Harry Elwell Web Communication Words: 1602
Website Comparative Analysis: Alternative Press vs. Sputnikmusic
With the rise of the Internet in today’s society and the threat it poses to journalism, journalists and
journalistic publications are being forced to adapt to the web in order to keep up with today’s
market. One such publication is Alternative Press, a renowned music magazine that has gained an
influential web presence in recent years. Another music journalism website that has adapted to the
rise of the Internet is Sputnikmusic. Unlike Alternative Press, Sputnikmusic was founded as a music
journalism website and has no print-publication. These websites act well as subjects for comparison
as they serve the same primary purpose, to provide music news and entertainment, yet they differ in
the way that they do so. The individual features and aspects of these sites can be
compared/contrasted to determine which is the most efficient in functioning as an online music
journalism outlet.
The searchability of each site must be tested in order to determine how easy it is for them to
accumulate users/traffic. After a brief search of key terms such as “alternative music” and “alt music
reviews” it became evident that Alternative Press could only be located on a Google-search when
searching for the actual name of the site. Sputnikmusic was accessible by some relevant terms, such
as “user music reviews”, but again was largely only accessible through a search of the site name.
Brief search terms such as these are relevant as most real searches take this minimal format Nielsen
(2000). Following a search of key terms for some of each website’s top stories of the day, both
mainstream (e.g. Coldplay new song) and niche (e.g. Circa Survive Bamboozle), it became evident
that both sites struggled to make it to the first page of Google results in mainstream news, but made
it into the top 5 for niche-articles. A search for a mutual top story search, “Silverstein new song”,
brought up Alternative Press approximately four spaces above Sputnikmusic, indicating that
Alternative Press is regarded higher by search engines and therefore easier to find through a search.
After looking on a variety of search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask) for some other mutual top
stories shared by the two sites, it became clear that Alternative Press held the more dominant spot
in the majority of results. The reason for this higher ranking could be that Alternative Press has
more, as Jarvis (2009) puts it, “Googlejuice”. A term he uses to add a symbolic metaphor to the
concept that the more links, hits and mentions a web page gets, the higher it will rank in Google’s
results page. This importance of this is huge, as Jarvis points out, “If you can’t be found in Google,
you might as well not exist” (2009: p43).
Harry Elwell Web Communication Words: 1602
The navigation of each site gives an insight into the way in which they expect users to categorise its
content. Alternative Press, for example, favours a traditional journalistic web page layout, with their
navigation bar consisting of the main sections of the site such as news, features, reviews, bands, etc.
This is great for a recognised publication such as Alternative Press, as it is a format users will be
familiar with and can easily use to find their way around the site. The integration of drop-down
menus from each of these tabs is good as it’s compact, yet this could cause ambiguity problems as
“dropdowns are difficult for users to manipulate and don’t allow users to see all available choices at
once” (Nielsen, 2002: p87). In terms of the Models of Human Navigation (Brinck, Wood and Gergle,
2002), the navigation on Alternative Press fits in with the Mental Maps Model in that it is structured
in a way that it assumes users are already familiar with (due to its similarity to other journalism
sites). Sputnikmusic, on the other hand, has their navigation bar consisting of the main genres of
music that the site covers, for example metal, rock, punk, hip hop and alt/indie, suggesting that
Sputnikmusic predicts its users know specifically which genre they are looking for as opposed to the
article style. This applies to Brink, Wood and Gergle’s Satisficing Model, whereby the navigation is
structured in a way that assumes that if the user cannot find what they are looking for they will scan
the navigation bar and choose the best link, for example if a user is cannot find any articles on punk
music on the homepage they will quickly scan the navigation bar and click the “Punk” button. Doing
so will bring the user to a dedicated homepage-like page featuring the latest news and reviews for
that particular genre. On Sputnikmusic local links are given with each album review and news story
to related album reviews to the band/topic featured. Alternative Press, however, gives no links to
related content. While Alternative Press offers a method of navigation that is more universally
accessible, Sputnikmusic presents the best form of navigation for somebody who knows specifically
what they are looking for.
