottle neck with a stopper in it, just asking to be clicked. Clicking in the general area of the bottle stopper gets the story going. So for a game with no instructions, it certainly has rules. The initial goal of the game is to manipulate each environment in such a way that the little fella from the bottleneck can proceed. And for the most part he’s no help at all, content to wait on the player to figure things out.

And the story gets rolling after that first user interaction. The view is expanded and the player sees that another planet-ship is on a collision course with the planet-ship that the protagonist is living on. A cut-scene where no user input is allowed shows how the little guy gets from his own planet-ship over to the other one, and the game again waits for the player to explore with his mouse. There are some characters toiling away in the fields that smaller than the one in the foreground, though similarly dressed. The difference in scale implies that the little ones working on the hills are much further away.

The first step to completing this stage is to check out the relationships of all objects in the environment. The character lounging in the foreground isn’t smoking his hookah. So the player clicks on the hookah and he smokes it. The contents are spent. Try clicking on the hookah again, and the guy tries to smoke from it, but gets nothing and discards the mouthpiece. This mouthpiece looks kind of like a key, and there’s a keyhole very near where the mouthpiece now rests. Clicking on the mouthpiece causes it to jump up and rattle around in the lock. The next thing to do, naturally, is click on the button atop the lockbox. This starts that ski-lift in the back ground rolling—but nothing happens! The player notices a loose cable, and clicks it. Try the button on the lockbox again and the ski-lift brings the main character up the mountain. He’s ready to go, and he’s facing to the left. There’s a left-pointing arrow on the left side of the screen, so the player clicks on the character, who turns around and skis back down where he came from. There’s another environmental factor to tweak. It’s the sign. Clicking on it until it points toward the left (where the hint/arrow points) ought to do the trick. Bring the guy back up on the ski-lift. Oh wait, on his way down he knocked the cable loose again! Finally after getting him back on the hill, with the directional sign pointed in the right direction, the player clicks on the guy. At this point, the player receives a pretty explicit hint. The character says “He’s in my way” and an arrow appears out of nowhere pointing directly at the obstructing character. When the player clicks on the little worker dude, he moves and then the player can click on the main character and send him skiing off to the next level.

Compared to this early stage, clicking on the main character from here on in elicits nothing more than a shrug and a stupid look (unless he’s able to act, assuming that the environment has been appropriately manipulated). The ultimate goal of the game is revealed at the end, when the other planet-ship that the little guy landed on (and explored with a great deal of help from the player) is steered clear of collision with his home planet.

As a game, Zork starts off very similarly to Amanita, but instead of the player being faced with a graphic environment and background music, he’s faced with a brief text-only description of the environment. Those superficial differences aside, the games both sit there and wait for player input, with no indication of where or how to start other than environmental cues. A person interested in playing Amanita will use his mouse to explore the environment, checking for places to interact. A person interested in playing Zork will mentally construct the environment, and will perhaps take the most obvious action by typing into the prompt: “open mailbox”.

The player can manipulate and explore the environment in Zork just as he can in Amanita, except that in Zork the player can move back and forth between rooms or spaces. Using text commands instead of the mouse, the player can walk around the house and discover a window that’s ajar. Attempting to enter through the window at this point is impossible, because the window is not open. This is a lot like trying to lift the character up on the ski lift in Amanita when the cable is loose. It’s an environmental condition of the game space. The player in Amanita cannot operate the ski lift with a loose cable, just as the player in Zork cannot enter the window while it is merely ajar.

Similarly to the subtle hints in Amanita, there are some subtle hints in Zork. Using the window example, the description of the window upon examination is “The window is slightly ajar, but not enough to allow entry.” Hint, hint! If the player enters a command to open the window, he is informed that “With great effort, you open the window far enough to allow entry.” Another hint! The next command is to “Enter window” and then the player is in the house.

In Zork and in Amanita, the player learns the rules of the game as he goes. In Amanita, if the player attempts to do something that is not possible, he is notified visually or aurally. In Zork, he is notified via descriptive text. There are many objects in the world of Zork that the player may wish to interact with, using commands like “spit on table,” that are not possible. In Zork, one cannot just spit on the table, it’s a limitation of the game’s programmers, who did not foresee that the player might want the character to spit on the table. In Amanita, perhaps the player wants to swat one of the little flies that is buzzing around. Well, it simply cannot be done. Clicking on the fly—at least when I tried it—has no effect.

