I often wile away lots of free time (and some procrastinated time) browsing www.townhall.com and www.xanga.com. Although the sites have unrelated purposes, they share similar features that help visitors to navigate their site. I have found in examining these sites that, although their purpose and audience differ, their functional similarities greatly outnumber their differences. Townhall is a site for conservative news and editorials where visitors know they can find current news and commentary from a certain political perspective. Xanga establishes itself as a weblog community where users can publish and share their writing with friends and strangers.

We see on both sites features that are familiar to anyone who has ever browsed the web, such as banner ads, a search bar and links to other pages within the site. Townhall has links to external sites of similar interest for its visitors. On the other hand, Xanga serves such a broad range of users that there are no such links. The common link between Xanga users is their desire to write and share--a desire which Xanga hopes to be able to fill itself. Down the left-hand side of each site, we find links to help us browse within the site. Xanga offers us immediate access to weblogs with new or features comment and Townhall takes us to editorials sorted by columnists or information about local political gatherings. Both Townhall and Xanga contain content that uses internet technology to garner a wider audience. It is much easier and cheaper for Townhall to circulate without having the expense of paper and ink or the inconvenience of delivering physical copies of its content to readers. Xanga allows the everyday journalist or photographer to easily make a posting for all to see whereas he cannot send a print copy of the same content to everyone he knows.

One way each site uses the technology of the computer is by providing a search bar in order for a user to find what he is looking for without the hassle of a vague or incomplete index. One major difference between the two sites is the way the users interact with the site itself. Townhall is mainly a site to be viewed--audience participation is limited, although some writers provide email addresses and there is a small blog section. Xanga, on the other hand, is a full interactive site. Because of the flexibility of computer code, users can create and personalize their own page without needing extensive technical knowledge. Readers can post immediate feedback for all to see. Users can even get in touch with the programmers to inform them of problems they have with the site or features they would like to see in the future.

Both sites also play off material world conventions to form 21st century versions of familiar types of media. Newspapers and editorials have circulated for centuries but the internet gave new form to the distribution process. For those still more comfortable with paper copies, a printer-friendly version of each piece is available. Xanga extends the idea of the journal by making it easy to share. The content remains the same--people still catalog the details of their life or their existential musings but the audience, formerly consisting of solely the author and perhaps a select few, has grown tremendously.

While each site uses the developments of technology to augment its functionality, I believe that Xanga is more successful at using new technological capabilities to its advantage. While Townhall is a center for a certain type of news, the differences between it and a conservative magazine, for example, mostly involve distribution and availability. For Xanga, the novelty of being able to create a website with easy is enticing to many. It has an established place on the web because of its adaptation of the available technology to make it customizable, shareable and interactive.