Daily Elements of Wired's Home Page

As I continue to examine Wired.com regularly, it becomes more and more clear just how extensive the magazine's online content really is. The website is constantly being updated with new blogs, vidcasts and all kinds of web exclusive content for the site.

One particular content item on their homepage that changes daily seems to be the items above the menu bar. This content can vary from blog posts to photo galleries. It seems like the reason these stories play such a dominant role on the website's homepage is to not only encourage viewers to see these new items first, but also because the pieces that appear on this website's "top fold" seem to best exemplify this magazine's readers and what kinds of stories these readers look to Wired for.

The website also regularly updates its other sections, especially, the video and blogs, what appear to be two very popular aspects of the magazine's website. (However, I'd be interested to find more research and statistics to verify this.)

Headline Writing: Print vs. Web

Wired cover, September 2010 issue.

In this comparison, we can see where the clever, attention-grabbing headlines take a new shape when found on the Web. In all of the following cases, you'll see that none of headlines for any of the February issue's major feature stories appear with the same headline on the Web. Instead, these headlines take a more detailed, informational form. Here are some examples:


1. "Crime Organized" (Print) vs. "Organized Crime: The Largest Social Network" (Web)

2. "Easy Money" (Print) vs. "Cracking the Scratch Lottery Code" (Web)

3. "Check Out My Fauxrari" (Print) vs. "Counterfeit Car Maker Cranks Out Porsches and Fauxraris" (Web)

4. "The Flesh Trade" (Print) vs. "How Tech Tools Transformed New York's Sex Trade" (Web)

Examining the transformation of print-to-web headlines for each of these features shows us exactly what the Web headline's primary function is: SEO, or search engine optimization. These headlines take a more descriptive and informative tone in order to achieve this. The more possible terms from a headline that could appear in the search engine, the better. On another note, on the homepage of the magazine's website, these headlines have to fend for themselves. They don't have the luxury of sitting pretty next to a captivating illustration or a powerful photograph, but instead, the headlines actually compete directly against one another. See what I mean when you examine Wired.com's homepage here and the magazine section here.