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Ghost Sites 36
----- GHOST SITES #36 [April 6, 2000]
----- by Steve Baldwin
(steve_baldwin@hotmail.com)
Welcome back to Ghost Sites of the Web: your own maddeningly
Quixote-like guide to all things dead and mouldering in Cyberspace.
Sorry about failing to publish in March, folks - I feel very badly about
missing an issue because it makes me feel very hypocritical - like "the
pot calling the kettle black".So I apologize (and thanks for continuing
to send those Ghost-O-Meter tips in - they make this month's issue
possible!)
Enough apologizing - on to the bitrot! This month, we've got a truly
scary crop of computer-generated HTML flotsam that comes to you directly
from the very dregs of Hell's Hard Drive!
*---- GARYNORTH.COM ----*
----- http://www.garynorth.com/
In the late 1990's and leading up to the Doomsday Date of 01/01/00, Gary
North was one of the Net's most visible Y2K zealots. So it's more than a
little disturbing to see his widely-known site, GaryNorth.com, fall into
disuse a few months after civilization didn't collapse.
Take a look at the site's once-busy Links and Forums Area - the newest
messages date from early February, 2000, and so do North's "Latest
Links" to Y2K documents.
It's difficult to prophesize what will happen to North's site now that
its essential purpose has been served, We can only hope that it won't be
unceremoniously deleted or destroyed -- no other Web site provides such
a complete dose of the white-knuckled fear that gripped the world last
year, when we all braced for the Y2K Apocalypse.
Thanks to NABind for this Dead Site Report.
Related URLs:
http://www.garynorth.com/y2k/search_.cfm
http://www.garynorth.com/y2k/latest_.cfm
[2 GHOSTIES] Site is Dying in I.C.U.
*---- AEROFLOT ----*
----- http://www.aeroflot.com/
Two readers recently sent in news that an alarmingly conspicuous layer
of rust seems to have accumulated on the formerly pristine
cyber-fuselage of Aeroflot.
Although Aeroflot's home page appears to be current and Web-ready, the
mysterious corrosion manifests itself in the site's Scheduling Area.
Here, a prominent notice warns that:
Flight Schedule (is) valid through October 24th, 1998.
Naturally, the mere fact that an airline's Web site maintenance
practices might fall below par doesn't necessarily imply that anything's
wrong with the airline's maintenance practices elsewhere.
However an oversight like this doesn't exactly make Aeroflot look
particularly forward-thinking either.
Related URLs:
http://www.aeroflot.com/search/index.html
[3 GHOSTIES] Site is Dead, But Well-Preserved
*---- COMING SOON MAGAZINE ----*
----- http://www.csoon.com/
According to Coming Soon's Information Page, this game-oriented e-zine
began its long Web's Journey into Night back in 1993.
Beginning as a monthly zip file containing electronic game previews,
tips and reviews, Coming Soon later morphed into a CompuServe Forum and
finally, a Web site, Along the way it garnered a nice handful of Web
awards, and the future must have looked very bright indeed.
But then something went awry, and the result is a Ghost Site whose
content was last updated in January of 1999.
Coming Soon's slow degeneration into phantom-dom seems to have driven
several of its hard-core game audience to the depths of despair, and a
few of their posts on the site's Guest Book Area drip with more anguish
than a Greek Chorus:
June 29, 1999
Topic: hey its June 99
So it's june 1999 now and I just want to know what is coming soon.
How often do you update this thing? Oh look I can read about the E3
show of 1997. OH how wonderful. I can read about all the games I
didn't want to play 2 years ago. This just sucks. You didn't even
rate all the 3DO games.
Another significantly more strident post appeared four months later:
Date: October 25, 1999
Topic: Update your stuff!!!
You need to update dude! Nightmare creatures has been out for a few
years and you have the review on it as new? Come on, you don't even
have review on Resident Evil 1. Get it together!!
Thanks to DavidLong for informing us of Coming Soon's spectral fate.
