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How the Web Was Won

Subject: The horrors of ASCAP [was Re: Mismatch at Newslink] From: rothman@clark.net (David H. Rothman) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 1995 03:38:38 -0400

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>I think I've already seen enough complaints from people who get turned off
>by slow-moving, no-value graphics to consider your viewpoint a minority.
>Personalloy, I haven't seen any graphics yet that was as interesting as the
>text. Graphics on the web does not serve the same purpose as graphics on
>paper. Someday people will learn that.

Hear, hear, Don! You do need some graphics, but people overdo. To suffer one
of the worst sites on the Web, check out the horror from ASCAP
(http://www.visualradio.com/ascap/as0.htm). Even with my 28.8Kbps
connection, it took forever tonight to download the mostly black graphics;
the opening screens seemed to give me nothing more than equivalents of
simple menus. Notice the "visualradio" in the URL? I wish ASCAP would stick
to sound. As it happens, ASCP has a rep on the NII Advisory Council. I hope
she understands the Net better than her group's Web perp does.

I love the sites with lots of text squeezed in. Looking over the Nando Times
(http://www2.nando.net/newsroom/nt/nando.php), I get a *lot* of information
in a hurry. If word people can keep the designers under control, we'll all
be the better for it. Even Nando should give us less white space and still
more text. The old newspaper rules don't quite apply. TV movies offer
tighter shots than do theatrical movies, and not just for budgetary reasons;
the medium is different. Same's true here.

Perhaps after technology makes it possible for the average reader to *zip*
from page to page on the Web, we can really unleash the designers. But for
the moment, webmeister, please, spare those words unless you're doing a fun
site for the university crowd with fast connections!

-David 
    rothman@clark.net
            http://www.clark.net/pub/rothman/telhome.php
                   (yes--*lots* of text)

P.S. Apologies to ASCAP if somehow Net conditions are slowing things down.
But I still *hate* the idea of  pages with such little information.


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To: rothman@clark.net (David H. Rothman), online-news@marketplace.com