A page may function as a website brilliantly, but if the content is poor then it is useless. Alternative
Press is ahead of Sputnikmusic in its integration of photo albums, videos and podcasts. On the
homepage, the use of large images at the top of the page for the top stories draws user attention to
what the web designer feels they will be most interested in. Sputnikmusic utilises images in a much-
less busy way, using only thumbnails to highlight their most important stories/reviews. This has huge
advantages in that smaller images will greatly speed up loading times, giving users of Sputnikmusic a
smoother experience of the site (Nielsen, 2000) and, furthermore, clear and specific thumbnails are
equally effective when more/larger story-related images are available upon clicking to view the full
article (Nielsen, 2002). Nielsen also points out that users with poor Internet connections may
struggle to load multimedia-heavy pages such as Alternate Press. In a similar way, Sputnikmusic
chooses to give links to videos and other multimedia, rather than embedding them like Alternative
Harry Elwell Web Communication Words: 1602
Press. It can be concluded that although Alternate Press is the most visually pleasing site, it risks
making itself inaccessible to some. Whereas Sputnikmusic offers a more consistent experience,
whilst still offering access sufficient multimedia.
Where Sputnikmusic really exceeds Alternative Press, is through its user-generated content and the
sense of community. While Alternative Press is very much a traditional journalistic site with
reviews/news being posted by staff members, Sputnikmusic takes a different format in that a
combination of both professional (employed staff) and amateur (user) journalists submit their own
music news and album reviews, which can then be rated by the community and discussed in the
comments section. Although Alternative Press does have a forum section and gives users the
opportunity to discuss albums, it is not as directly accessible as the format of Sputnikmusic. As
Gilmore (2006) points out, “readers collectively know more than media professionals do […] they are
many, and we are often just one” and therefore the audience must be an integral part of the
journalism process. The downside to Sputnikmusic’s format is that, after a brief skimming of the
comments of an album review, alongside some valid points/opinions being discussed by members,
the site somewhat resembles a forum/message board. This format could scare off many users as it
differs from what most would consider to be valid or ‘serious’ journalism. Not to mention the threat
of “trolls” that such a format presents, a form of user that Ward Cunningham defines on his Wiki to
be “deliberately crafted to provoke others with the intention of wasting time and energy”.
Sputnikmusic is successful in combatting the threats presented by their user-submitted content,
however, by forcing users to create an account to engage in discussion (Gilmore, 2006).
To paraphrase Gilmore (2006), a vital part of embracing web journalism is the ability for the
professional journalist to enter discussion with the readers/grassroots journalists. While Alternative
Press hyperlinks the author of an article’s name to a short bio of the author, it doesn’t give any
contact details or any evidence of them engaging with the readers. This passive-journalism contrasts
with Sputnikmusic, which –upon clicking an article author’s username- takes the user to their profile
and giving a snapshot of their recent reviews, statistics on what they have been listening to recently
the most and their recent comments. This gives the user the freedom that modern web-journalism
demands in order to keep up. In the case of Sputnikmusic, web journalism has taken a big step into
the realm of social media whilst staying a journalistic outlet. As Jarvis (2009) rightly points out,
people contribute more because the information is public and this “publicness” is something a
website needs to be found. Jarvis recognises the downfall of sites such as Alternative Press in this
realm in that “Every time you decide not to make something public, you create the risk of a customer
not finding you or not trusting you because you’re keeping secrets” (Jarvis, 2009: 45).
Harry Elwell Web Communication Words: 1602
In conclusion, Alternative Press is a website that boasts the functions of a great journalistic outlet. It
makes well-written news and features easily accessible to a vast audience. Though as Jarvis aptly
says, “More and more, journalism is going to be owned by the audience” (In: Gilmore, 2006: p111)
and it is for this reason that it seems websites such as Sputnikmusic, that embrace social media and
encourage citizen journalism, are going to be the future of journalism on the net. Yet there may
always be a need for traditional journalism websites such as Alternative Press to provide the ‘hard
news’ that society still accepts as most-valid.
References
Alternative Press. Available from URL: [Link]
Brinck, T., Wood, S.D. and Gergle, D., 2002. Usability for the Web: designing Web sites that work. San
Francisco, CA: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.
Cunningham, W., Troll Definition, In: WikiWikiWeb. Available from URL: [Link]
TrollDefinition
Gillmor, D. 2006. We, the Media, Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People. O’Reilly Media.
Jarvis, J., 2009. What Would Google Do? Collins Business.
Nielsen, J. UseIt. Available from URL: [Link]
Nielsen, J., 2000. Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity. USA: New Riders Publishing.
Nielsen, J., 2002. Homepage Usability: 50 Websites Deconstructed. USA: New Riders Publishing.
Sputnikmusic. Available from URL: [Link]