I would say that Zork and Amanita have more in common than not, when viewed as systems. It’s easy to take a superficial glance and conclude that Amanita is far more advanced than Zork, but that ignores the fundamental aspects of the gameplay, which are the same.

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In class on March 29th, we went through all of the steps required to get a photograph from a digital camera and publish it on the internet. After snapping some pictures, we plugged the camera into the laptop via USB and copied the pictures into a folder that we created. Then we opened Photoshop to crop one of the pictures, which we saved under a new filename. After that, we opened a web browser, logged into the WordPress dashboard of the New Media weblog, uploaded the picture, and published it as a post.

And that’s the simplified version. Which is why I am looking at Picasa for Exercise 5. Picasa is a photo organizing software, offered free by Google, that essentially fast-tracks the process that I described above. Rather than using a minimum of four different pieces of software (Explorer, Photoshop, Web Browser, WordPress), I can simply use Picasa to accomplish what ought to be a very straight-forward task.

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Part 1: Collection and Identification

For this exercise you will be working with both traditional forms of media and new forms. You will also be using the language of visual iconography as it is used and explained by Scott McCloud in his book Understanding Comics. One goal here would be to identify and apply different forms, variations, and degrees of the icon using the “pictorial vocabulary” (McCloud 51) of comics.

First, use newspapers, magazines, textbooks, appliance or game “feelies” to assemble and group icons used by these “texts,” including the use of strips, logos, graphs, and other visuals. You may use non-pictorial and pictorial icons for this assignment. Describe where these icons fall on McCloud’s version of the picture plane (52-53) and how the icons are used in their context to shape narrative or a meaningful sequence of ideas or concepts. You should address at least three examples of a range of icons. (Minimum of nine icons).

Secondly, take your show on the web or to other digital texts, such as cellphone/iPod/Zune displays, and do the same for these, assembling and grouping icons according to the same criteria as in part one.

For collection use: scissors, box cutters, cameras, screen captures, Diigo.

The Non-Digital Icons

Icon #2 is the picture used with Colin McEnroe’s weekly column in the Sunday edition of the Hartford Courant. It’s down near the representational edge (the bottom line) and very close to the retinal edge (the left-hand diagonal line) because the detail of the picture is very close to reality. I see Colin’s nose, glasses, eyes, facial hair, and the grumpy look on his face–it’s unlikely that anyone but Colin will identify himself with that picture. However, I didn’t rank the icon all the way over in reality corner because it’s a low resolution newspaper print and it’s in black and white.

Icon #4 is the word “DIRECTIONS” cut from a box of Easy Mac. I placed this icon nearly all the way to the right, and slightly above the absolute meaning intersection because it’s just a word. It’s barely dressed up with a little bit of color and boldness, which helps the reader to “receive” the message faster than the words in this paragraph. If I didn’t know what the word meant or was illiterate, there’s virtually no way for me to interpret the importance of the icon (word) aside from it’s placement and coloring on the package. It’s only because of my accumulated knowledge that I can interpret this icon.

Icon #7 is the Nike® Swoosh. Besides being a ubiquitous icon/logo for their brand, I can’t think of anything that it actually represents. The fact that I call it a Swoosh is interesting to me because I can’t recall where I picked up the whole concept of the swoosh. Swoosh seems onomatopoeia-ish (onomatopoeiac?), but since it doesn’t closely resemble anything real or tangible, McCloud says on page 49 panel 3 that it requires “greater levels of perception, more like words.” That’s why I placed the Swoosh in the picture plane at the intersection of the retinal edge, the language border (second line from right) and the conceptual edge (right-hand diagonal line).

The Digital Icons

Icon #1 was included for comparison with Icon #2 in the non-digital icon set. That’s the picture of Colin McEnroe that is used on his official blog at the Hartford Courant. It being in color makes it more representational and realistic.

