[7] Online Newspaper

The metro is a free newspaper distributed in the UK. It is available on public transport and can be found at any tube/train station. It is in the same group as The Daily Mail, The Main on Sunday and the Evening Standard.

The website displays the headlines, metro TV, The editor’s choice, the top 5 most read and Metro Favourites (Online Gambling, Travel Offers, Crosswords, Nemi Cartoons, Dating, Messageboards, Horoscopes, Metroku, Fantasy Football, Fantasy Rugby, Credit Reports and switch and save). The homepage is split into sections called News, Fame, Sport and even ‘metrosexual’ and ‘weird stuff’ – making it easier for the audience to surf and find what they are looking for with ease. The metro website also has blogs and podcasts.

The website reaps popularity from the paper as it’s the morning paper read by most people that use public transport. With this extra promotion, the website obviously gets a lot of attention. The ‘metrosexual’ section is for those that want dating tips and along the lines of passion. There is always someone ‘under offer’ in which, a person is looking for a date…adding extra interactivity to the audience. There is a ‘luuurve quiz’ which can be taken – overall making the paper less serious but with a fun side as well. You can find a date and upload your photos.
In an outrage section, the audience are allowed to express their views in forums and ‘blog room’ – with extreme headlines whose purpose is to catch the attention. There is examples of interactivity as viewers can text when convient…converging the technologies, encouraging them to use many different types of media. The metro group, although a free newspaper, receives large profits because of the mass popularity of it and their aim of making people express their views/outrage in the form of texting and other methods which all produce funding.

On the site, trailers, webzines, blogs are all posted relevant to the news or what the consumer may have read in that day. It is possible to save all the readers faveourite articles in a blog and reactions can be eexpressed. Videos can be posted on the site alongside advertisements, including updates, informations, dating sites, jobs, cinema times, new restaurants etc: all from the normal London traveller. The metro website converges many medias and is a good example of interactivity as instead of just reading, they can now comment and express in forms of texting, videos, blogging, and much more from a simple free newspaper.