The Daily Collegian has begun experimenting with new media, but it still doesn’t seem to have found the best way to incorporate it into the newspaper’s general structure.

A couple setbacks to the Small World blog:

Visual Appeal
This thing wouldn’t win any America’s Next Top Model competitions; it has curves in all the wrong places. That is, the amount of text is disproportionate to the number and size of the pictures. As you scroll down the page, in parts it resembles a legal brief in the sheer amount of wordage, then turns into a dribble of oddly spaced pictures. The page then ends with another chunk of thick text. While the pictures are great, the aesthetic of the page is off.

Good blogs, like Onward State, are sleek and sexy. They dress up to go out and get rewarded by bringing home readers. Bad blogs go out wearing a “beater” and sweatpants and never get much action. Small World, at least for the time being, is likely going home alone most nights.

Accessibility
The blogs aren’t very well promoted on the Collegian’s main page. Another big issue is the fact that in order to comment on a post, you have to log in through Facebook. No biggie, everyone is on it now… even the Daily Collegian. But commenting could be much easier. I know plenty of people who don’t want their personal information to be distributed to everyone who reads the blog.