Spin Vs Record Collector

Www.spin.com and www.recordcollectormag.com are websites within the genre of music journalism. They are each online, virtual formats of printed and published magazines.

The internet evolved from ARPAnet, created in 1969 (Hauben, 2006), and from there went on to change mass communication around the world. ARPAnet was created in order for information to be shared across different geographic locations through a Network Control Protocol (Bellis, 1997).

The most basic need for the internet is being able to share information across different locations effectively, in order for the information to be interpreted accurately and therefore understood.

Www.spin.com represents Spin magazine, a magazine targeted at a wide age demographic of perhaps 20 to 40. The website consist of information about artists of wide, varying musical genres that often differ greatly and includes a mashup of content from articles to videos to mp3s, offering a huge quantity of news and data. Www.recordcollectormag.com on the other hand seems to be targeted at an older demographic of perhaps 30 to 45. Again there is a mashup of data across different media however the focus on music genre is much more localised, with all the artists featured on the home page being from classic rock bands.

Consumer research has shown that users are five time more likely to purchase goods from a website if found through a search engine, rather than a banner, making SEO important to website success (Thurrow, 2003). Thurrow establishes three components that benefit SEO; these are text components, link components and popularity components. This includes effective selection of key words, having quality links to the site, persuading users to click on these links and then spend an optimum amount of time on the site.

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British Red Cross: The Rules of War

I attended a seminar at university on the 3rd November, given by Gaynor Smith, the youth services manager with the British Red Cross.

I have always dismissed actually learning about war, due to my belief of being completely powerless over it, making the horrifying facts all the more upsetting, however the seminar opened my eyes. The British Red Cross work as politically neutral protectors of human rights. Their work ensures that an injured soldier is given protection for example. I learnt about the “rules of war”, the definition of a war crime, who decides what is legal and who/what is a legal target. These are concepts I had never before considered as they represent “humanity amidst inhumanity”. I learnt that, shockingly,  90% of fatalities during war are of civilians.

The talk inspired be to take action and volunteer to be a part of the British Red Cross. Their website is really easy to use and you can search volunteer opportunities in you area making it really easy to get involved.