ESPN

What website do you trust to handle every stat, every story, every day? ESPN, “The World’s Leader in Sports” not only covers all sports, all day on your television, but also displays all of its information on its website.

On the home page of the website, ESPN displays the current headlines, as well as a picture to go along with a top story. There is a bar toward the top of the website for the most popular sports such as football, basketball, baseball, and hockey, that link to their individual pages. The individual sections for each sport have their own headlines within their sections.

Not only can you read and watch videos off of the ESPN website, but you can also share them with your friends using a Facebook button. You also have the option to create a profile their so that you can customize what you read and what news comes to you. You have the ability to customize your own scoreboard for teams you follow, and keep up with articles of teams and players as you surf the site. You have access to all of your stats and personalized content no matter what page you are on.

Another useful feature that the ESPN website has is a fantasy section for fantasy leagues pertaining to several sports. The fantasy section keeps fans even more interested into many games. Many people participate in fantasy leagues across the country.

Besides the main site, there are links for specific branches of ESPN, such as in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, and New York. These sections are used for fans of certain regions where teams of different sports are from. It’s yet another way fans can keep track of all their different teams in one place.

With a website with high-trafficking, there’s always the chance that there’s a lot of information and “mess” on the website and it may be hard to sort and shuffle through all the text and video content. Frequent visitors may be okay with the layout, especially if they visit daily. However, it is fair to say that a newcomer may have a hard time navigating through the site. There is certainly a lot going on on the front page such as flashy videos, ads, and synchronized headlines coming in. Because of this, it’s possible that fans may need to read other news before getting to the information they wanted to see in the first place.

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Advanced Google Search

Have you ever searched page after page of Google search to find information? With Google’s Advanced Search, you can narrow that long quest for information to just a few short pages to find what you need quicker and easier.

In order to save time and frustration, many Google users make use of the Advanced Search feature. There are many ways to narrow your search. For example, you can have results show web pages that have all of the containing words, exact words or phrases. You can also ask Google to not give results containing certain words in the search.

Another useful tool is the reading level option where you can choose if you want basic or advanced results.

Google explains, “For instance, a junior high school teacher looking for content for her students or a second-language learner might want web pages written at a basic reading level. A scientist searching for the latest findings from the experts may want to limit results to those at advanced reading levels.”

A very useful tool is the able to narrow search by the date it was published. For example, you can search pages that were created within the past day, week, month, and even year.

According to PCMag.com, “most people don’t use it to its best advantage or in an advanced way. “Do you just plug in a keyword or two and hope for the best?” It’s hard to say why the many users of google don’t take advantage of the advanced search feature. Maybe the small link on the side is too small for people to care or see so they forget about it. It’s also possible that people simply aren’t sure what they’re looking for.

What is an RSS Feed

Have you ever wanted to see news relevant to you, all synced to a single location without refreshing the page several times? RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds, are an easy way to receive the latest news from most major websites. Most news websites, such as MSN, Yahoo and many others use RSS feeds. They allow you to save a lot of time; you don’t have to visit each site individually, every day, several times a day. RSS feeds have grown a lot in popularity, as more people become aware of them.

In a way, RSS feeds are a way for subscribing to websites without having newsletters clog up your email’s inbox. For Leila Pejman, blogger from the Toronto Sun, “It’s a pain to have more than a few sites open and that’s why I love RSS feeds, especially Google Reader, where I subscribe to 25 publications.” For Leila, Pejman, it’s very easy to go through various news sources and only reads the news relevant to her.

RSS Feeds can be read in more places than just on a computer. Since the birth of Smartphones, it becomes even easier and more convenient to see your feeds anywhere. Since the beginning, people have been predicting the success of these feeds. Dean Hachamovitch, Microsoft, stated in 2005 "We want RSS everywhere. RSS is so powerful I want it in more than just the browser and the aggregator. I want it everywhere." Even before the creation of Iphone and Blackberry, there were predictions that Internet users would be able to take their news with them everywhere. In order to read an RSS, after you’ve subscribed, you can view them from either your Internet browser or a reader application on your desktop. RSS feeds don’t only include news in the form of text; they may also include audio and video. This news doesn’t even require you to refresh the page; it will update for you automatically.

Although RSS feeds have been around for over 10 years, they didn’t reach popularity until 2005 or 2006 when the orange symbol changed and people began to see it appear on some of their favorite news websites. Not only can major websites have the RSS feature, but blogs can also have them so their followers can be updated. This feature has made it very easy for bloggers with large fan bases to keep their fans updated.  In many instances, if fans aren’t constantly updated, they will completely forget about the blogger.

Facebook: A Growing Epidemic

Do you have a Facebook? Chances are, you probably have one, considering there are hundreds of millions of Facebook users, and that rate keeps rising. The main purpose of Facebook is for making connections with people, or social networking. It's a great way to find and stay in touch with friends you may not see often. You can post statuses about how you're feeling and what's going on in your life. That may sound like Twitter, yet Facebook is so much more. It has a place to post pictures, videos and other content you want to share such as your hometown, religious views, music, movies, books, and more. This is also a great idea to see what your friends are into; they may be topics that don't come up in your daily conversations. There are so many things other to do on Facebook as well, such as little personality quizzes and some games, all of which you can post the results on Facebook. Whatever you post, or publish, will appear on the news feed of all your friends. Although it may sound as if it only has a purpose for entertainment, it doesn’t. Often, colleges will look at the profiles of applicants while considering them, and the same idea applies to companies hiring a new member. Besides a resume, they can now find out more about the applicant that can either hurt or help their cause. Although you can set strict privacy settings, it’s important that all users watch what they post. Mark Zuckerberg, 26, is the cofounder. He has commented on the success of Facebook in an interview. “It’s a place where people can move quickly.” Zuckerberg, Harvard drop-out, has also said that “having an emphasis on bold decisions and the bold product,” is another reason why Facebook has become so successful. While many people find Facebook fun and often times useful, Microsoft founder Bill Gates has a quite different opinion. Gates had a profile for a little while, before concluding that “It was just way too much trouble so I gave up today.” Evidently, the incoming mass amounts of friend requests were too much for him. Gates stated this about a year ago but has since rejoined Facebook as well as Twitter.

Blogging about blogging

Blogging has become a very popular way for people publishing their thoughts online. Anyone can start a blog and write about whatever they want. Because anyone and everyone can publish whatever they want for the world to see, it doesn't have to be accurate. Blogs are usually based on opinions and not facts. That's one reason why blogs are very good. People are allowed to express their opinions to the world very easily. Otherwise they might not make the effort to publish their thoughts anywhere else. Some people blog in order to get their thoughts heard. However this is an extremely naive thought that new bloggers have. What they don't understand is how difficult it is to get many followers and views and that maybe they aren't as exciting as they thought they were. Getting attention from a long range and large number of people isn't going to occur automatically. While some people just want to draw attention with their blog, some write because they like writing. They don't care about viewers, they just enjoy the writing itself. They do it for themselves in order to express themselves to others, whether "others" are reading or not. The reason why people blog varies and it has changed the way some people view writing. Blogging might make writing more appealing. Instead of sitting at a desk with pen and paper, they are typing on a computer, where writing may come easier. Since the Internet first formed, writing has certainly changed a lot.