13th January, 1998

Pointless Web Sites

  What really ticks me off is pointless web sites. That's probably my number one peeve as far as the WWW's content goes. By pointless, I mean those which give you no information, and have no other redeeming value. These can be either personal homepages, or an organisation's.

  Companies who simply put up their logo, a phone number, address, and e-mail address, are by no means making full use of their net presence. Similarly, a fair percentage of personal pages out there contain just a graphic and maybe even an e-mail address. What's the point? Especially when such personal pages contain invitations to "e-mail me sometime" - what about? A lot of people viewing such a page would know next-to-nothing about the person in question, what could they possibly e-mail them about?

  One particular case comes to my mind, that of a personal home page which had a scrolling graphic at the top which said "Welcome", under which was the owner's e-mail address. This was then finished off with a recommendation that "this page is best viewed with NetScape". What's there to view?

  If you've made the effort of putting up a home page, why not put that bit more effort in so as to make it something interesting, which will make people want to come back to it or contact you and discuss further what you have talked about on your page. If you are stuck as to what to write about, may I suggest that apart from a few lines/paragraphs about things like where you live, where you're from, your favourite colour, etc, you write about things that interest you, such as your hobbies. Remember, whatever you choose to write about, you may well think it's a bit boring, but many different people use the Internet, and they may be very interested what you have to say.

Copyright � 13th January 1998.
Opinions expressed here are purely those of Adam Smolarczyk.