My favorite online site is ABC News Online, this is because for the first time I am able to fully appreciate all that it has to offer. Not six weeks ago I used to detest having to go online to get news becasue it used to take so long for my computer to connect to sites, but know I realize how useful online news media are. Where as previously the time it took to connect to online sites had always defeated the advantages of these types of media, now that I am using a higher speed computer I am able to fully appreciate all that online media such as ABC News have to offer.

One of the most prominent advantages to on-line media such as ABC news is the vast amount of information that can be accesed. On paper, there is a limited amount of space in which the different news stories can be displayed and so only a limited number of stories can be published. I noticed that ABC News online had a tremendously greater volume of news stories than the traditional newspaper. This is advantageous when compared to the traditional newspapers where space must be rationed and only the most breaking stories can be displayed. I noticed the ABC News Interactive had a lot of sports and especially a lot of local and college scores. Usually traditional newspapers don't have room to display local and college scores to the extent that ABC online can. In effect ABC on-line can even dispaly more information than television news broadcasts because of the lack of timeconstraints. Also the information on ABC News Online was presented in a very technological and enthusiastic manner, which really made the stories seem all the more interesting.

ABC Interactive also benefits from it's on-lineness in the existence of on-line links and search engines. For example, when reading a news story on-line certain words are highlighted and if you are unsure abvout the concepts or other stories you can follow the links and obtain more research on these topics having only to lift a finger. Another benefit resulting from ABC News' on-lineness is the ability to conduct a search for a specific story. This feature eliminates the annoying task of rifling through headlines attempting to find the one story you are looking for, saving the user both time and sanity. With just the click of a button you can have access to the news story of your choice without the hassle of finding it yourself.

Another advantageous feature of ABC news online is the list of summaries. Through this feature one can peruse short summaries to get an idea of if they really want to read an article. This eliminates the inconvenience of reading half way through an article and then realizing that you don't want to finish it. These summaries are also helpful if you've only got a minute and you want to try to get up the the minute on the news.

Aside from it's timesaving features, ABC News online is just a lot more fun to read than a regular newspaper. It's more colorful, and almost all stories come complete with picture. Also the fact that it is interactive makes you more involved and makes the news seem more interesting and exciting then it usually would. Online media such as ABC News are definetly the wave of the future, however they are not flawless. While the technology is actually useful and not just for show some of the allurement of reading a traditional newspaper is lost. Accessing ABC News is not relaxing in fact it is fast paced. You are accesing news from the information superhighway and you get it fast and go, there's no relaxation. On the otherhand reading the sunday paper and relaxing over a cup of coffee is how many Americans have defined their quality relaxation time. ABC News provides many new wave technological and time saving advantages but it is lacking in both tradition and relaxation features which characterize the reading of a typical newspaper.

Lauren Erb