Cities which are built based on the society’s shift in behaviour, to building a city for the future of society and for the improvement of their well-being. The future is being constructed with Telosa and Neom being a part of it. We have come to a point in society where we are able to discuss and analyse their purpose through the use of a website.
Neom and Telosa are two websites aiming towards similar goals and that’s to construct cities from the ground, however they both have different criterias at which their cities are built upon. They even have their own websites which present their ideas and own designs for their cities. I will be analysing both websites here and comparing them to see what effect they have towards their respective audiences.
Telosa is a city which is “built with people at the centre'' (Junto Group LLC., 2020) while Neom is a city built to be “tailored to the individual'' (An accelerator of human progress 2017) so that the population experiences a brighter future. The difference between these websites is that Telosa is trying to cater for the population by making the lifestyle of the population “equitable” (Junto Group LLC., 2020). All this sounds great, but there comes a mindset from many people (since Marc Lore is a billionaire) that predict that Telosa is not tuned to their lifestyle. They would think of not being able to afford a home in Telosa and therefore take Marc Lore's word less seriously (which decreases his credentials in their eyes).
Similarly, Neom has the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, however it is built around a different criteria, which is implementing technology (An accelerator of human progress 2017). The main distinction between Neom and Telosa is that the people are more likely to accept the Crown Prince than Marc Lore (when it comes to making an acceptable environment to suit many peoples lifestyle (in term of financial status) since he has experience from running Saudi Arabia next to his father. This would make people become more focused to Neom over Telosa due this experience gap.
Now let us talk about the credibility and how reliable these projects are when it comes to being set up and who the audience are listening to. The website of Telosa is backed up by Marc Lore who is a billionaire with the vision of Telosa. The presence of such a billionaire brings security to the audience as it shows to them that the city is a serious project that will be built within time. However, the claims that Telosa would be built based on equitism and the people while only having a few people (such as Mark Lore and Bjarke Ingles) to side with this idea. While on the other hand, Neom is backed up by Mohammed bin Salman who is the crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, and OceanX which is an organisation that explores the ocean to identify the creatures that roam in the oceans of Neom and many more. This would appear more reliable since it is backed up by a figurehead of a country and a well known company which is known for its reliable exploration and providing data from primary research.
Neom and Telosa are two websites aiming towards similar goals and that’s to construct cities from the ground, however they both have different criterias at which their cities are built upon. They even have their own websites which present their ideas and own designs for their cities. I will be analysing both websites here and comparing them to see what effect they have towards their respective audiences.
Telosa is a city which is “built with people at the centre'' (Junto Group LLC., 2020) while Neom is a city built to be “tailored to the individual'' (An accelerator of human progress 2017) so that the population experiences a brighter future. The difference between these websites is that Telosa is trying to cater for the population by making the lifestyle of the population “equitable” (Junto Group LLC., 2020). All this sounds great, but there comes a mindset from many people (since Marc Lore is a billionaire) that predict that Telosa is not tuned to their lifestyle. They would think of not being able to afford a home in Telosa and therefore take Marc Lore's word less seriously (which decreases his credentials in their eyes).
Similarly, Neom has the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, however it is built around a different criteria, which is implementing technology (An accelerator of human progress 2017). The main distinction between Neom and Telosa is that the people are more likely to accept the Crown Prince than Marc Lore (when it comes to making an acceptable environment to suit many peoples lifestyle (in term of financial status) since he has experience from running Saudi Arabia next to his father. This would make people become more focused to Neom over Telosa due this experience gap.
Now let us talk about the credibility and how reliable these projects are when it comes to being set up and who the audience are listening to. The website of Telosa is backed up by Marc Lore who is a billionaire with the vision of Telosa. The presence of such a billionaire brings security to the audience as it shows to them that the city is a serious project that will be built within time. However, the claims that Telosa would be built based on equitism and the people while only having a few people (such as Mark Lore and Bjarke Ingles) to side with this idea. While on the other hand, Neom is backed up by Mohammed bin Salman who is the crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, and OceanX which is an organisation that explores the ocean to identify the creatures that roam in the oceans of Neom and many more. This would appear more reliable since it is backed up by a figurehead of a country and a well known company which is known for its reliable exploration and providing data from primary research.
