Use of Social Media by the Police

I found this article on Gizmodo today regarding a group of New Jersey Police that are using Facebook as a means to name and shame criminals in their area.  It is an interesting article and raises a few issues around the privacy of such "Name and Shame" processes.  However, I wanted to review this article from an Information Architecture standpoint, rather than the story itself.

GIZMODO article header, 14/08/10

"More" dropdown

The navigation used across the site is very clear and simple, outlining the 5 major areas of interesting, with a "More" drop down that encompasses all other categories within the site.  The page does show a simple breadcrumb for this article, which is purely "online".  As Gizmodo articles tend not to be hidden down deep within multiple sections, the breadcrumb does not provide much information other than that it fits within the "Online" section.  The other important thing to note about the article header is the prominent position of the Facebook "Like" button.  It is at the top of the page on the right hand side.  This is a very common and easily recognised position for such an element. The remainder of the share functionality sits at the bottom of the page  It also indicates the importance Gizmodo places on sharing via social media; appropriate for a site that is focused on technology and all things online.

An element that I really like about this article header is that both the Author and the Date are hyperlinks. This allows the user to find more articles by the particular author, as well as additional news from that particular day.  It is an effective way to encourage users to move around the site and spend more time there.

There are a number of hyperlinks included within the article itself, including the facebook page in question.  The article does also link to the Courier Post article from which the story was obviously based.  This particular paper structures their page quite differently for this story.  Their header includes similar functionality (clickable author name, social media share functionalites), however they place a very large banner add within the middle of the page, right within probably some of the most important real estate on the page.

Courier Post page structure for same article

This is a highly unusual place for a banner ad and one that I find incredibly distracting.  The page looks incredible messy and I found it quite difficult to focus on the story itself when compared to the clean and streamlined Gizmodo page.