Icon #2 is from Bloglines.com and is a rendering of the earth from outer space. It’s recognizable as our planet, but it doesn’t contain so much detail that it could not be mistaken for something else. However, just because we’ve never seen pictures or drawings of a planet similar to ours doesn’t mean that such a planet does not exist. The icon is closer to reality than it is to language.

Icon #6 is from Courant.com and is a digital rendering of the words in the masthead from their print edition. I ranked this icon between the language border and the conceptual edge because the words are dressed up a bit, in order to help them stand out and be more easily received.

Icon #9 is from Wunderground.com and is supposed to indicate forecasted rain. What’s interesting to me about this icon is that the cloud has been personified. It’s been given a mouth, nose and eyes. I ranked it far to the right and near the top because it is hardly representative of reality. Though we often perceive figures in the clouds, rarely are rainclouds seen with pursed lips.

Icon #11 is the universal RSS icon. Like the Nike® Swoosh, it’s almost perfectly abstract. It’s not quite in the picture plane, because the lines, colors and shapes are assembled to represent something–but RSS? That’s why it has to be near the language border. Only through learned experience does this icon have any meaning whatsoever. The concept of RSS as a kind of broadcast (hence the dot and “airwaves” in the icon) is still a strange one to grasp. Broadcast television is something that is ongoing. If you tune in to the 6:30 news at 6:40, you can’t start watching from the beginning. RSS is a time and place shifting concept that a great many people still don’t get. Perhaps I didn’t rank this icon as abstract enough…

Part 2: Application

In comic book format, use both pictorial and non-pictorial (but no words) icons to teach a person how to make a hot cup of tea on the stovetop. This person, for some reason, is from a place where tea and technology and alphabetic reading are not common.

For both Parts 1 and 2, you may team up with a partner and develop a collaborative work. You may be called upon to present this work to the class, so be sure you are prepared to make your audience understand what you have done and why.

Here is a scan of my comic book format instructions on how to make tea. Now that I’ve read the directions again, it seems that perhaps I should have used pictorial icons (as in cut out pictures) but I’m not quite sure–I try not to make things more difficult than necessary.

Partly because my drawing is crappy, partly because I wanted a 10-minute diversion, and partly because JPEGs are static, I made a “video” of the instructions, and set it to music:

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OK, it’s been one of those weeks where the New Media journal takes a backseat.

The window exercise is interesting. It wasn’t so much at the time, but in hindsight it is interesting. We looked at a static digital picture of the hallway from every angle we desired–and recorded our observations. Then we looked out into the hallway through the narrow classroom window and recorded our observations. Then we flung open the doors and took off into the hallway and recorded our observations.

At the time, I thought that exploring the hallway would be what I remembered as the most interesting. After all, it was total immersion into the environment. I could have bought a soda, or tipped the machine. I could have peed on the rug. I could have knocked on the doors of classrooms where class was in session. All of those possibilities were interesting–and I didn’t do any of them. For obvious reasons (except buying the soda, which I refrained from doing because I’m cheap).

No, what I found to be most interesting was looking through the window. There was some inherent drama, because anything could happen out there, I just had to be in the right spot to see it (positioning myself for a good view was about all I had control over). Though looking through the window is a bit readerly because I can’t impose myself onto what I see–it is what it is.

The picture…*yawn*

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I am not an artist. The attached illustration is absolutely not to scale and though I took some notes, I’m sure that I left out some things. It’s awfully suspicious to go walking around a Best Buy store and take notes–at least that’s how I felt–so my own self-consciousness was a detriment to my spacemapping in this instance. Hopefully my observations (in the form of a concise essay) are more valuable than my drawing.

The entrance is located near the center of the store immediately to the right of the exit. Where people go in, people go out. Inside the door is a man standing at a workstation. He’s posted there to acknowledge every person who comes in and goes out which discourages shoplifting. His presence and that of his workstation keep us walking to the right. This reminds me a lot of those splash pages on websites where you can enter your zipcode, or sign up for a candidate’s e-mail list before you continue. When you enter the Best Buy, you don’t have to go to the right, just like when you see a splash page you don’t have to enter your info. On the website, if you can find the eensy weensy link, you can “continue to the main site” and in the store if you want to go against the flow of all the lines at the entrance, you can go straight to the loss-leaders that are set up by the cash registers (Best Buy would rather you go around their whole store and check out the other stuff before picking up the latest CDs that they’re selling at cost or a loss).

