la crème de la crème

I am a little surprised to see which sites are at the top of the list, considering my own surfing habits. It is harder to simply gauge top sites based on clicks when regional characteristics are not taken into consideration. Who are the top users in each region of the world? Each country? Are they educated people only? Which country has the most clicks? 


The way people communicate and search for information nowadays has changed. The top sites are either search engines, auction/listing sites, or social media sites. This means that we spend more time collecting information and putting up our own work, rather than simply being drones to what ever is on the internet. It is an interactive environment. In fact there are even top lists of sites that have user-generated content. But there are still "trusted sites" that have their fingers in other media. This is where the difference in top news sites comes in.


Top news sites are still mostly dependent on an established reputation in other media. For example CNN and BBC top the charts, both of which started building their reputation in TV news. But the most popular are sites that give variety, like Google News. This is because users have learned to read from many sources instead of only trusting one, especially the younger generation. Sites like this will usually have similar stories from many different sites. The sites can be from trusted news sources or blogs from news sites.


What this means for journalists is simply that their work now has the potential of reaching just about anyone in the world if they write a good article. And at the same time: you are competing with everyone else. The playing field has grown and bloggers are competing with journalists for audience attention. The way we write has to change to adapt to the medium too. Writing for print is different than for broadcast/radio, and both are different from the web. The new trend is short and sweet ( unlike this post) and by ensuring you get just the gist of the information out to the audience, you have succeeded in communication on the web.