Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Ghost Sites 02
----- GHOST SITES #2 [August 8, 1996]
----- by Steve Baldwin
(steve_baldwin@hotmail.com)
Welcome to the second issue of GHOST SITES OF THE WEB -- your graveside
tour of abandoned web sites. I'd like to thank all who e-mailed me about
Ghost Sites you've found: These tips have really helped our skeleton
crew get out this new issue.
*---- THE OFFICIAL ROLLING STONES WEB SITE ----*
----- http://www.stones.com/
A year ago, yes, this site was a clear leader, and among the first to
promote streaming Java audio, Java games, and a rash of MBONE concerts.
People used to actually crowd around PC-equipped cubes to look at this
site! But now the Stones' famous tongue has turned gangrenous: The
band's newest tour schedule is ancient, the press releases are moldy,
and nothing else on this site appears to have changed since last
November. The wholesale neglect is particularly evident in the site's
interactive fiction area, where unrestrained idiocy now holds sway.
Can't Sun, or maybe Mick's manager, pull the plug on this thing? It's so
old that it makes the band seem young.
Related URLs:
http://www.stones.com/TourDates.html
http://www.stones.com/Press.html http://www.stones.com/fiction/
[4 GHOSTIES] Site is Dead, shows Advanced Decay
*---- MECKLERWEB ----*
----- http://www.mecklerweb.com/
Note: this link just points to a place holder -- read on to get the real
story on MecklerWeb
Remember this one? MecklerWeb was the Web's first truly epic business
fiasco, and the Byzantine reasons for its spectacular 1994 flameout are
beyond the scope of this humble survey. But MecklerWeb's simultaneous
launch/destruction set the precedent for other legendary site suicides
such as MCI/Delphi. MecklerWeb's original mega-site -- conceived as a
grandiose "Internet-based corporate communications and marketing system"
-- is of course, long gone, but what keeps it alive is the fact that one
of its visionary architects, Chris Locke, has thoughtfully preserved an
archive of founding documents, including the incredibly dense press
releases of MecklerWeb and its 26 high-tech partners. These documents,
and a postmortem by Locke himself, are required reading for anyone
attempting a serious history of business hubris on the WWW.
Related URLs:
http://www.panix.com/~clocke/press/mecklerweb.html
http://www.panix.com/~clocke/press.htm
http://www.panix.com/~clocke/finale.htm
[5 GHOSTIES] Site is Stuffed, Embalmed, and Ready for Internet Museum
*---- WOODSTOCK-94 ----*
----- http://metaverse.com/woodstock/index.html#live
If Woodstock-94 had had the misfortune of happening a year later -- in
1995 -- I'm sure that the whole Web would now be clotted with fan pages,
silly Woodstock e-zines, and rotting corporate sites devoted to the
event. Thankfully, the Web really hadn't developed into an efficient
huckstering tool when Woodstock-94 occurred, so the only official sites
that live on are a bunch of puny gray pages that are appallingly
amateurish. If you have any inclination to relive the silliness leading
up to this grand non-event concert, spend a few minutes with
Woodstock-94's breathless countdown pages. And thank your lucky stars
that you missed the whole muddy thing.
Related URLs:
http://metaverse.com/woodstock/countdown/pages.html#1
[3 GHOSTIES] Site is Dead, but Well-Preserved
*---- BOULDER WEEKLY ONLINE ----*
----- http://www.earthnet.net/~altnews/home.html
It might be too early to proclaim this lively local Colorado journal
dead, but missing eight weeks of updates doesn't bode well for any
weekly. For my money, the left-leaning Boulder Weekly Online didn't have
much to offer the world, although its earnest coverage of a local
supermarket strike showed some real progressive passion. But seeing a
one-person operation fail is always sadder than seeing an impersonal
monolith go down. (Special thanks to Chris Stamper, who monitors both
left and right-wing sites, for this tip).
