Quicksurf Internet Media

It happened by accident. I was trolling for news and links to talk about on my podcast and I stumbled upon National Geographic’s website. I’d been a huge fan of the magazine when I was a kid. My parents always made sure there was a subscription and new issues of the magazine showing up at our house, but as I got older and moved out, National Geographic fell by the way-side and I’d never really given it much thought. Even now, it makes sense that a magazine of such caliber in this day and age would have an online presence, however, when I stumbled upon the website, I was very pleasantly in for a huge re-awakening and re-introducing of what had once been a childhood favorite.

Initial Impressions

So lets talk about my initial impressions of the site. First off, there is a lot packed into the home page, but it’s very manageable and not overly busy. The thing that struck me the most was the production quality of the imagery and the content. It had been a while since I’ve actually read the printed version of the magazine, so I don’t know if the content on the website is also in the print version or not, but either way, the pictures and overall look and feel of what you see is almost spellbinding. It looks like the vast majority of the content is contained within several sub-sections of the site, and there is a list of links to each one running down the left hand side of the home page and subsequent sub-section pages. I’ll talk about each sub-section individually below.

Animals

If you’re an animal lover, this is the place to be. You can spend hours in this sub-section alone. The sub-section has a list of links running across the top that further breaks down by animal type and also gives you the option of browsing A-Z style if you like. There are lots of very well done pictures as well as Feature articles for most animal types. Again, lots of content, and a great resource of information for quite a bit of the known animal universe.

Daily News

This is the section I originally stumbled upon. It’s sub-divided into Animal News, Ancient World, Environment News, Cultures News, Space/Tech News, and a section simply called “Weird”. From what I’ve seen of it thus far, it’s updated pretty regularly and it’s obvious that they put some effort into everything they post there. Pretty top notch stuff.

Green Guide

This sub-section is very quickly becoming my favorite place to hang out. It offers a green buying guide, a bunch of blog content, tips & tools, green living information, and a lot more. There’s a lot of content in this section that is well done, well organized, and easy to use.

History

This sub-section is probably the most sparse of the sections. There is more news content here than any information, however, there is quite a bit in the way of pictures and video that I’ve not perused. I’m not much of a history buff, so I don’t have much else to say other than it’s still worth checking out.

Kids

This actually leads to whole other site (kids.nationalgeographic.com), and I’m amazed at how much content is actually here that’s geared towards kids. It’s clear that a lot of effort to get the younger generations engaged and interested is being invested here, which is a good thing. If you’ve got kids, this is a kid friendly place for your young ones to hang out and get their learn on. Totally worth checking out.

Maps

This is more like another site and not a sub-section. I’m not a mapping guy, but if you’re into maps, this looks like a pretty neat place to hang out. One item to note: The mapping machine is pretty cool, it lets you go to just about any place on the planet, then search for and print historical, weather, population, and other maps of the area of your interest. All in all, pretty neat stuff, and if you travel a lot, is pretty useful for checking out places where you may (or may not) be heading.

Music

This section was actually un-expected, but there’s quite a bit of world music in this sub-section. The tag-line for it is: “listen to the world”, and while I’ve never heard of most of the artists featured here, this is definitely worth doing some exploring. It will be at least a horizon expanding journey. From the precursory look I’ve taken at it so far, it doesn’t look like you can actually download any free music from here, but you can listen to and buy music.

Photography

Back in the old days when National Geographic was just a print magazine, much of what made it so great was their eye popping photos. They were never short of really great pictures. Well, I’m glad to say that this sub-section proudly continues that tradition of providing a lot of really awesome photos. You can spend hours here and still not see it all. And the best part of it all is the Print Store, where you can buy prints of many of the best photos in sizes ranging from a 10″ gallery print to a 30″ gallery print either framed or un-framed. Obviously the prices for the framed photos can range into the several hundred dollar range, but most un-framed prints can be had for less than $100.

Science & Space

This sub-section really appeals to my inner geek. There is quite a bit of quality content and a nice A-Z browser that lets you troll through it by subject. It’s almost like a scientific encyclopedia, there’s a lot here and most of it looks like it’s kept fresh.

Travel & Cultures

If you want to see places around the world, this is the sub-section to go to. I’m not much of a traveler and I still was impressed with what was here, for example, on the continents area, all of the major continents are listed out and as you drill down into each one, there are loads of facts and figures and photos. If you’re a travel buff, there is a lot of great information here.

Video

This sub-section looks like it’s just a collection point for all the videos on the web site. There is a lot here covering a pretty wide range of subjects, and from the looks of it, the production quality is pretty high. A pretty good place to spend a few hours watching what they’ve got here.

So all in all, I think there is a recurring theme when it comes to National Geographic’s website. They have really high quality content, and lots of it. If you like the magazine, then you’ll undoubtedly like the website. I’m bookmarking it and I’ve added the news sections RSS feed to my feed reader.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 at 4:36 pm and is filed under Web Media, Web Sites. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.