Ypulse Youth Website Profile: Ology.com
Posted by meredith on 02-23-2009
To help Ypulse readers navigate the often tricky waters of youth-targeted websites, today we kick off the “Ypulse Youth Website Profile,” a new feature where we spotlight different sites that target youth. We’ll present a rundown of what it is, who it’s for and what we (with the help of a Ypulse Youth Advisory Board member or two) think. If you have a site you want us to review, please email Meredith Sires.
The honor of our first profile goes to Ology Media’s new site for millennials, Ology.com, which officially launched a couple weeks back after a soft launch back in October 2008. And now, without further ado, we introduce you to Ology.com.
What it is… a news site/blogging platform targeted towards and authored by college students and recent grads. Following a Slate.com style format, the site acts as a portal to the news and entertainment that’s presumably most relevant to this demo, dividing content into the following categories: Activism, Jobs, Music, Gadgets, Travel, Screen/TV and Campus Life. Users are also invited to create their own blogs or “Ologies” on the site’s platform where they can make money by participating in advertising on the network.
Who it’s ideally for.. well-informed, activism-inclined college students and recent grads. The press release announcing the site’s launch emphasizes its potential to harness pro-social energy and connect visitors through their common interests. Founder and CEO Beth Haggerty says, “Our goal is to provide a platform that helps them to continue to drive change and create a world that reflects their unique characteristics and talents, and find others that share their interests and passions.”
As a blogging platform (complete with custom software), the site also offers a networking/monetary opportunity for 18 to 24 year-old content-creators, linking their themed “ologies” to a larger network and allowing them to make money through advertising.
YAB member Liz Funk says… I think this is an excellent idea and the site fills a void, so they should be proud of that. The design is great and I like that there is so much multimedia involved.
The “join us” pop-up when you enter the site is off-putting; maybe
they could have the pop-up come up after a visitor has already visited
four or five pages and is a little more invested. Personally, if I go to a magazine’s web-site and I get pop-up windows urging me to subscribe, I usually leave….
I had a little bit of trouble telling the editorial tone — snarky like Gawker? Informative like the Huffington Post? Fluffy like Glamour.com? The profanity on the homepage makes this hard to assess. I think the site needs to decide whether it’s a youthful news-commentary site/news aggregator or a college entertainment blog.
What works for us… as an online news and entertainment source the site could definitely find a niche for its target demo, offering comprehensive content that transcends campus boundaries, but still appeals to a national college-aged audience. Although the tone may need to be slightly tweaked for consistency, the general quality of writing is solid.
In overall look and feel, the site appeals as a sleek, professional space that’s brimming with content (and all the social bells and whistles – sharing, rating, etc.). Interspersing short to medium-length articles with video content, the site hedges its bets on holding readers’ attention which seems like a particularly smart move given their audience.
What needs work… the blogging platform seems pretty secondary. Not only is the invitation easy to miss (I also closed the pop-up without reading it and hardly registered the ad at the bottom of the page), but the Blogs section of the site– where in-netowork “Ologies” are listed– appears clunky, especially in contrast to how thought out the rest of the site appears.
As far as the general look and feel of the site, from the fold up the homepage has some definite potential (love the sweeping headlines). Scrolling down, however, I get a bit lost navigating what content comes from where on the site. I think I’d be more apt to click through to the featured stories on “Today on ology” and “top ology” if I knew which channel (activism, politics, etc.) I was going to end up in. That said, when the same design is applied on the channel homepages (where the context of featured stories is apparent) I think it totally works.
For more campus coverage, visit the Ypulse Campus Channel, sponsored by Campus Media Group.
Categorized under: Collegians, Web