ghammell'sBlog

Pandora.com

Pandora.com has long been one of my favorite websites because of the sheer pleasure it provides me on a daily basis. Whether I'm relaxing at home or on the go, Pandora is generally always turned on on one of my devices. Not only does Pandora provide me a great variety of music, but it's also free! What's better than that? Plus, I barely even have to think about the website itself - I just press play and kick back. Genius.

When I log onto Pandora, I'm immediately drawn to the deep colors and simple layout. Whether I'm up close or far away, its clear that the main idea is for me to just type in an artist and hit play. Pandora.com is a simple, elegant, interactive, intuitive, and pleasing website that solves the problem of music variety in one's own personal collection. It also solved the problem of having to decide what to listen to next (although, you do have to pick an artist that you want to hear music similiar to). The content is fun, dynamic, practical. The thing is though, the important content is all audible, not visual. So, the design of the website doesn't play as large a role as one where the user is expected to navigate it more thoroughly.

The best part about Pandora is that you really don't have to think at all. You don't really even need to browse. In fact, the content that is displayed is automatically updated when a song changes, so the need to browse is almost non existent. It's hard to get bored of this site because its hard to get bored of music. Although Pandora does offer a premium service with no commercials, I haven't really considered purchasing it because I don't mind them the commercials too much. However, if Pandora scrapped their free service and only charged, I'd likely sign up.

Reddit.com

Reddit.com is another one of my favorite websites. Aside from Pandora, this website definitely provides me the most entertainment value of all the pages I visit. Its a great site because the content is so varied. I could log in and laugh for half an hour, then learn about the latest breakthroughs in science and technology, then look at pictures of cute cats and dogs. All of the content is sourced from the websites users, who post material that either gets upvoted or downvoted. This voting system dictates which content makes it to the 'front page', which is the page you see when logging into the website.

Visually, Reddit isn't too exciting. The home page is just a list of links to user submissions, with some advertisements on the side. When I stood back, the advertisements are actually what drew my attention because they're pretty much the only pictures on the website until you actually click into a submission. What I really like about reddit, aside from the submissions themselves, is the logic behind the website. Although I'm not exactly sure what the algorithm is, the creators have found a way to automate which posts make it to the top, and for how long, based off of the votes from other users. It allows for just the right amount of time to keep up with what's new, but sumbmissions don't linger too long, so the website is always fresh.

Reddit has provided me countless hours of entertainment, but I haven't really given back at all. The only revenue they make aside from ad revenue is from what they call 'Reddit Gold'. Basically, you can purchase reddit gold for another user, which is meant to be a reward for a great post. With reddit gold the user obtains certain priveleges that I'm not really even sure of, but I see people being 'gilded' all the time. Reddit isn't a profitable company, but I think they have done a good job finding interesting ways to keep at least some cash flowing in.

Google.com

How could I not put Google on here? I use it all day, every day. As I'm sure you're aware, Google is a really simple website on the surface. There's no log in, nothing to think about really - you just go to the homepage and search for anything you want in the search bar that is right there in front of you in the center of the page. There's almost nothing else to look at there either, which makes the website very intuitive and easy to use.

Google has essentially solved the problem of not being able to find what you're looking for on the internet. It's not necessary anymore to know exact web addresses for the information you're seeking - just head to google and it'll take you there. And it does it in a simple, straight-forward manner. After 'googling' for a while, I'm usually pretty happy. The general outcome is that I've gained more knowledge after each use of google, which is a good thing for sure.

What's also interesting about the website is that you can now log into Google's other websites from Google.com. When I go to Google.com I can see my Google+ account name at the top of the page. I can also click right into my calendar or e-mail account. Because Google's products are so simple and so widely used, so connected, I think it will be a long time before any competitor really holds a candle to them.