The website that I get most of my news from is the Huffington Post. the Huffington Post is a great website because it has front pages for almost anything you can think of, and that includes food. I get most of my sources for my blog about food and technology from the big news page on the Huffington Post entitled food. In terms of being a reliable new's source the Huffington Post is a very reliable source for my blog in my opinion. Most of their original content is editorials written by people who work for the website or freelance for the website. However, most of the content on the website that I view is material that they have adapted or summarized for the reader. This is the case with their food portion of the website. One of the most common features on the website are the slide shows. For instance, in regard to food they recently produced a slide show highlighting foods at state fairs. Like all the other slide shows the one I just linked too has a source, in this case it is the website Endless Simmer. I consider both the Huffington Post and Endless Simmer to be credible and reliable sources.
Next out of all of my blogs and websites that I look to for food and technology news, this website relates food to technology more than any other. In my opinion it is not as reliable as the two I mentioned in the first paragraph, and I only say this because of the appearance of the website. The general layout of the website is not as friendly or official looking as other websites, which leads me to think how much of a difference does the design of a website have to do with the reliability that the reader associates with that website? The reason I don't trust the gadget website as much is because of the clutter of advertisements surrounding the main page, and all the gadgets they advertise have a buy button that is part of the article where you can go to the shop and buy the food gadget. This makes it seem as if it is more of a market or shop for manufacturers to sell their product. Finally, the advertisements that are on the page do not appear to be legitimate, they are clearly spam or some other type of internet hoax.
I feel that it is much easier to find reliable websites for my topic as opposed to unreliable web sites. I was not able to find a website that had terrible information, just ones that weren't as organized as the other ones which provided good information.
I think you make a valid point about the commercialism of a site with gadgets to buy, but you didn't quite convince me that the ads you were seeing were bogus. How did you know? If they were bogus, where were you taken after you clicked on them? What would be the point of those ads if they were bogus?
ReplyDeleteGood description of your reasons for turning to the Huffington Post, but I'm wondering if there's aren't more sites out there that are misrepresenting good food preparation or featuring cooking products that offer little or no quality...or suppliers that offer little or no guarantees and service. On the good side (I think) is the Weber Grill site. Its collection of grilling recipes http://www.weber.com/grillout/Default.aspx
including a free iPhone app provides not only recipes, but also instant shopping list for ingredients and even a grilling timer on your phone. Obviously, an iPhone could never (or at least should never) become a meat thermometer. This appears to be an established company that's utilizing technology and information to enhance its credibility AND its product line at the same time. Is that an acceptable level of commercialism compared to the sites you noted? Why or why not?