The path of least resistance through the store takes you around past the greatest number of sections, in sort of a loop ending up by the cash registers and the exit doors (which are on the other side of the gatekeeper guy). On a website, you don’t have to exit through the splash page, you can exit whenever you want from whatever section you’re browsing. Because Best Buy is a physical architectural space, it has to have a sort of pre-defined path to maximize revenue.

Some New Media elements are incorporated into the Best Buy retail store. If what you’re looking for is not in stock, you can use a kiosk to purchase the item online from BestBuy.com. I realize that this is a tenuous connection to New Media through the principles of modularity and numerical representation. The store has some modular elements. Each week, as new films or albums come out, displays are changed at the front of the store. A promotional merchandise display for a blockbuster film can be put into place and later removed without affecting the rest of the store, much like a pic-of-the-day feature on a website can be updated without monkeying with the site.

The honorary sixth principle of New Media, Interactivity, is present in this space in the form of demonstration models. Want to try out the PS3 before you buy it? Pick up the controller and play. Not sure which MP3 player will be easiest to operate? Grab one that’s tethered to the display and try navigating its menu. Almost all of the laptop computers and desktop PCs are plugged in and logged on for interactive demonstration and trial. Obviously, all of this interactivity is in service to the store’s goal of selling something, not in service of entertainment.

The flow of the store is not restricted, but it’s not exactly open. I’d describe the flow as “suggested”. As you may be able to see in the drawing above, there’s a path leading from the entrance to the right and back, then across to the left and then back down to the cash registers. Compared to a New Media space, like a video game, the store space is similar. If you play a Grand Theft Auto game, you can roam around the city doing as you please, but there are guided missions. Same with a game like Super Mario 64. You can wander around in the 3-D environments, swimming, running, and jumping then just turn the game off. That’s akin to walking around a Best Buy and checking everything out and then leaving without buying.

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Part 1
I’m sitting here with a two-day old USA Today–the most recent available at the Tunxis CC Library. I suspect that one of my classmates is curled up on a couch nearby with today’s issue. The paper is folded in half, horizontally and is about 14″ wide and 12″ tall (24″ unfolded). The masthead has the blue USA Today logo centered in the middle with photos and graphics on either side. A ribbon of blue across the top has three text elements. The one on the left is the URI of “www.usatoday.com”. The one in the center, directly above the USA Today logo reads “THE NATION’S NEWSPAPER”. The one to the far right reads “75 CENTS”.

I had to find an empty table at which to sit and read the paper, because I needed to make room for my laptop and the newspaper, which quadruples in size when unfolded. I’m seated near the back of the Tunxis Library. Before I even open the paper, here’s what I see in the left-hand column:

• A column that is slightly wider than 1/5 of the page that the typical column of text occupies. This column contains a picture of the Indanapolis Colts’ coach Dungy holding a trophy above his head. Below the photo is a tiny credit, a short caption, and a headline. Instead of an article about the Super Bowl below the headline, I see two related subheads next to color-coded bullet points that both indicate the page number and section letter that I must turn to in order to read the article.
• Below that, a horizontal rule that divides the section above from the one below. Immediately below the horizontal rule is the date of the newspaper’s publication, bold and underlined: “Tuesday, February 6, 2007“
• Below the date is a headline, also bold and underlined reading “Newsline“. Under that headline is a small key to the colored bullet points mentioned above (and used next to every article that is teased or previewed on the front page). A blue square next to “News” articles (funny, I thought this was a newspaper). A green square next to “Money” articles. An orange square next to “Sports” articles. A purple square next to “Life” articles. This gives me two ways to find the articles I’m looking for. I can use the information listed at the end of the article tease (6D for example) to find section D and turn to page 6 to find the article I’m interested in. Alternatively, I could look for the section with the purple color code–but I’d still have to read the 6D bit to know what page I’m looking for.



