Coles Supermarket’s “Down Down” jingle was ringing in my head when I read online that the Australian dollar was going down. A part of me wanted to shout out loud, ‘and stay down’!You probably guessed by now why the news of a weakening Australian dollar mattered to this Singaporean student in Sydney. It hits the pocket! To be specific, my pocket, which has a big gaping hole created by the continued strengthening of the Australian dollar in the first half of 2011.
The Australian dollar hit a 28-year high against the greenback on 29 March 2011 and a 30-year high against the same currency on 27 Jul 2011. It was A$1 to S$1.36, which means the cost of living in Sydney had skyrocketed for Singaporeans in Koala land.
You could almost hear the headlines from major news portals screaming, “Recession is coming!”
ABC News Online (ABC) “Market dives to two-year low onrecession fears”
Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) “Global markets in turmoil as recession fears spread”
Channel NewsAsia (CNA) “Global markets plunged on recession fears”
All three news websites used short, bold headlines with big visuals to capture the reader’s attention.
Content-wise, the articles were too technical for a PR & Advertising student who does not dabble in the stock market and have no idea what it means to have $60 billion wiped out from the Australian market in a day. Thanks to the “Related News” links on ABC and SMH, I managed to make sense of the news and its implications on the Aussie dollar by reading related commentaries and analyses. CNA, based in Singapore, does not provide such links, which is quite a letdown. The TV station only links readers to “Other Business News” of the day, which is far too general in my opinion.
Ironically, ABC carried the longest online news article on the stock market meltdown. At about 1,000 words, it was a torture reading the entire news article online. I like my online news short and snappy, with links to good resources for me to explore the topic at my own discretion. ABC’s use of multimedia, however, redeemed the news site. Sights and sounds brought the news story to life and made it more engaging. In terms of layout, it’s clever how ABC used the first frame of its video clip as the picture for the story as well. It saves space and is effective in bringing attention to the video.
All three news sources allow readers to print, email and tweet to share the news story. CNA is the only one that does not allow users to comment on its news story, which makes me wonder if this is a necessary feature operating in Web 2.0, which is about delivering engaging services and experience instead of seeing the web as a passive information depository.
Having said that, I must confess I wouldn’t have read any of the comments if not for this assignment. With only 24 hours a day and an explosion of information online, would you spend time reading comments posted by strangers who might not have any credibility speaking on the subject?
I do find myself reading comment threads on news stories from time to time, but sadly this is often because I am appalled but fascinated by the bigoted or ill-informed statements being made on un-moderated sites! I very rarely find comments a useful source of information in their own right.
ReplyDeleteThey can be quite entertaining at times. That I agree! :)
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