Critique of iReport.com

I think that for the post part, iReport is easy to use although I wish the videos were broken down into category, such as science, entertainment, etc. I do like the fact that they have tabs for the "newsiest", "most commented on" etc. because that helps the readers find iReports they are likely interested in based on audio-visual projects that others viewed or commented on.

I came across a few interesting ones, especially one that was most commented on, titled "Blessing of the bikes". A CNN user was out riding his bike in a park in New York city and stumbled upon a group of cyclists entering a church and found out they were getting their bikes blessed in a yearly tradition. This story definitely had the oddity factor and as such was vetted by CNN.

However, I did find that most of the videos and slideshows were boring. I came across many that seemed to be advertisements, and others that plainly did not capture my interest.

I quickly noticed that most of the videos recently aired on CNN were related to the Polish tragedy over the past weekend in which the president and several other high ranking members were killed in a plane crash in Russia while on their way to commemorate another tragedy. CNN typically places an emphasis on world news, and as such I think any story that has a world wide angle to it would be aired. Of course, CNN seemed to use only high quality, professional-looking work for the air, as one would expect.