• Below the key is a picture of an accused child molester/abductor to the left of a color coded tease of the article.
• Below that is another horizontal rule, under which is a headline and color coded article tease to the left of a photograph.
• In order to read the rest of this column, I’ve got to flip the paper, and read what’s “below the fold,” so I do. I find another horizontal rule, under which are three brief headlines and teasers–none of which are color coded! All three of these are located in section A, the blue “News” section.
• Below this, a color coded headline and tease for a money article, followed by same for a sports and then life article.
• Horizontal rule, and then a byline? I suppose that John O. Buckley worked very hard on this sidebar and deserves a little credit.
• Below the byline, a green color coded headline followed by a summary table of four financial markets.
• Below this is a “USA TODAY Snapshots®” headline followed by a color graphic conveying the states with the highest and lowest home ownership rates.
• Last on the page is a barcode and a short table of contents, listing the page and section locations of what are presumably the more popular daily features of USA TODAY: Crossword, Sudoku. Editorial/Opinion. Lotteries. Marketplace Today. State-by-state. Market scoreboard. Under the barcode and contents is a copyright notice, a number to call for customer service and subscriptions and a URI for same.

Back up above-the-fold, below the masthead is a banner with a green background and a color-coded headline “Hoops poll points to Madness” There’s a vertical rule between the leftmost column and the center column, over which a red bubble/sticker graphic thing reading “Super Colts” is positioned. The same kind of red bubble is also present at the right end of the green “Hoops” banner mentioned above, though that bubble does not rest on top of the horizontal rule below it.

The horizontal rule spans across the remaining columns and is much thicker than the other lines used on the page.

• The center column of the page actually accomodates three columns of text, but the bulk of the space in the center above the fold is used by a full color photograph.
• Below the photograph is a caption with a quote, and between the caption and photo, in very small print aligned to the right is the byline for the image.
• Next is the two-line headline for the article reading “U.S. advisers find joint patrols with Iraqis don’t go as planned“
• On the far left of the center column, and bisected by the fold, is a dropquote box with a preview of the articles contents
• There are two columns of text for this story, that continue over the fold, and the article itself is continued with a notation “Please see COVER STORY next page”
• Below this article is another thick horizontal rule, followed by a headline, and a three-column article that does not continue to another page. Above the first column of text is a subhead and then a byline before the article begins.
• Another thick black horizontal rule divides the third article in the center column from the second.
• The headline reads “Evacuee camp kids worry schools chief“
• The first column has a subhead, then a byline, and then the article begins and is not continued to another page
• One fourth of the way from the top of this article, and cutting 1/3 of the way into each of the second and third columns is a color graphic map of Louisiana.
• There is no horizontal rule across the bottom of the page

Back up above-the-fold and to the far right below the green “Hoops” banner is a large headline.

• This is the largest headline on the page, it is exactly one text column wide and reads “Vote on Iraq is blocked by GOP” followed by a subhead reading “Each party says other is trying to limit debate” followed by a byline.
• This article is only one column wide, but approximately four paragraphs are above-the-fold.
• Below-the-fold we have five more paragraphs and then an inset box with a headline reading “How senators voted” and a blue color coded line of text reading “See details at usatoday.com”
• This article continues for seven more paragraphs, but does not continue to another page. In all, there are three articles on the front page that can be read in their entirety without opening the paper.
• A thick black horizontal rule separates the end of this article from a one-column wide photo
• Below the photo is a small headline reading “Billions for wars in budget” followed by a blue color coded teaser reading “Bush sends his $2.9 trillion budget proposal to Capitol, 4-5A” and a green color coded teaser reading “Air-ticket tax shift in plan, 1B”

So I go to the top and see an article that I want to read about American Idol. It’s color coded purple, so I pull out the “Life” section and use up some more deskspace to set the other sections aside. The article, thankfully, is all contained on the front page of the life section. No further page turning, just an unfolding (or flipping) of the paper to read the article as it spans beyond the fold.

A related article on Idol is suggested by a dropbox in the text, and so I turn to page “6-7D”

Article is not an accurate description of what I find. Spanning the center fold are several captioned photos of American Idol contestants who were rejected. This photo collage thing takes up a huge chunk of the unfolded page. So much so that as I type to describe it, 3/5 of the paper is hanging off the end of the desk at which I’m sitting.

