This page is a genre analysis of the cell phone service providers websites with, an emphasis on the pages for Sprint and Nextel. Other providers that have websites that can viewed are as follows:
All of these providers have websites and they all vary in different aspects. However, for the purposes of this analysis I am going to focus mostly on the aspects associated to that of the website for Sprint and Nextel.
Writers & Developers
Audience & Users
Format & Organization
Level of Formality
Use of Visual Cues & Images
Range of Variation
My Own Experience
The website has many cues to let the site user know what the purpose of the website is. The first thing below the header of the site is a banner advertisement for the company itself. The site was written and developed to be a selling tool for the corporation. The site shows how successful that the corporation is as a whole because at the bottom of the page it shows the current value of their stock along with what the last change in value was. The information avaiable on the site lets the consumer know what products and services that the company offer.
The website itself does not tell who the authors are, but it does let you know what the purpose of the website is and how to become a user of the their services and products.
The audience and the users of this website are going to be one of 3 types of people. They are either going to be going to the website as potential customers, or they might be going to the website to look up their account as a current customer, or they could be potential investors.
This website is set up for easy use by any one of the three types of people that would be using this site. The first table on the site is dividing the site users into specific groups. It's asking the user if the are a potential peronal customer, are they from a business, or are they a current customer hoping to look up their private account information. The very bottom of the home page for the site is for the potential investors. This portion of the page displays the current stock price and what is the latest change. This type of information is pertinent to the potential investor and this site makes it easy for them to access that information.
The organization of this website is superb. The first thing that you see is a banner ad for Sprint. With this the corporation is getting free advertisement of their products which extremly valuable. The next portion of the page is useful to the corporation becuase it breaks down the different target audiences that the company is trying to reach, the personal users and the business users. The way that the table is set it has a header and then also a an outline of what the corporation can offer to each targeted audience. The last part of the table is to allow the company's current patrons access to their account information online so that the patron does not have to travel all the way to a store but can do all of this directly from their home. This feature seems to be used by almost all of the other sites for cell phone companies that I looked into.
One feature that seems to be only readily available to the public on the main page of the Sprint site is ability to check the stock price and latest change. The other sites will divulge the information but they do not put the information out to the public. Overall I think that the Sprint site is organized well. It's easy to use and easy to get the purchasing information needed for the consumer.
I would say that the website is not very formal. However, I would not expect a website for a cell phone company to be extremely formal. I think that the formality of the website is exactly what I would expect it to be. There are not a whole lot of paragraphs but mostly pictures showing the products that they sell and maybe at most 2 or 3 sentences describing what the product does and what the services you can use it with. Even with a low level of formality I still find the site to be an effect selling tool for the company to use.
This site uses a variety of visual cues and images to sell their product. They use the images to make the users of their products overjoyed and happy with the performance of the products and services that they are using. This creates a positive outlook of the company to the public. The company uses the visual cues and images to as free advertising, also known as public relations.
Mostly, the variation of the site is the different pictures being used. All of the pages are roughly the same. The home page is a little bit different but the rest of the pages are packed with the same table setup with small pictures and a few words describing what the product in the picture does. This is effect for the selling aspect of the website, however, it makes the site a little bit repetitive.
My own experience with this genre has been overall positive. I've enjoyed going to the different webistes and comparing them. I found it really interesting seeing all of the selling and advertising taking place on the websites being the advertising is my major. I think that someday I could see myself making similar websites for companies.