Welcome to this week's selection of Picks, where we've been asking ourselves one simple question: what makes a great web site? Obviously, it's not a black or white issue. A panoply of nuances, subtleties, shades, twists, and other cool artsy terms come into play. However, after hours of exhaustive research we've managed to isolate a few key factors...
1. Kids and Dogs
Our latest research indicates that highly effective web sites share a proclivity for pictures of dogs and kids. Take Bogart, the jovial bomb-sniffing golden retriever at the CIA Kids Page. Bo invites all the young pups out there to find out about our nation's premiere foreign intelligence agency. Kids can take geography quizzes, try on fun disguises, and learn new terms like "data dissemination" and "congressional oversight." Curious youngsters can also join Harry Recon the Ace Photo Pigeon on a quick fly-by-night tour of the facilities at Langley. See for yourself!
2. Links Links Links
As management recently noted in a meeting that required a large room, "A good web site simply must have links!" For more on this see Travelog.net, the link-ridden effort of one John F. X. Berns, world traveler, backpacker, self-proclaimed Internet geek. About a year ago, at age 35, John quit his job and bought a one-way ticket to Southeast Asia. He has been enjoying himself "out there" ever since. With engaging text, interesting photos, and regular updates, the site lets you live vicariously through the intrepid adventures of a bona fide globe trotter. But we all know the real reason it's great -- links. Lot's of them.
3. Block Rockin' Beats
One significant trend we've noticed, across all the commercial markets, is that highly effective web sites tend to shake their boogie thang in a most muthafunkadelic fashion. Consider the booyah bass n' rhythm of Sound System 7X7, a truly tub thumping Shockwave-enhanced music site that will have you scratching, mixing, and maxing within minutes. Choose between a number of mixing rooms (House, Jungle, etc.), then create your own tunes by adding drum fills, bass runs, ambient drones, and other tasty musical morsels. You're the DJ, and the DJ is in the house, and the house is in your neighborhood, so there you are.
4. Chumbawumba
Hard as this is to believe, at one time or another every effective web site makes some sort of gratuitous reference to British pop band du jour, Chumbawumba. At kissthisguy.com, a sometimes hilarious archive of misheard lyrics, the important moment comes when a fan admits to once thinking that the group's infectious lyric "I get knocked down but I get up again" was in fact "I got no job but I'm an opera fan." Ah, yes. The site's title comes from everyone's favorite misheard lyric involving a Jimi Hendrix tune. You can also submit your own and tell the story surrounding your surprise when...wait. We've got to go. The radio's playing our favorite song, "Chocolate Chip City" by David Bowie.
5. Teeth
Yes, that's right. Teeth. And we're not talking the figurative, wishy-washy meaning as in "that lawsuit really has some teeth." No, we mean chompers. Pearly whites. Canines. Incisors. Molars. Case in point: Arianna Huffington Online, the Net repository for everyone's favorite right-wing wit. Sure, we might have given the nod to the site for it's expansive coverage of Arianna's life, work, and public appearances. We could have singled it out for its clean design and frequent updates. But let's face it, the reason we selected Arianna is simply that she has nice teeth and she's not afraid to show 'em.
6. Squiggly Lines
Everybody loves doodling. This probably explains why people gravitate to web sites that offer cool "pen and ink" graphics. Say SYMBOLS.com, for instance. Here's an encyclopedia of "western non-pictoral ideograms," searchable by word or image, that accompanies each written entry with a nifty little representation of the featured symbol. For veteran envelope-scribblers like ourselves, this is manna from heaven. We've taken great inspiration from several of the collection's entries, most notably the asterisk, the big X, and the ever-popular one-legged devil-monkey. In fact we are so excited by SYMBOLS.com that we are planning an entire exhibition of our recent work with white-board markers and cocktail napkins. Look for it soon....
7. Cash Money
Finally, the bottom line on good web sites is this: do you walk away from the experience with more X than you brought into it? Of course, most people would replace the X with words like "knowledge" or "wisdom" or "kinky pick-up lines." Not us. We're looking for cold, hard, American dinero. And that's why, when we heard that the folks at the GVU 9th User Survey were giving away rectangular green pictures of Benjamin Franklin to random participants, we didn't hesistate to skedaddle on down and fill out a couple of questionnaires. Here's a good rule of thumb: insightful commentary, comprehensive information, and eye-catching graphics are nice, but they don't pay the tab at Louie's on Saturday night. So give till it hurts, capiche?
So what is a truly effective web site? The recently revamped Christian Science Monitor, featuring breaking headlines and free email updates. We also hear it's got kids, links, beats, Chumbawumba, teeth, squiggles, and money. So take our advice. And please, take your pick(s).