Part 2
I sit at my desk and open Firefox. With my right hand I use the mouse to click in the address box and type in “http://www.usatoday.com” (typing http:// is a bad habit I got into a long time ago) and then reach for my coffee mug and take a sip.

The page loads immediately, and Firefox has blocked a pop-up. I don’t care to know what it was advertising, and am pleased that the ad was thwarted. I see a search box at the top, sponsored by Yahoo, along with an option to click and personalize my weather. No thanks. It’s cold out–everybody knows that.

The masthead has the same blue banner with white USA Today logo, except that immediately below it indicates the time that the site was last updated. I wonder how many times per day the news at USAToday.com gets updated. One-third of my screen is wasted on whitespace, probably because the resolution on my monitor is 1280×1024 (slightly larger than average). I’m looking at two columns of content in the portion of my screen that is being utilized.

• On the far left next to the masthead are some color-coded rows with text. Dark blue for “News”. Lighter blue for “Travel”. Green for “Money”. Red for “Sports”. Purple for “Life”. Orange for “Tech”. Yellow for “Weather”.
• Each color coded label is a hyperlink. I can click on it, but I’m still examining the online front page.
• Below these color coded sections is a title labeling the hyperlinks below as “Essentials”. The things deemed essential are Scores, My USA TODAY, Blogs, Interactive Media, Day in pictures, Video, Archives, Print edition, Subscriber services, and Contact us.
• Below this is a table of “Best Bets” that spans beyond the bottom of my screen. As I scroll to read it, it’s wider than the column of section labels above. It’s got a light blue background and each “bet” is separated by a horizontal rule.
• There are nine items in the “Best Bets” section, each set up in a three-column format. On the left, a bold headline. In the center, a 3 to 4 line text description. On the right, a square photo of a celebrity, or presumably the author of the column or article linked.
• Every one of the descriptions is a hyperlink (or a series of hyperlinks)
• Below the “Best Bets” is a color animated ad for USA TODAY’s 2007 Ski Guide.
• Below this, the last notable thing in the leftmost column, are two “related ads” that do not appear to be related to anything I can see.

Back up at the top, the masthead is animated. Every 5 seconds, a new photo and article description is displayed, cycling among five different articles (one for each of five sections). There are five bullet point hyperlinks that indicate which one is showing, that I could click on to navigate between the descriptions. Each of the descriptions, when displayed, is a hyperlink to its related article.

• Below the USA TODAY logo is a photo, with a link to a photo gallery. This is positioned to the right of the “Essentials” list.
• To the right of this photo and gallery links is a vertical rule, to the right of which is a large, bold headline reading “N. Korea talks yield progress” followed by a subhead which is followed by a blue hyperlink to the story.
• Below this is a thick black horizontal rule followed by some gray text reading “Latest headlines”
• The list of “Latest headlines” contains five items, all headlines and all hyperlinks
• Below this is a blue banner, spanning the width of the “page” reading “More news” in white text at the center
• Below this banner to the left is the “Best Bets” column detailed earlier. On the right is a table summary of market data, to the right of which is an advertisement.
• Below the market table is a search box, where one can type in a stock symbol to receive a “quick quote”
• Below this are nine sections, all divided by horizontal rules, and all featuring hyperlink headlines and brief article teasers. Three of these sections have photos, all photos are small and aligned to the right of the “page”

Back up at the top, I click on “My USA TODAY” and am directed to a page where I can customize the headlines and news that I see. The page layout is similar to the Windows Explorer program used to browse computer files back in the Windows 3.1 days.

Rather than hit the browser’s back button, I find the USA TODAY logo at the top left and click it to return to the home page.

I see an article on a suicide prevention group that criticizes a GM advertisement from the Super Bowl. The article teaser is displayed in the animated masthead, so I click on it.

The article loads and is contained on one page, though I do have to scroll to read it in its entirety. Below the headlines are options to E-Mail, Save, Print, Reprints & Permissions, and an RSS subscription link.

