Journal 8

Journal 8

       For this week's review, I found a social media web site entitled: Mouthshut.com. Interesting choice for a name. I accidentally happened upon this web site after looking up different social media sites -- this one caught my eye in particular. Overall, it was not horrible, but there are definitely a number of improvements that could be made. When I first went to the site, I was not sure what to look at first. All of the text is a very similar, small size, which makes it difficult to figure out what is most important. This is the first thing I would change to the web site: make the text size different so that the eye is drawn to important words. In addition, there needs to be a title banner of some sort to let the audience member know what exactly this web site is for. The way the site is now has the "Mouthshut.com" logo in very small text at the top left-hand corner of the page. I would suggest they make a banner with the title and a short mission statement about the web site, and put it in a central location so it is easy to see. This would really help to clarify what the web site is about. The last suggestion I would make is to organize the layout of the site, and add in a better navigation. Right now, the site's nav consists of only a few links, and they are small, unnoticeable clicks at the very top of the page. I think it would help tremendously if they added to their nav and cleaned up the boxes of information. Also, make the nav bigger so that is easier to spot -- because right now it is too easy to overlook that part of the web site. 

       After I figured out what this web site was for (by going to the 'About us' page) I realized what a neat idea it was. Mouthshut.com uses reviews of different businesses to help shoppers make informed decisions. The site compiles thousands of reviews so that a shopper can quickly and easily discover information about the product they are looking at. There are reviews on other shopping websites as well. Not only can you read reviews, you can also write your own. In addition, Mouthshut smartly uses pools on the main page of their web site to take in information from the people visiting. I think this is very clever -- a great way to get a read on the people viewing your web site and figure out how you can attract more people. As it is, I would say their target audience are adults, most likely well educated adults who are invested in purchasing quality items. After all, someone who does not care about the quality of something they buy probably will not bother visiting a site like this. 

      The web site also has a list of recent movies down at the bottom of the page. Although I find this somewhat random, it does show how diverse the items they have reviews on are. The site also states who recommends going there which is a smart move. A few of these companies, such as CNBC, are well known, and therefore add to the credibility of the web site. Although this site could use some organization help, and there needs to be some change with the text size and positioning, I think it still has a lot of potential. I would encourage others to go here only if they are invested in doing research about what they are shopping for. A site like this, that isn't completely awful, but isn't exactly that great at the same time, requires some patience to navigate. 

http://www.mouthshut.com