[9:15 pm]
::: More on the Nike ad: This morning David Gallagher claimed to have invented the rejected Nike ad in our Ad Graveyard. This evening, Matt Deckard informed us that Saturday Night Live ran a similar sketch on 12 April 1997, starring Will Ferril as the doomed cult leader. SNL attributed the cult group suicide to Keds sneakers, but scored the sketch with the Beatles' "Revolution," a song associated with the Nike brand. Gallagher's ad preceded the SNL sketch by nearly two weeks.
::: More on web standards: The National Post quotes The Web Standards Project in an article examining Microsoft's business practices. In the past three weeks, we've devoted at least 30 hours to interviews on web standards, IE5.5, IE5/Mac, and Gecko. We haven't mentioned it in these pages, because it was getting to be like a broken record. (Kids: records were the things before CDs, and they used to sometimes get stuck on a groove and repeat the same stuff over and over.)
For the record (as it were), The Web Standards Project has no opinion on Microsoft's - or any other company's - business practices. We just want all browsers to support common standards.
[11:40 am]
Bad taste has a thousand fathers: David Gallagher writes about the rejected Nike ad in our Ad Graveyard: "Dan Leadbetter may have pitched the ad to Nike, but I came up with it first." Gallagher's version is available at slip.net, and there's a 1997 Netly News story by Noah Robischon to provide context. So did Leadbetter copy Gallagher's parody ad, or did he come up with the idea on his own, while toiling on the Nike account? Hell if we know. People die in a senseless tragedy, and creative folks quibble over who cracked the first joke.
[3 am]
Idiotic article title of the month: Web Content Won't Always Be Free. Uh, guys, yes it will. It will always be free. Why do people who don't use or create the web get paid to write articles about it? Why do people who don't love or understand the web get put in charge of content-oriented startup companies? Hell if we know. (Hat tip: Captain Cursor.) ::: Many sites help designers and programmers learn to build the web, but Webmonkey is probably top banana of the bunch. Erika Meyer raises questions about the 'monkey in an article on evolt.org. Meanwhile, back at the 'monkey, mighty Steven Champeon foams about cross-browser scripting.
29 April, 2000
[9 pm]
A leading developer of "convergence" sites has trouble counting. Visit extend.com with IE5/Mac and Flash installed, and you'll be told you need a 4.0 or higher browser with Flash installed. Sad.
Meanwhile, it looks like the new media job market is getting bizarre. Consider this secretarial position requiring knowledge of cross-browser DHTML. Hmm. So maybe the janitor is to blame for the faulty browser detection script at extend.com.
::: We've added more words and pictures to our coverage of the Cool Site of the Year awards. Please enjoy responsibly.
::: Finally finished judging the last of the 5k Awards finalists. We hope the other judges have less love in their hearts than we do. We were awed by, and gave high marks to, almost everything.
::: Dave Winer tracked down the likely truth about yesterday's bizarre announcement of a coalition for new web standards. Apparently the manufacturers involved are attempting to gain control of Java. The ZDnet article's references to http, HTML, and other existing web standards seem to have been an error. That was an awkward summary, but we're going with it.
[5 am]
Zeldman.com semi-proudly presents: Web-ster's Haul: Notes on the Fifth Annual Cool Site of the Year Awards. Part One of Two.
28 April, 2000
[5:30 pm]
New Web Standards? According to a brief and cryptic news flash, IBM, Intel, and other big players are forming a consortium to develop their very own web standards. As in: not HTTP, not HTML, not XML, not Java. Not invited to the party: Microsoft, Netscape, Sun, or Apple. Most noticeably absent: the W3C. Whassup with that?
[1:30 pm]
Moment of Zen. ::: Some comments on Cool Site of the Year at Metafilter. ::: Send Heather a birthday card. She's earned it. ::: The frames-killing mission from God continues at A List Apart. About 10% of the old stories are now frames-free. We could reconfigure the whole site with a couple of GREP commands if we hadn't set up so many screwy interdependencies in the first place.
[1:30 am]
In this week's issue of A List Apart Magazine, for people who make websites: TIME TO CLOSE THE WEB? Focusing on presentation at the expense of content, and invasive money-making schemes at the expense of everything else, designers must take some of the blame for the trashing of the web. ALA's Alan Herrell wonders if it's time to call it a day and close up shop.
In other ALA news, we apologize for the delay in publishing the ALA mail digest. Our partners at Project Cool were recently acquired by DevX (congratulations, guys!), resulting in business and server issues we are still resolving.
::: In still other news: We're back from the Fifth Annual Cool Site of the Year Awards. For those who recall last year's festivities, this year was much better, thanks in part to host Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller fame, who wasted no time burning through the Awards ceremony. The Martian-headgear-wearing dotcom guy at left was one of hundreds of attendees. We'll have more to say about all this later.
27 April, 2000
[5:30 pm]
In a few minutes we will hit Webster Hall for the Cool Site of the Year Awards ceremony, mainly because our Ad Graveyard is up for an award. It doesn't deserve one, but whatever. Leigh will be joining us, so we have a friend to giggle with.
Our girlfriend Joan has spent this rainy day painting in her studio, like always. Painters don't get free cheese dip at awards shows, and they don't get daily emails telling them how great (or not) they are. They paint because the art is inside them and they have to let it out.
We admire that spirit. While connecting with a community is one of the joys of the web, it's also easy (at least for us) to become instant feedback junkies – and forget that the work is really all that matters.
This is just about us. No hidden messages to our friends who make websites. They all seem to have the right perspective. We've just gotta watch our own ass.
[3:30 am]
Enough already with the Roger Black bashing. The man is entitled to his opinions. We don't see the web as Roger sees it, but that's okay. It's a big web. Lots of room for diversity. (Isn't that one of the strengths of the web?)
We don't understand the fury over Blackian statements like, "There's hardly any good work on the Internet at all." Black is a commercial designer, and he's saying that most commercial sites suck. And they do. We think his comments have been misunderstood.
What bugs us most is watching otherwise smart people jump on the bandwagon and shrill their agreement that the Roger Black interview is the single most foul and offensive load ever dumped on the web. Come off it, guys.
There are far worse problems in the world and on the web than Roger Black's opinions and the fact that they upset someone you admire. Find a real issue. Think for yourselves.