Part 3

• The first similarity between the two is the visual element. Both the online and paper versions of USA TODAY use the same color coding scheme to categorize the articles. Also, the same USA TODAY logo is used both in print and online. Columns and headlines are used both in print and online to organize the text, separate the stories, and to break the page (a term I use to describe both the print and online versions) into easily digestible parts. Also, the same style, color, and thickness is used for all of the horizontal and vertical rules in both editions.
• Another similarity is the hierarchy. A hard news story is prominently featured in both editions, but both editions call attention to the feature type articles using color graphics across the top and in the lefthand column.

The differences between the two are more fun to note.

• The print version, first of all, has yesterday’s news. It doesn’t indicate when it was last updated at all, but as the day progresses the news in print only gets older while the online version is updated as USA TODAY reporters file their stories.
• The online version is searchable. If there’s a particular story I’m tracking, I can type in a few keywords and see if any developments have occurred.
• The print version takes up a lot of space! When fully unfolded, the print edition is 4x the size of my monitor, and I have to dispose of it (or in the case of a borrowed library copy, return it to the shelf). Online, when I’m done reading USA TODAY, all I need to do is close the browser window.
• The print version costs 75 cents! I was able to browse the online version for free.
• The online version has unlimited (provided bandwidth) availability while the print version does not. That’s why I was looking at a two-day-old issue of USA TODAY–there simply were not enough copies to go around in the Tunxis library.
• The online version is digital. I can take an excerpt and insert it right here with just a couple of keystrokes:
  

  Recommendation site fights manipulation
  Posted 2/7/2007 11:30 AM ET E-mail | Save | Print | Subscribe to stories like this Subscribe to stories like this
  By Anick Jesdanun, AP Internet Writer
  NEW YORK — A website that ranks and displays news, blog and other items based on recommendations from its visitors has responded to efforts to manipulate the rankings by dropping its list of most active users.

  In an open letter, Digg founder Kevin Rose said the top users who were spending “hundreds if not thousands of hours” identifying the best stories for others to read wound up getting blamed for much of the efforts at manipulation, which includes offering cash and other incentives to vote favorably for certain items.

  If I wanted to include an excerpt of the same story from the print edition, I’d have to retype it myself. If I wanted to have you read the rest of the story that I had typed up the excerpt for, I’d have to cite it according to the MLA standard and you’d have to take the time to track down the physical paper, and look for the full article.

• The online version has more sections. Though it could be that the other sections were not published on the day of the print edition that I picked up. The difference lies in the fact that I can access a “Tech” section at USATODAY.com every day.
• The online version offers video.
• The print edition has full stories on its front page. There are no full stories (and barely more than story snippets) on the front page of the online edition.
• The online version offers stories all on one page, with scrolling. The print edition requires physical page turning and taking up more of my limited physical deskspace.

There are likely to be many more differences and similarities that I hope to illuminate in class. I feel as though I’ve rambled on enough.

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Well, for this week’s assignment I’m supposed to go browse around at Amazon.com. I’ve been an Amazon user for many years, and purchase numerous things there–they’ve got one heck of a recommendation engine. When I look for books by liberal authors like Al Franken or Michael Moore, it recommends books by Molly Ivins and David Sirota (also liberal authors). When I was browsing for a Garmin C320 GPS Navigator to put in my car, it recommended the dashboard mount.

“It’s just an upsell” I thought at first. Then I read some user-submitted reviews for the C320, all of which recommended the dashboard mount. The C320 comes with a windshield mount, but after reading a handful of reviews stating that the unit is quite heavy, it made sense not to trust a shitty suction cup with my new $300 electronic toy.

Thanks to the recommendation engine and the user submitted reviews, I purchased the dashboard mount. Had I gone to the store, and tried to buy it at Circuit City or something, the commissioned sales staff may have made the same suggestion–but what made me believe the words of perfect strangers on the internet?

There’s no motive or kickback for the users who submit reviews. They obviously liked the product enough to write about it for free, and to share the wisdom of their experience.

Amazon.com is New Media because it’s participatory and because it’s responsive. The more you browse, the more you look around, the better it gets to know your tastes and tailors its recommendations to suit each individual person.

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