Slashdot Mirror
Posthumous Webbys
Logic Bomb writes: "The Los Angeles Times takes a look at the nominees for this year's Webby Awards. The most obvious, and at this point predictable point of interest is the large proportion of nominated sites that no longer exist. But it seems people are finally acknowledging that beyond just being a shakedown, the last few months may be showing us what the web is most useful for. As the story says, "Take Activism nominee VolunteerMatch.org. It links do-gooders with opportunities, a use of the Web that, in retrospect, makes a lot more sense than selling dog food."" Hey, I bought cat litter from a certain online retailer which is now closed. Efficient? No, but it was amusing to see the UPS guy hauling 35-pound tubs of litter. Update: 07/19 8:31 AM by michael : The winners are now listed.
They make the case for their own dumbness. Obviously some of the most effective websites are short term and might not be around the next time some advertising weenies get around to awarding trophies. Short term, immediate action, issue oriented stuff with a focus will never be permanently sitting there. Hell what about the Olympics?
...it's old and boring. When's the last time you actually read something funny and original in The Onion? Seriously?
Allow me to provide you with the secret formula to The Onion's stories:
[Normal Person] does [Normal Everyday Thing]. [Normal and Expected Consequences]
Example headlines:
Slashdot Troll starts Flamewar, CmdrTaco butt of Jokes
*BSD factions unite stating that their BSD is not Linux
Hemos posts story on Nanotech: First +1 Funny goes to post regarding a Beowolf cluster of the devices
I mean, really, folks. There's no more brains behind The Onion anymore. I suggest you look for edgier, wittier, original humor and satire in the brilliant writing found at SatireWire or BBSpot.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
Hooray for LiveJournal!
Everybody seems to think of Blogger when they hear the term "online journal," but LJ has been a better experience for most users I've talked to. It's finally getting some press, and recognition as a write-in for the Peoples Voice awards.
± 29 dB
They're still trying to close all the pop-up windows.
Since the original post was so nice to not actually link to the awards, here it is: http://www.webbyawards.com/main/.
Shakedown? I can only assume the writer meant "shakeout".
And yes, it did really irritate me just enough to write this reply.
-Steve
Democracy is a poor substitute for liberty.
Someone else that noticed that the category "sex" only occured in the 1997 list? On the other hand there are more categorys now. Does this mean that the internet isn't about sex anymore?
Liza
These opinions are my own. My employer is not aware of them, does not endorse them, and is not responsible for them.
Am I the only one who couldn't find among the nominees a single site which didn't exist anymore? Can anyone give examples?
/. as "Slashdot.com". You'd think handing out awards for websites they would use the more "proper" Slashdot address.
Also, they list
By the way, it took me a minute and a half to locate the list of nominees. Unacceptable for a site which is supposed to know something about web design.
icqqm [ICQ:11952102]
Someone should draft the "Darwin Web Awards" for those sites that we are happy to see leave the web gene pool.
--
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
Let's not forget the other notable exception. Their "best practices" winner is (deservedly so, IMO) Google. Among other things, the front page of Google is only 1918 bytes (lynx -dump -source http://google.com/ | wc --bytes), contains a single 305x118 GIF (with the appropriate height and width tags so that the page renders even before its started loading), and advanced search features are immediately on-hand when necessary but not required to get meaningful results.
He didn't say he had a cat, he said he bought cat litter... ;-)
It's not quite the same thing
Napster was (note the use of the past tense...) certainly more a web inspired technology than a website. But then again, who says the webby awards are not for web inspited technologies?
Look at all the protocols used on the net. HTTP is just one. Are the awards reserved for content distributed via HTTP? Why? would that be fair? Where do you draw the line
--CTH
--
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
So they are gone AND forgotten, so what? The last two years are our "throw everything on the Web and see what stick" period. Try bringing up "Tech Stocks" in a dinner conversation :-0
Another interesting things is that most dot.gones are from the US, this provides a pretty good (and free) lessons to countries where e-commerces are just getting popular. Lessons learned, so lets move on.
====
Codeala - Just another mindless drone
- Dan I.
It gives me a bit of insight into why ecommerce is such a bust. To get exposure, a sight has to be almost unusable. Then it hurts in the pocketbook to maintain it, and customers won't touch it.
Even Slashdot wants to hide some things
the last few months may be showing us what the web is most useful for
Even though MIMO's in the doldrums and Life Serial is no more, at least there are some useful things still online...
If you were agoraphobic, you'd be home now
Technical Achievement
Microsoft Windows Update
windowsupdate.microsoft.com
Now I know they are biased. There are thousands of sites with more technological achievement. Like slashcode or even my site, Spatial Disruption uses more technology. I use perl, C, C++, and Apache to make my game work. All errors are logged and emailed to me. Bugs are fixed within a week of me finding them out. I'd like to see microsoft do that. (ok, ok, I only have a thousand players, but it's like a mini-game)
D/\ Gooberguy
Karma: Meh (Mostly from meh.)
was somewhat questionable. I mean, what do they base their decisions on? There are plenty of more useFUL and useABLE websites out there...and quite a few of them are much more than just the over-the-top designs that many of the winners have fallen victim to. Take the Requiem for a Dream site for example...very nice looking, but slow to load, and TOTALLY USELESS.
And please don't tell me that the good websites are just too hard to find. They managed to dig up Peter Pan's home page (retarded at best), so I'm sure they can dig up anything they want.