The Web can be compared to other maturing and evolving markets...
> the kindest thing anyone can possibly say about him without inventing
> a new way to spell 'reality' is that he successfully identified a
> rhetoric which would appeal both to pinhead marketing executives who
> wouldn't know well-organized content if it bit them in the ass, and to
> the bottom dwellers of the graphic design field, who not only know
> less about content, but abhor the thought of any member of the
His sites appeal to Ego. It is a valid class of market, one that I
don't happen to specialize in; but one that is nevertheless applicable
when one is playing corporate promotional games. (Till the bean counters
get a hold of your server logs.)
High visual sites like his are very much worth while in the travel
and entertainment markets, and to a limited extent, the advertising agency
market, charity donation market, as well as the richer end of the vanity
press market.
On the other hand... Working folks looking for specifics, want to
FIND the RIGHT page that has what they are looking for. IMAGES DON'T
INDEX! And the folks selling things want to get found. IMAGES DON'T
INDEX! So a lot of his games with headers as the right fonts as GIF
files, super advanced graphics that can't be downloaded except on a T3
connection, etc., are just plain unworkable in a non-ego driven market.
One has to play word and phrase games to optimize indexing so as to
attract BUYERS, not surfers.
Early cars were expensive, driven by people who wanted to be seen as
wealthy. They had fantastic chrome and gold emblems, elaborate
flowing/draping metal bodies, etc. The Wealthy EGO market. And then,
people use to go for Sunday Drives, etc.
Today, we drive econobox tools. Farvignugent is a myth most can't
afford. We go places to get to places, not to drive. THis is a different
level of market maturity. Everyone has one, so how well does it do what
you want it to do, vs the cost?
Basically, I think he ran out of wealthy ego clients in a diminishing
ego driven market segment. He and a lot of others saw it.
> > >With his 1996 book "Creating Killer Web Sites" he declared HTML's
> > >transformation from a structural language to a presentation language.
> for once and for all: HTML is not now, nor has it ever been, a
> presentation language. the single, central, one-and-only, most
> important thing a presentation language offers is a clear and
> unambiguous means of describing the display space, and HTML DON'T GOT
> THAT.
It IS an approximal presentation language, no matter how you slice
it. It is used to present information in a general categorical and
customary manner. Given the relative commonness of the variants of
display, you can approximately organize information for reasonable
presentation; and should. Spending beyond some budgetary reasonable amount
to do so is not wise. Viewers can adjust their displays to suit the
information, and... CGI driven sites CAN adjust the PRESENTATION to suit
the user's hardware TO SOME EXTENT. In most cases, that is not
economically sound IN THIS MARKET.
As the auto market became more tool oriented, it became obvious to
the manufacturers, that it was useful to be able to use the auto during
rain storms. Windshield wipers, roofs, and similar things were soon
developed.
As the web market matures, it will become more and more obvious to
the site owners, that they need to accommodate multiple presentation
technologies, and they will start demanding, and using information about
the user's display resolution and size, and serve up variants optimized
towards their display.
> there is nothing in HTML that allows a designer to assign any kind of
> normed metric, spatial or otherwise, to a document's display space.
Not correct. Pixel specifications in tables and images can be used to
do this WHEN one has reason to expect specific display types. Yes, the
user can scroll, and is expected to scroll given THE NUMBER ONE PROBLEM:
aquisition speed of the page.
> if you don't have a metric, you don't have a concept of relative
> position. if you don't have a normal point (aka: an origin), you
> don't have a concept of absolute position. if anyone can present a
> convincing argument which supports the existence of a presentation
> language with no defined concept of position, i will personally
> refrain from driving a railroad spike through their head the next time
> i catch them using the term "placement on the page".
Duh... what are you trying to present? We all present things, be
they audio on the radio, images on TV, movies, or text on the web. The TV
is over-scanned, so there is no clear absolute position. Movies are
resized to present on TV as well. Only on paper, is there some semblance
of absolute position, but the positioning of the print block on the paper
is often tilted or otherwise flawed in common text intensive books. It
just isn't as important as the conceptual content presented by the text.
> HTML specifically, explicitly, "yes, we're sure we really want to do
> this", leaves the concept of display space undefined. it is a
> CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM for content, and as a side-effect of the need to
Yes. So? Enough of a standard has evolved that one can make some
intelligent guesses about how things will be seen. And as long as you
don't use products that assume too much, you, and we, can present
information in a harmonious manner. And if the INFORMATION is compelling
enough, the user can adjust his views to some extent so as to optimize his
own views of your creation. Give-And-Take.
As USERS demand it, the conventions will continue to evolve regarding
color accuracy as well as positional accuracy. It just isn't as important
as the CONCEPTUAL content.
> visual representation of HTML's various classifiers. the illusion
> that HTML offers anything even vaguely simlilar to a display system is
> an accident which should be blamed on the browsers, not on HTML.
It is by the intent of the marketplace -- viewers, image developers,
and content owners. And all are benefiting by this degree of cooperation.
> the fundamental purpose of HTML is to allow unambiguous specification
> of relative position among documents in a ==>HYPER<== spatial
> construct. there is no accurate N-dimensional representation for a
> generic hyperspatial object. if i design a website and you find a
Well, there is no specification of relative position here either.
Search engines have rather steam-rolled the entire hyper-continuum into
about a five level deep layer surrounding the globe. Why five? Because
that is near the further end of the bell curve on how many views an
interested person takes on most sites. After that, most people either
come up for air or perspective to the search engines again.
> way to generate an N-dimenesional map which accurately represents the
> linking structure and content disposition of that site, i can change
> the design and invalidate not only your map, but your entire set of
> mapping conventions. that's it, end of story, sucker bet for anyone
> dumb enough to take it.
Just link to a page in the middle...
> the thing that makes HTML useful, interesting, and valuable is its
> ability to describe the relationships *between* items of content.
> the fact that documents have to be displayed somehow before the
> relationships are easily accessible is a side effect of people using
> the language, not a purpose of the language itself.
We design pages not to be a jumble of categories. Each category has
a narrow manner of presentation that most people expect.
As usual the usable/profitable arena is between the extremes.
Convention is a powerful force.
So if you want traffic, images do not attract profitable audience.
What does attract profitable audience, is using the right CONTENT, and
hooking it into the web using the words and phrases people use in
searching the web for what you have. As per below.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
----------------------- IMAGINEERING --------------------------
----- What people want: http://www.mall-net.com/se_report/ ----
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