Socceramerica.com review
Jan 27,2015
The website Socceramerica.com is a well-organized and valuable soccer hub for fans across the nation. The website is a part of the company that also gives fans the opportunity to join a newsletter and receive a magazine by Soccer America four times a year. The website is more focused on current events and headline stories, while the magazine gives the subscriber/fan greater knowledge of past events. Soccer America has claimed to have collected 75 years of research on the game of soccer, which gives the fan a great base for understanding the history and present of the sport. Given these claims by the SoccerAmerica editorial board, I plan to review just how factual and well laid-out this website is.
The SoccerAmerica homepage contains different sections, like “Soccer Talk”, “Most Commented” ,”Latest Posts”, and “Story of the day”. There is no section for soccer history or anything beyond the past two decades, which leads me to believe that this website is solely about new information. In the Q&A portion of the website, a question about the coverage of international teams was asked, and they answered that they do cover international soccer, so this website is both for national fans and international fans. On the sides of the articles online, we see advertisements about joining the newsletter, which seems to be one of the main goals for the website (gaining more members). The general aesthetics of the website are organized, dull, factual and text-based instead of image or video-based. The style of the writing is based off of objective reporting.
The positive and negative aspects of Socceramerica.com, in terms of informing and attracting fans, are visible to see. The website’s layout lacks imagery, which make the articles and headlines dull to read. Another disadvantage is that the spacing between the headlines is minimal, which clumps the information together. Positive aspects on the website were the objectivity of the sections. By giving headlines, the viewer can find exactly what he or she is looking for on the website. Adding to that, from a marketing standpoint, making the website cover international soccer news allows them to be more attractive to international soccer fans. A personal favorite of all of the aspects of the website are that the first link on the homepage was headline news and in most cases is a favorite for sports fans.
The article “Chile-USA:Three Storylines to follow” was a article giving information about the US soccer team during a game. The article was split into three sections. The first section was about changing the coach, the second was the change in formation and the third was coming out of a slump. The style of writing chosen by the website was very objective and straight to the point, but adding to that, the writing was simplified, so it was easier to understand. For these reasons, the most impressive section in this article would have to be the second section, even though it is clear that this website is for soccer fans. This section clearly shows the reader the changes made to the formation and it explains it in a way so people who do not follow soccer closely are able to understand. The editor and authors way of simplifying the text is a strong positive aspect to the article. One of the disadvantages to the article as whole is partly due to the writer’s objective style of writing. The objective style of writing took away from any room for creativity or opinion, which is one of the most entertaining aspects in sports. For example, a popular television network like Sportscenter is filled with opinions, of what they think about players, coach, formations, and etc..
My overall analysis of Socceramerica.com is that it is a strong and reliable source to get information about soccer nationally and internationally. The website lacks in creativity and also imagery, which make it less attractive for audiences who are not strong soccer fans and aren’t greatly interested in the latest news. The lack in the creativity also makes the website undesirable for someone who is not looking for any specific information to browse through. With this in mind, this website is structured for adult soccer fans who are very interested in staying up-to-date on the latest soccer news. Since there is not much on the website to attract the audience to form an interest or an attempt to make articles eye catching, this website is purely made for fans seeking information. Socceramerica.com is an excellent information soccer updating website.
Links
Soccer America – Covering US, International, MLS, College, Youth and World Cup Soccer
http://www.socceramerica.com/article/62422/chile-usa-three-storylines-to-follow.html