Another point to discuss about the websites are their similarities. Both Telosa and Neom start their websites with a video which gives a brief introduction to what the city is going to be about and their main goals. For example Telosa mentions at the start of their video that “telos coming from Aristotle” and how it has a meaning of “individuals in society coming together to reach their fullest potential” (Junto Group LLC., 2020). This effect on the audience could be viewed under many different microscopes. Such as one of them having a positive effect on the audience by showing them that Telosa isn’t going to be like the other cities, it is going to be built based on human cooperation through equitism being their main criteria, which would inevitably make them feel encouraged to go and live in Telosa. On the other hand, Neom’s video starts off with the ancient civilisations (cavemen) and zooms towards the present time (An accelerator of human progress 2017) which not only shows how humanity has advanced in technology, but it also shows the audience that the city will be built mainly around technology. This would make them feel secure about their future if they were to live in Neom as they would be surrounded with up to date technology which would make their lives comfortable (as seen in the video) (An accelerator of human progress 2017).
A design (in both websites) to point out is the use of images and animations. Telosa uses more static images in their websites than animated images compared to Neom. This could be due to many visual/emotional factors that they are trying to portray such as shedding light to world issues and how Telosa could potentially solve those issues (as shown in the images below).The effect this would have on the audience (by displaying very real world issues) is that it would make them feel more positively towards what Telosa is all about. It would improve the identity of Telosa by allowing people to realise that these serious world problems (such as lack of education) can be solved if they are to live in Telosa. Alternatively, Neom uses a lot more videos to express the goals they wish to accomplish. The use of videos could be used to emphasise modernity since technology is always improving and videos are the most up to date methods of showing information to the audience. This would be convenient as it gives the audience a taste of what life in Neom would be since technology is already being implemented to make their life easier to absorb information through a video. However this method disregards those who still appreciate text as a format of displaying information, which could discourage them from living in a city like Neom where life is surrounded with technology that is displeasing to them.
A design (in both websites) to point out is the use of images and animations. Telosa uses more static images in their websites than animated images compared to Neom. This could be due to many visual/emotional factors that they are trying to portray such as shedding light to world issues and how Telosa could potentially solve those issues (as shown in the images below).The effect this would have on the audience (by displaying very real world issues) is that it would make them feel more positively towards what Telosa is all about. It would improve the identity of Telosa by allowing people to realise that these serious world problems (such as lack of education) can be solved if they are to live in Telosa. Alternatively, Neom uses a lot more videos to express the goals they wish to accomplish. The use of videos could be used to emphasise modernity since technology is always improving and videos are the most up to date methods of showing information to the audience. This would be convenient as it gives the audience a taste of what life in Neom would be since technology is already being implemented to make their life easier to absorb information through a video. However this method disregards those who still appreciate text as a format of displaying information, which could discourage them from living in a city like Neom where life is surrounded with technology that is displeasing to them.
Last but not least, their accessibility to information. Telosa’s menu is a great way to interact with the website, however most of the options are based on their goals and ambitions for example “EQUITISM, THE HOW, THE WHY” (Junto Group LLC., 2020). This is not the case with the Neom menu bar since the main ideas that are to be implemented in the city are being shown (such as “THE LINE, OCEANX” (An accelerator of human progress 2017)). When it comes to comparing the two menu sections, Telosa appears to be more user friendly due to its simplistic design which makes navigation very easy, however Neom’s menu section is transparent and immediately visible to the audience which makes it more noticeable to the people's eye and in addition to those qualities, it is the most informative.
In Telosa's case, there is a bombardments of menu items that could be uninteresting towards the audience as they would be looking for more information on the city rather than to continue reading its mission statement over and over again though the image below. In Neom's case, there are a plethora of items which do not share a distinction such as a repetition of the mission statement. Instead they show more of the important features of Neom such as "OCEANX" and "The Line" (An accelerator of human progress 2017). This would allow the audience to explore more of the city and gain more information about what to expect which is a lot more useful to the people in comparison to what Telosa shows on their menu bar. |
All in all, Telosa and Neom turn out to be very similar to each other. They both talk about the future city and it’s goals, as well as trying to encourage people to live in it. However, I did realise that Telosa has a voting system which can produce fabricated results seeing as there is no captcha to assess whether someone is human or not, while Neom has a subscription feed which allows people to remain up to date with the plans for Neom as they upload their names and email address. Other than that tiny detail the rest are pretty much the same.
References:
Junto Group LLC. (2020, February). Telosa: City of the Future. Retrieved October 5, 2021, from Telosa: https://cityoftelosa.com/
An accelerator of human progress. (2017, October 24). NEOM. Retrieved November 1, 2021, from https://neom.com/en-us. by The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud.
Junto Group LLC. (2020, February). Telosa: City of the Future. Retrieved October 5, 2021, from Telosa: https://cityoftelosa.com/
An accelerator of human progress. (2017, October 24). NEOM. Retrieved November 1, 2021, from https://neom.com/en-us. by The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud.