The voices are telling me that Martin J. Lambert said on 7/16/2004 7:35 AM:
>I agree with most of what you wrote, but just wanted to address this one point. I used to work for CDNOW before it went under, and can tell you why it isn't a simple site of static pages - there's WAY too much music out there, changing MUCH too quickly, to ever hope to keep up with it manually.
That said, there's absolutely no reason why it couldn't be a simple site of database-driven *templates*, each of which adheres to web standards and is accessible to all visitors. I've done it myself, on a site that actually licensed much of AllMusic's content.
Yeah, that's what I meant. It's insane without a database. Sorry for being unclear. And I have no deep objection to client-side bling-bling when there's some approximation to a point to it. For instance, a dear friend Cindy Ballreich designed some sites for Ticketmaster that would show you in 3D what the view was like from the seats you were about to buy, buddy Linda Branagan did some product demos in Shout3D where it was like holding the product in your hand, Virtual RealEstate in Germany let you configure your apartment online, and some other friends have done some good things with server-side scripting, DOM, and DHTML all of which clearly added value.
And of course, the badgers.
But I have yet to discover what the throbbing, shifting, peekaboo list items at allmusic.com add to except to my frustration.
I call to mind another site we all know, because there's a message there: zombo.com. The *point* of Zombo is that it's useless. And I suspect most pieces of Flash substitute zombo for value on their websites.
If I want to know what Ida's next record after _Will You Find Me_ is, I don't understand why they can't just tell me. But perhaps I'm just an old grouch, hopelessly behind the times.
--
Rev. Bob "Bob" Crispen
bob at crispen dot org
Ex Cathedra Weblog: http://blog.crispen.org/
Don't ask yourself what the world needs - ask yourself what makes you
come alive, and then go do it. Because what the world needs is people
who have come alive. -- Howard Thurman
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