Related URLs:
http://www.csoon.com/awards.htm
http://www.csoon.com/guestbook/index.html
[4 GHOSTIES] Site is Dead, Shows Advanced Decay
*---- DOO-WA-ZOO ----*
----- http://www.doowazoo.com/
If your musical tastes range to Manhattan Transfer, Bobby McFerrin, or
the Andrews Sisters, you might enjoy Doo-Wa-Zoo, a five-member vocal
group that performs in the acapella style.
Doo-Wa-Zoo's Web site, however, hits a shatteringly sour note, because
it's more than seventeen months out of date. The fact that this site is
badly under-maintained is especially evident on the band's "Upcoming
Appearances" page, where the only performances listed are two from
mid-1998. The site's Guestbook Area, on the other hand, is a bit
livelier, and contains a few messages date from January, 2000.
Any band, even one without instruments, deserves a better Web site than
this one.
Thanks to masony for sending us this tip.
Related URLs:
http://www.doowazoo.com/Appear.html
http://www.doowazoo.com/guestpost/guestbook.html
[4 GHOSTIES] Site is Dead, Shows Advanced Decay
*---- SELECTBUY.COM ----*
----- http://www.selectbuy.com/
We suffer from the infirmity of not being able to read Dutch, so it's
impossible to say anything very profound about the peculiar rise and
fall of SelectBuy.com, an e-commerce site based in the Netherlands.
From the pieces we can put together, the site seems to have been built
to support a credit card of the same name. Because the site bears a 1996
date stamp throughout, we feel safe in declaring it completely defunct.
Farewell, SelectBuy.com. We'd like to think that your commercial
purpose, however obscure, has been served, and that your sleep will be
untroubled until the day when all Cyber Phantoms are called home.
Thanks to wfd, in the Netherlands, for this Ghost Site Tip.
Related URLs:
http://www.selectbuy.com/selectbuy/thecard.html
[3 GHOSTIES] Site is Dead, But Well-Preserved
*---- GAMEXPERIENCE ----*
----- http://www.gamex.com/
GamExperience, a somewhat under-designed site that billed itself as "The
Source for the World's Video Gaming Needs", has been lying undisturbed
since April 23, 1997 - an eternity of time in the fast-changing world of
video games. Much of the site's material, including its 3DO and PC Games
Sections, is much older, and dates from early 1996.
We don't know what caused GamExperience to degenerate from a lively site
into a Haunted Arcade. Could it be that keeping up with all that wacky
Gaming News is too much for an ordinary mortal to bear?
Thank you, gtkev, for this Ghost Site Tip, submitted through the
Ghost-O-Meter.
Related URLs:
http://www.gamex.com/3do/n3do.htm
http://www.gamex.com/pccd/npccd.htm
[3 GHOSTIES] Site is Dead, But Well-Preserved
*---- THE BLIP ----*
----- http://www.theblip.com/
Ghost Sites Correspondent Flatlander asserts that The Blip - a site
billing itself as an "Internet Playground" -- now numbers itself among
the dead, and our investigations support his claim. The copyright notice
on its home page is from 1997, and other notices from 1997 litter the
site's other areas. The site's Shockwave-powered Space Weather
Application also appears to link to a defunct page on a government site.
The Blip's collection of Shockwave games, however, generally continues
to function as well as the day it was uploaded three or four years ago,
and the site's ad banners appear to be active (which is very eerie).
Related URLs:
http://www.theblip.com/luddite/index.html
http://www.theblip.com/weather/index.html
[3 GHOSTIES] Site is Dead, But Well-Preserved
*---- WEBVOODOO'S WEB DESIGN CLINIC ----*
----- http://www.webdesignclinic.com/
WebVoodoo's Design Clinic hasn't updated its "New Links" page since
August of 1999, which in our judgement significantly reduces its value
relative to other, fresher guides to Web site design resources.
Even though there's a thick coat of rust on the Design Clinic, it's
still got some good links that work - check out its guide to Free Web
Art if you're thinking of freshening up your supply of JPEGs and GIFs on
the cheap.
Thanks to FrostFlower for this Ghost Sites tip.
Related URLs:
http://www.webdesignclinic.com/New/
http://www.webdesignclinic.com/Graphics/
[3 GHOSTIES] Site is Dead, But Well-Preserved
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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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