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Ghost Sites 15
----- GHOST SITES #15 [April 27, 1998]
----- by Steve Baldwin
(steve_baldwin@hotmail.com)
As many of you will notice, this month's issue of Ghost Sites is a bit
late, and we apologize for the delay. The fact is that our skeleton
crew has been working hard on this nasty Year 2000 Bug Problem, which
you're probably aware of. If you're not, you should get up to speed -
if this Y2K problem isn't corrected soon, it's going to create a lot of
Ghost Sites, because it's doubtful that many people are going to waste
precious watts from their portable generators just to keep their web
pages updated.
On a happier note, we received word this week that MSNBC has proudly
launched a feature titled "Web of the Living Dead" , which as far as we
can tell is an attempt by Microsoft to "embrace and extend" the Ghost
Sites concept so that people will think they can get rid of old sites by
simply upgrading to Windows98.
We're especially grateful for the links in Bob Sullivan's story
(although none of them were to Ghost Sites).
*---- CONSERVATIVE GENERATIONX ----*
----- https://www.cgx.com/
This ambitious political web 'zine seems to have tanked in October of
1997, leaving the CGX site with a serious case of bit rot. If you click
on several of the articles on the right side of CGX's front page
(including "The Completely Incomplete History of the Meaning of
Generation X" and "Yet I Am a Conservative", you'll be transported to a
"free software download page" of commonwealth.riddler.com - an
apolitical content mega site. Clicking elsewhere will get you some
conservative content from 1995 through 1997, but nothing newer (or
younger).
Ghost Sites agrees with the CGX authors that GenerationX isn't a "whiny
generation of slackers" (frankly, we think they don't whine enough, and
we think they work much too hard for their own good). It's a shame that
a small crew of them couldn't be mobilized to give CGX a badly needed
HTML facelift.
Related URLs:
http://www.gadgetboy.com/
http://www.awa.com/w2/
http://www.awa.com/library.html
[4 GHOSTIES] Site is Dead, Shows Advanced Decay
*---- THE GALLERY OF ADVERTISING PARODY ----*
---- http://www.dnai.com/~sharrow/parody.html
This site had everything going for it - an unbeatably clever idea (poke
fun at advertisements we're all sick of), numerous site awards, and even
a rave review in the New Yorker Magazine. And yet GAP's last update was
in April, 1997. What went wrong? Did the "smirk market" crash? Or
was this site just a "one-shot"?
We reached out to Criag Sharrow of Sharrow Advertising and Marketing -
the folks who built the Gallery, and Sue Ream quickly responded with a
detailed set of reasons for GAP's inactivity:
We got tired
We got bored
Suddenly there were 125,000,000 other sites for people to visit
The thrill was gone
We'd proven we could create a killer circa 1994-5 site
We didn't have time to learn Java
Everyone was hanging out at www.jennicam.org
The cost to benefit ratio was severely out-of-balance
It was entertaining to everyone but paying customers
We moved on to other things
The website generated interest, calls from headhunters looking for
people, businesses looking for free advice, other consultants looking
for jobs, in fact everything but paying new business prospects.
Ream points out that the GAP site actually warns its patrons that its
content is "legacy siteware" - a thoughtful disclaimer that more sites
should employ as they begin their slow decline into digital museum
pieces. ("Legacy Siteware" is also one of them best euphemisms I've
heard in years.)
I can't argue with Ream's reasoning, but still think it's a real shame
that GAP isn't alive and kicking, to take on the sinister nemesis we all
face everyday: Web banner ads (such as the one on the top of this page).
[3 GHOSTIES] Site is Dead, but Well-Preserved
*---- CENSORWARE SEARCH ENGINE 2.0 ----*
----- http://pathfinder.com/netly/spoofcentral/censored/index.html
My buddies at the Netly News created quite a stir when they launched the
Censorware Search Engine back in 1997. This handy tool was designed to
let site owners find out if their sites were being blocked by filtering
software such as CyberSitter.
The Censorware Search Engine was Netly at its finest: two-fisted,
subversive, and a little over the top - guerilla journalism that
transcended Time Inc's penchant for simply "repurposing" content onto
the Net.
Unfortunately, Netly's Censorware engine has fallen badly behind the
times - although it's excellent at telling you which sites were blocked
a year ago, it can't say much about the sites that Cybersitter is
blocking now (censorware uses frequent updates to its "blacklists" to
remain effective).
[5 GHOSTIES] Site is Stuffed, Embalmed, and Ready for Internet Museum
*---- THE NEW MIRSKY.COM ----*
----- http://mirsky.com/
Mirsky was, and is, one of the funniest people on the Net, and it's a
real shame that his "new" site is no longer being updated. If you
don't know who I'm talking about, Mirsky was the mastermind behind the
"Worst of the Web" (WOW) awards, which pioneered web criticism with its
"take no prisoners" approach to sites which, in Mirsky's view, didn't
make the cut. WOW got Mirsky a lot of press (and a lot of enemies), but
he dropped the project back in late '96 - it just wasn't paying the
bills, and he removed all traces of WOW from cyberspace.
Although Mirsky.Com is dead, quite a good dollop of Mirsky's wit
survives on these crusty pages: witness his classic Drunk Browsing Test
and his surreal "MirskSoft" product page of ridiculous high-tech gizmos.
We consider Mirsky to be a "content canary in the coalmine". If the Net
can't find a way to support this kind of subversive hilarity, then we
all deserve the robotic product catalog future which seems to be in
store. We talk with Mirsky from time to time, and know that he's
looking for work - anybody looking for the next Lenny Bruce?
Related URLs:
http://turnpike.net/~mirsky/drunk/
http://www.mirsky.com/wow/mirsksoft/
[3 GHOSTIES] Site is Dead, but Well-Preserved
*---- ROB'S MULTIMEDIA LAB ----*
----- http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/rml/Time/Gifs/Ships/Titanic
What a cruel Web we weave. If Rob's Multimedia Lab - whose multimedia
library included a compendium of images of the H.M.S. Titanic - had hung
on just another 6 months, it would have been flooded with users seeking
images of the ill-fated ship. But Rob's site, which had steamed along
happily since July of 1993, gashed its own hull when the University of
Illinois decided that Rob's site was attracting too much usage (up to 10
gigabytes a day), and summarily evicted the Lab from its servers.
We seem to have a very ugly situation on the Web these days - Big Media
is shutting down sites because they can't attract enough traffic - with
Big Academe doing the same because sites are too popular. Maybe it's
time for the government to start handing out bandwidth ration cards
(sorry folks, I've been reading way too much about this damned Y2K
thing).
[5 GHOSTIES] Site is Stuffed, Embalmed, and Ready for Internet Museum
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The website edition includes images, a nice design, and all the latest
news about Ghost Sites. Go there to read the latest:
http://www.disobey.com/ghostsites/
Copyright 1996-1999 Steve Baldwin Associates.
Webdesign, hosting and publication by Disobey.
http://www.disobey.com/
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