29 December 1997
As an advertising medium, the web is seen as a second television. Businesses
know that the person seeing their ad is fairly intelligent, probably has some
money to spend, and is a captive audience. Most business web pages require
your browser to be top of the line so you can see their graphics, frames,
and things that require plug-ins. Banner ads are often flashy, animated
GIFS that draw your attention by tearing it away from whatever it was you
were there to see. The thing is, all of this works. I tend to choose a
company with a web page over a company without one when making buying
decisions, since, to me, the presence of a web page implies some knowledge
and desire to keep up with the technology that I value. I still refuse to
click on banner ads, though.
The rise of the personal web page shows that the web is an arena in which
everyone is an equal. Large corporations stand next to Dave's Page Of Jooky
Links (I made that up). People who may have been intimidated by the press
can now start webzines, rant pages, or seemingly pointless pages such as
the one you're reading. The web is the equivalent of Public Access Cable TV,
pirate radio, and underground publication rolled into one. I'm all for it.
However much the web may seem to be taken over by business and individuals,
though, the truth remains that the web is an ideal method of transferring
large amounts of information to the public. While I may have an inflated
view of the popularity of this internet stuff in the general population,
I still believe that, if someone is looking for information, the web should
be the place to find it. In this way, it is like a reference library, only
it's easier to use. Reference libraries don't have search engines that can
look through the body of books for one particular phrase, or give you an
idea of what inidividual people's opinions of a topic are. The problem with
the web is that there is far too much stuff out there. If I were to do a search
on anything (using my search engine of choice, Alta
Vista) I would get a huge amount of irrelevant sites back. This fact
paves the way for indices like Yahoo and
specific search resources like Ask Jeeves.
It also clears a path for pages like my own Dirt
and my Saratoga Page.
It is important for this information to reach the people who are looking for it,
but too often the good, informative web sites get lost in the mayhem of everything
else.
For this reason, I will not be adding any content to the web. It has gotten
so far out of hand that the most anyone can do is try to keep up, and attempt
to make the place easier for other people to use. That said, go on to
My Pages.
It is my opinion that there is too much content on the web. The way I see it,
the web is split into a few parts: businesses (including schools and
universities), individual people, and pure information (which can also
include schools and universities).