On 10 Apr 99, at 8:20, Irene Drelichman wrote:
> We are working hard to finish Arrive, a redirect project for
> iHoldings.com, Inc. of Miami, FL. It will offer FREE web names and vanity
> e-mail forwarding to all internet users. This new service is intended to
> simplify complex website addresses you get when signing up for free web
> pages at homepage providers, ISPs and universities, and help them get
> cool-sounding names they can keep even if they change their hosts. As a
Yeah, I had that email idea. I sort of let it slide when I just
wasn't capable to describing to people what it was. I have seen
first hand people using it and then they finally get it. Good luck.
My comments about the site:
(using NN 4.5 on NT 800x600)
Eeeeks. Perhpas a preface. I never understood the draw of all these
free home-pages. I still don't. I paid US$10 to cris.com way back
when to host my own site -- they put a little one-line on the bottom
of every page but that was it. As soon as I understood what was
going on I registered my own domain at clever.net and paid them about
US$30.00 per month. Of course had I really understood what was going
on I would have registered a whole lot of good names. Oh well. Odd
though is that the webmaster of a fortune 500 (I help them) has a
website at one of those free-places; the one that gets in your face.
To me it would be like wearing neon coca-cola clothes. I don't get
it.
The "forwarding email" is a great idea. That is good. And what you
are doing to simplify the name is good but it's based on a bad
premise (imho).
Anyhow, here go some comments:
1st is on the 1st page I arrive at: NO META TAGS. I can see there
wasn't a site promotion document on the front-end. Makes me wonder
about the whole strategic design. Anyhow, I would definitely put
those in (and easier done before than later). And a site promotion
document helps your writers and coders determine words to use on any
particular page (at least how it is used where I work). Aahhh.. but
the site navigation is framed. I think frames are great but not for
site-wide navigation. Again it indicates a lack of strategy (imho).
2nd, same page above. I hate capitalized letters in urls. But maybe
other people like them.
3. Things change. Will you make things easy to change. This code
doesnt' do much for me:
Top of Page
> <BASE HREF="http://www.arrive.com/home/">
> <HTML><HEAD>
> <TITLE>Arrive - F.A.Q.</TITLE>
> <BASEFONT SIZE=2>
>
> </HEAD>
That base href will no doubt screw some people up in the future. I
believe it is out of place. Why "Arrive - F.A.Q"? Will people who
see that in a search engine (given that things change and you want to
be in search engines) care? People have said that font sizes should
be relative rather than absolute. I can understand that. Someone
vision impaired may not want a font size so small. There is nothing
in that header to ever help understand anything about that page.
4. The arrivestore link didn't work. And it was going to break me
out of the frames and into a new window. Geee.... Why ...?
5. Tell me in advance what is required on the form. Be careful what
you require.
6. I don't like someone else opening new browsers for me. I think it
is a great feature and I do it myself when I want to.
7. Your login script uses javscript (but poorly,imho, because it
reacts after each entry. Wait until I click submit to tell me all
the required fields. I hate to get badgered each time). Why not use
that javascript in other forms? Was that really a conscious
decision?
8. I am definitely not in the targe audience for this service. This
sort of thing just begs for elaboration:
> Are you going to make changes to my website?
> ABSOLUTELY NOT! We only load a small banner OUTSIDE your website. No
> changes are needed to your site.
Oh gee. I have a few questions but then look at geocities. I would
have to lose half my brain to use geocities, yet look how popular
they are.
Anyhow, I think the site is okay.
Peter
Might is not Right. But there is a lot of Might knocking
about in this world, and something has to be done about it.
-- King Arthur, The Once and Future King
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