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Ghost Sites 14
----- GHOST SITES #14 [March 25, 1998]
----- by Steve Baldwin
(steve_baldwin@hotmail.com)
Well friends, it's been a rough month. Web sites have been dropping
like flies, and mainstream press obituaries of Word, Charged, Total New
York, Spanker, and Ada Web have been piling up everywhere. The once
proud Slate and Salon sites are desperately shuttering themselves inside
subscription bunkers. Even the New York Post is screaming "It's Curtains
for the Quirky!"
Does Ghost Sites have any golden words to add to the media's
handwringing over the Great March Massacre? Is the party really over for
content, quirkiness, and whimsicality?
I'll tell you a little secret - the party has been over for two years
now. The only people left producing content on the Web are cults, gun
nuts, and Christmas fanatics. Everybody else (except John Perry Barlow)
has abandoned their pipe dreams of making a mint on the Net and has gone
back to their jobs at insurance companies, Swiss banks, and bar-code
vendors. Is that so bad?
Let's pull ourselves together, people, and get a grip. Somehow or
other, we'll survive this awful event, learn to live in a Slate-less
world, and piece our lives back together.
Never look back, people. There, there is only death (and a whole
hatchery full of amazingly half-cocked business plans).
*---- DOWNTOWN ANYWHERE ----*
----- https://www.awa.com/
The great March Massacre handed the mainstream press a great excuse to
obsess on the "web content is dead" theme, but the pundits are all
missing the real story: the Great Net Depression is beginning to settle
in at commerce sites - witness the hard times which have befallen
Downtown Anywhere ("the virtual city with a real economy") - a site that
was among the first to dabble in the electronic storefront metaphor.
Downtown Anywhere's main editorial features, GadgetBoy and Webster's
Weekly have fallen many months behind the times, its Library/News Page
links to a gaggle of outdated URLs, and most of its pages bear
"Copyright 1996" notices. Several of the site's commercial storefronts
have closed or moved out to their own domains, leaving a lonely handful
of coffee, novelty, and catalog vendors to carry on in a virtual Ghost
Mall.
Take a good look at the tumbleweed blowing across the streets of this
once bustling frontier town. And ask yourself this: are the towering
chrome and steel fortifications of Amazon.Com sturdy enough to withstand
the bitter whirlwind to come?
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 FIREARMS AND LIBERTY PAGE ----*
----- http://www.shadeslanding.com/firearms/
How can America's sacred RKBA (the Right to Keep and Bear Arms) be
protected by a badly broken web site whose pockmarked Alert! page is six
months out of date? Whose page of "recent additions" dates from late
1995? Whose RKBA link page is shot full of holes?
True, the Constitution protects the fundamental right of ordinary
Americans to carry unconcealed, unlicensed dead web pages on their
servers. But even the greenest Minnesota Militia recruit knows how
dangerous firearms can become when mildew invades the birdshot and
termites eat away at the rifle stock.
If the Founding Fathers could see this site, they might just take a shot
at it.
Related URLs:
http://www.shadeslanding.com/firearms/alert.html
http://www.shadeslanding.com/firearms/recent.html
http://www.shadeslanding.com/firearms/rkba.links.html
[4 GHOSTIES] Site is Dead, Shows Advanced Decay
*---- TANGLEWOOD ----*
----- http://www.ultranet.com/~isite/twood/twood.html
If you're an East Coast high-culture type, you're familiar with
Tanglewood, an outdoor classical music festival that happens each summer
in the Berkshire mountains. Tanglewood is the rarefied place where the
bluestocking elite from New York and Boston converge each year (I'm
talking about old money here - not the crass Hamptons set.)
Unfortunately, Tanglewood's official web site is almost two years out of
date. You can read all about Seiji Ozawa's 60th birthday celebration,
Itzhak Perlman's 50th, and Yo-Yo Ma's 40th, but these gala celebrations
all happened back in 1995, and aren't much help in planning your trip to
Tanglewood '98.
Don't you just hate the rich? They lavish their megabucks on Andre
Previn and John Williams but won't come up with five hundred bucks to
maintain their web sites. Maybe that's their way of keeping rabble like
you and me away from the party.
[5 GHOSTIES] Site is Stuffed, Embalmed, and Ready for Internet Museum
*---- BRIAN'S CHRISTMAS WORLD ----*
----- http://www.worldlynx.net/brian/
The spirit of Christmas is a wonderful thing, but isn't celebrating it
365 days a year a form of seasonal affect disorder? Doesn't there comes
a time when all those fragile tree decorations, the Lionel train set,
and the plastic mistletoe have to come down?
Not on the Web, where Brian's Christmas World continues to play an
endless MIDI loop of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas", "Christmas with
the Chipmunks", and other maddening holiday tunes. Brian even provides
a Christmas Countdown to tick off the breathless hours till Santa's
arrival (Note: this counter is now showing negative numbers).
A site like this can truly twist your mind. Like some evil strain of
Aldous Huxley's Soma, the Web is now letting us experience anything we
want - any time we want - including our most sacred holiday rituals.
After listening to the brainwashing strains of the Chipmunk's Christmas
MIDI loop for a few hours, I've decided that I can't resist this
fanatical holiday spirit any longer - in fact I love Christmas so much
that I'm going to make Brian's Christmas World my new "Start" Page.
While the rest of you are out mowing the lawns, doing spring cleaning,
or sunning at the beach, I'll be right here at my PC, watching the
Christmas Counter, studying Rudolf Cookie recipes, and waiting for Santa
to arrive.
May God Bless us all!
Related URLs:
http://www.worldlynx.net/brian/explorer/chipmunks.html
http://www.worldlynx.net/brian/carols/hollyjolly.html
http://www.worldlynx.net/brian/explorer/daystil.html
[5 GHOSTIES] Site is Stuffed, Embalmed, and Ready for Internet Museum
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Copyright 1996-1999 Steve Baldwin Associates.
Webdesign, hosting and publication by Disobey.
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