The website http://www. pcmag. com/ is concerned with providing with comparative analysis of the technology products including internet and computing products (PCMag. com, 2008). It attracts large audience all over the world for buying current and comprehensive information. It also offers an array of several other features like free download of several utility software, reviews of products, news columns about technology products, offers a community for bloggers and also video download. The primary idea is of displaying comparative prices for computing products so that one can take a decision.
2. ‘Look and Feel` The look and feel is quite good. The basic factors like consistency, font, placement of pictures and other factors. PCMag’s homepage provides the user with an overview of their whole site, which is vitally important as (Nielsen, 2002) explains “The homepage is your company’s face to the world. ” As recommended by Nielsen (2002) PCMag has used a tagline to capture and communicate the essence of the company; making the sites purpose immediately clear “PCMag. com: The Independent Guide to technology”.
Their logo is also apparent, boosting brand awareness, differentiating identity from competitors and providing familiarity to users. It can be found in the top left hand corner of the homepage, showing standard HTML conventions have been adopted. PCMag use standard blue hyperlinks, tab navigation, browse box, graphics and a search input box to help users interactively navigate the site, in a simple, easy to use fashion. Key worded category hyperlinks, emphasize product variety and the sites most important sections.
PCMag is a path-based homepage; we recommend duplicating this approach to split the audience immediately into interest groups and to offer them specific, more relevant information in menu pages deeper within the site. (Lynch and Horton, 2002. ) 3. Target audience The target audience of this website is from individuals to institutional vendors engaged in obtaining information for their business to invest on technology. This site enables one to make decisions for their computing investments and ensure better planning and decision making for organizations.
For an individual the site offers reviews, solutions and news in the field of technology. 4. What you find useful about this site? The usefulness of the website lies deep into the comparative reviews and packages about obtaining information regarding various computer related products and to fetch the appropriate one for the individual or an organization. 5. Links there that you either did or intend to follow up The links concerning “@work”, “subscribe”, http://www. pcmagnetwork. com/, http://mobile. pcmag. com/, are some of them which are networks of PCMag.
com and would enrich the very organization of the value added services of the company. 6. Any other things about the site that you find interesting The blog site of the company is worth noting, it displays all sorts of various topics on computing and IT management topics for discussion and user comments about latest developments, user reviews, user content and experiences. Another thing of large interest would be the PCMag network for its various advertisement techniques. The link http://www. pcmagnetwork. com/ would enable an individual or an organization to advertise and spread the good word of the site.
7. Bottom-line evaluation of its value to you The website is quite good in filling its objective and make sure that all the various comparisons are done well, it also ensures that all the various factors like specifications and attention to detail is catered well for all viewers. The various listings of its comparative prices for different sites would enable it to finalize the various objectives of the business. For any individual or an organization it offers various options like parallel products, top rated products and also offer new product and review alerts.
References/Bibliography Lynch, P. & Horton, S. (2002) Web Style Guide, 2nd Edition. Retrieved 30, November 2008 from http://www. webstyleguide. com/. Nielsen, J. (2002) Top Ten Guidelines for Homepage Usability. Retrieved 29, November 2008 from http://www. useit. com/alertbox/20020512. html. PCMag. com (2008a). “About PC Magazine”. Retrieved 29, November 2008 from http://www. pcmag. com/article2/0,2817,1329743,00. asp PCMag. com (2008b). “Columns”. Retrieved 29, November 2008 from http://www. pcmag. com/category2/0,2806,30,00. asp