By Charisse Massay
This is one of the best developed network station that I encountered.
It is a very simple website but it addresses any questions that you
might have about the channel and the shows on it. Comedycentral.com
was nominated for several web awards (all nominations can be accessed
on the website as well) in the field of best comedy website and it
definitely deserved it. On the homepage, there are direct links to
the basic nightly lineup with highlights for the night's shows. There
is also a "Spotlight" section where budding comedians are
featured in streaming video. There were two clips when I logged on,
one of them was very funny regarding a man's love affair with his
laptop. The other was two women who were not that funny.
There is also a side bar on the site with other regular features.
These included television show sites. There were sites for 22 shows,
almost all of the programming on the network, and all of them were
decent sites. The show sites included episode guides, downloadable
segments, games, ticketing information and information about the show.
Each show site was more or less up to date. Only two show sites were
unavailable.
The TV schedule was another link off the sidebar. I was actually amazed
by the organization in this particular section of the website. The
schedule was divided into evening shows, full day schedule, an excellent
search schedule (with the option of searching for a single show or
a specific person or scene) and the weekly schedules broken down by
time (e.g. everyday between 12pm-4pm). The effort put into the search
engine for the schedule was impressive, I usually don't find that
many options when it comes to television searching.
"Only on the Web;" is self explanatory. This section included
free downloadable clips of shows as well as the option to purchase
downloads of entire shows. There was also plug-ins, show-based games,
horoscopes, McSweeny stories and comedy central radio which is a streaming
audio of stand up routines, songs and audio clips of comedy. I listened
to the radio for a while and was amazed at the diversity of clips
that came on in a half hour period. There was Monty Python
songs, some classic comedy such as George Carlin, songs from The
Kids in the Hall and many different types of stand up routines.
Some of the comedians I was familiar with, others were new and still
very funny. It is an excellent option to have streaming in the background
if you're looking for short bits of humor. Another feature of the
radio is the captions for each of the clips. By checking the window,
the user can tell what the title of the clip is as well as the comedian
it comes from.
Merchandise is always a large part of any corporation and Comedy Central
is no different. There is a link to the official store which is divided
into show-based merchandise or by departments (toys, apparel, housewares,
etc.). There is also "News and Banter" which includes the
ability to sign up for the weekly email news letter, greeting cards
and "Conversation Central" where users can chat with comedians
or read past interviews.
Finally, "Information" included any technical questions
one might have for the network including Frequently Asked Questions,
Job Postings (which was well put together, covering background information
about the network, internships, and sending resumes), a privacy statement,
online advertising, ticketing information for shows, comedy festivals
and so on. Another section I highly approved of was "Central
Issues." Here, the network covered issues that were of importance
and contained very little humor. There were links to savethechildren.org,
ceasefire.org and fatherhood.org to name a few.
In the end, comedycentral.com is a great comedy website. It contained
everything that the network watcher would want as well as tons of
free comedy clips. I think the thing that really makes it a successful
website is the fact that the online consumer will want to check out
the network and the network watcher will want to check out the website.