Related URLs:
http://www.earthnet.net/~altnews/052396/kingsop.html
[3 GHOSTIES] Site is Dead, but Well-Preserved
*---- THE DEFUNCT WORLDWIDE PUBLISHING CONSORTIUM ----*
----- http://www.rt66.com/twl/WWPC.index.html
It's rare that a dead web site comes right out and says, "Hey, I'm in a
body bag!", but the Defunct WWPC site accepts its own death with a
jaunty smirk. If fate had only dealt this consortium a kinder hand, I'm
sure it would have made a fine standards-setting body -- the consortium
was dabbling with heady topics like Economics of Flourishing in an All
Digital World and The WWPC Experimental Digital Daily shortly before its
demise. This unfortunate site is laced with human pathos: check out
"Calendar of What Had Been Upcoming Events","What We Were Up To", and
"How You Could Have Joined". It's too bad that the project's sponsors,
which included Adobe, Agfa, Apple & Kodak, probably didn't shed any
tears when the body bag was zipped tight.
Related URLs:
http://www.rt66.com/twl/all.digital.world.html
http://www.rt66.com/wilt/Digital_Daily.html
[5 GHOSTIES] Site is Stuffed, Embalmed, and Ready for Internet Museum
*---- AFTERSHOCK: WHERE QUAKE AWAKES ----*
----- http://www.nuqneH.org/aftershock/
At the very peak of this summer's worldwide Quake fury, one of the most
intelligent private sites devoted to Quake news, hacks, and hints gave
up the ghost. Why? According to webmaster Joost Schuur, he torpedoed
Aftershock because updating the site meant spending "far too much time
in front of a computer." (Hey Joorst, isn't that what Quake is FOR?)
Schuur's decision to unplug Aftershock seems especially ill-timed in
light of the fact that a competing Quake site, the Quake Stomping
Grounds, recently started running commercial ads, a clear indication
that there are big bucks to be made running well-trafficked Quake sites.
Related URLs:
http://www.stomped.com/
[3 GHOSTIES] Site is Dead, but Well-Preserved
*---- WATERWORLD ----*
----- http://www.mca.com/universal_pictures/waterworld/index.html
It's probably unfair to expect that one of 1995's major film flops would
still be associated with an active web site, (although other 1995 duds,
such as Johnny Mnemonic, persist in the form of aging promo pages). But
it's still a bit chilling to see the warning "This Site Has Been
Archived" running below Kevin Costner's face like a building inspector's
condemnation notice. A bunch of high-priced people worked on this site:
If you're one of them, I've fished out the first page of the Waterworld
interactive adventure so that you can review your work, grieve, and move
on.
Related URLs:
http://www.sepc.sony.com/SEPC/AboutSEPC/Press/PressReleases/Johnny_Debut.HTML
http://www.digiplanet.com/universal_pictures/waterworld/phase1/one_intro.html
[5 GHOSTIES] Site is Stuffed, Embalmed, and Ready for Internet Museum
*---- TELECIRCUS SAN FRANCISCO ----*
----- http://www.well.com/user/tcircus/index.html
TeleCircus -- a "homegrown art circus and sideshow" hosted by The Well
-- is evidently an early interactive experiment that nobody had the
common sense to take down after it outlived its usefulness. This
graphics-rich site is as dead as a dodo -- even the copyright notices
are from 1994. Trying to escape TeleCircus by following its links out to
The San Francisco Digital Media Center doesn't help: the center's main
image map is broken (which is always a bad thing to have at a Digital
Media Center).
This is the kind of cute, information-poor, hypersmug site that deserves
to expire. Please resist the temptation to click on any of TeleCircus's
links: Perhaps the Well's webmasters will see their hits increase and
revive it!
Related URLs:
http://www.well.com/user/sfdmc/sfdmc.html
[3 GHOSTIES] Site is Dead, but Well-Preserved
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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/
TO SUBSCRIBE: majordomo@disobey.com BODY: Subscribe GhostSites
TO UNSUBSCRIBE: majordomo@disobey.com BODY: Unsubscribe GhostSites
------------------------------------------------------------------------
