Website Critique

Recently I have been spending my time surfing the Tumblr website. Tumblr is a blog where users can post pictures, text, videos, links, and quotes and share them with others. People can share the things they find, love, and create. Using the website is often referred to as "tumbling". By clicking the "reblog" button, a post can be spread across thousands of blogs very quickly.  You can "like" (similar to Facebook) posts also, but this does not share the blog with any other users, but lets the original blogger know that you "liked" their post.

I find the site for the most part easy to use. I have had trouble editing my page, but haven't spent much time trying. The "reblog" feature is great for sharing things that you find funny, interesting, creative, etc. It is simple to upload media and text onto the website. The posts of people you "follow" appear on your dashboard. I like how Tumblr is not as popular as other sites, such as Facebook and Twitter. Only four out of the 23 people I "follow" are people that I actually know. Tumblr in my opinion, is some sort of social media get away. Facebook is to New York City as Tumblr is to Shepherdstown

Speaking of Facebook, the layout has recently changed. Every time this happens, many users update their "status" saying how much they hate the new layout. For me, I have always accepted the changes and went out with using the site with little difficulty. Eventually everyone else gets used to it and stops complaining.

The recent changes to Facebook include your news feed. Instead of being able to choose to view status updates individually, you now have to look at them along with other things people posts, such as who they recently became friends with and photos they have posted. You can still view photos separately from other posts, but cannot do this with status updates. I do not like this because status updates are pretty much the only posts I care about.

With the changes have came the live feed, which is on the right side of the page. It constantly streams recent updates from friends. It is easy to use, just not that engaging in my opinion. They have made it easier to upload your own photos and videos. There is also the Ask Question option, where you can poll people about a certain subject. I have never used it. Events do not automatically show up on the homepage, but show up as you move the mouse across the Events link. If someone were to quickly check their Facebook page, they would be more likely to see the events if they were already visible.

Overall, the changes aren't that great. I feel that a large number of people have gotten bored with Facebook and if the right changes aren't made, some users may convert to other social media sites.

Another website that I am a big fan of that has undergone some changes is Pandora. Pandora is a free internet radio service that plays music similar to previous selections made by the user. You can find any mainstream music on the site and even less popular music. I am a big fan of the site because I have found many new songs and artists just by setting a station to one of my favorite artists. My favorite stations as of now are Kid Cudi Radio and Queens of the Stone Age Radio.

I would like to upgrade to Pandora One to avoid the commercials that are played after hearing so many songs. You can even skip songs that you do not want to hear. There is a "thumbs up" option that you can click when you hear a song that you like and they will be played more often and a "thumbs down" which eliminates songs from the stream that you do not want to hear. The upgrade also includes free song lyrics and biographies on the artist that is currently playing.

The new layout of Pandora is more pleasing to the eye than the old layout. It is more colorful and the graphics look more high tech. With the changes, I haven't heard advertisements playing while songs are playing, which was a problem with the old layout. The "I'm tired of this track option" is gone. It basically served the same purpose as the "thumbs down" button.