How to Create a Webzine
With Twitter, Facebook, blogs and podcasts dominating today's news industry, it comes as little surprise that webzines have also emerged as an example of citizen journalism in action. A webzine, a magazine that is entirely online, performs many of the traditional functions of a typical print publication: it speaks to a specific audience about a certain topic, theme or issue through the use of text, graphics and, more recently, multimedia features such as slideshows and video. But how does a person make a webzine? Where do you start? While everyone has their own take on how to build a webzine, here are few tips to get you started.
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Instructions
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Define your focus. One of the most important elements of creating a webzine is defining who your audience is and what content you want to put up. Just as with a print magazine, it is important to define who you are and what you are trying to accomplish. A webzine with no definable purpose will not attract the amount of hits and frequent users that are necessary to be successful.
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Choose and acquire a domain name and select a Web hosting service. While technological novices would prefer to shy away from the programming aspects of webzine building, it is important to have a basic understanding of how websites function on the Internet. The domain name is what your site will essentially be called, while the hosting service is the company that will enable your pages to be viewed by web users. Lists of both free and paid services can be found on the Internet.
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Choose your platform. Whether you are a seasoned programming pro or a bit technologically challenged, it is important to choose the right application to build your webzine. There are both free and commercial programs that can be used to build your site, depending on the look you want. Programs such as Dreamweaver (for text), Fetch (for posting your webzine online) and Photoshop (for creating and editing pictures) can all be used to create the look of your webzine.
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Decide what sort of design you want your site to have. Making decisions about if you want to link information to another page, if you want to present content through multimedia or just text, as well as other creative decisions are all key in establishing a webzine.
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Understand the difference between web and print. Once the programming is complete and it is time to start putting up content, one of the most important ideas to keep in mind is that web content is fundamentally different from print. Write more concisely and try to put the most relevant, interesting and new information at the beginning of each post or story.
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Tips & Warnings
Be careful of including too many graphics and multimedia elements, as they can be distracting for readers. Broad is not always better. Be sure to focus your content and cater to what your audience would like to see.
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