Today's session

Sorry - I haven't been using the blog so much in the last few weeks, in part because we've been concentrating on design, Fireworks and Dreamweaver. Today, we're going to continue working on your websites. But we're also going to think a bit about re-purposing news content for the web and what that actually means.

One of the things you have to do for your websites is take a piece of work done elsewhere on the course - for either Print or Radio - and put it on your site. To do this, you might need to completely rethink/rework/rewrite the piece. On the other hand, you may decide that adopting a web-friendly layout and adding some links may be enough. It's up to you.

To help you decide what to do, today we're going to look at a few different examples of content repurposed for the web. Here are a few links to look at:

• A story about Lord Ashcroft, the man bankrolling the Tory party's campaign in key marginals, from today's Guardian.
• A story from The Daily Telegraph, from last month, about 'the iPod generation' - incidentally, for Print students, this is a good example of a kind of news/trend feature.
• The companion site for a Radio 4 series called 'Meet The Bloggers'.
• A Radio 4 site bringing together several current series/shows, all focusing on the changing role of newspapers as they attempt to move online.

Some reworked magazine features, some we've looked at before, some not -

• Salon's chart rating recent US TV comedy shows
• Time's collection of Top Ten lists for 2006
• A reworked photo essay from The New York Times Sunday Magazine - the story's about the different servants employed by NYC's superrich. It's been converted to an online slideshow. You will need to register with the New York Times to see this, but it's free.
• More from the NY Times Sunday Mag. Recently, they did a special College issue. They ran a feature built round a survey asking recent students how they felt about college. They also showcased the results of a College Student Essay competition.
• Finally, have a look at The Guardian's Comment is Free site

With all of the above, think about how the online version relates to the story that appeared in print or on radio. How is the web being used here and how effectively?