The Next Big Web Thing Hall Of Internet Shame

Annoying Web 2.0 Conventions And Trends

By David Lloyd: September 18th 2006

Web 2.0. The very word makes my teeth grate at times. It's not that I don't like innovation and new things, quite the contrary, I love it - that's why I set up this site. However, as well as bringing us lots of wonderfully useful and touchy-feely things, Web 2.0 is fast becoming as outdated and cliched as any mainstream fashion trend.

From unimaginative concepts to hackneyed visual styles, Web 2.0 is fast becoming a rich vein for satirists, lovers of the cliched and bandwagon jumping web designers. The trends are not going to abate, we're in the golden age of Web 2.0 right now. The more astute are already looking to Web 3.0 which is in fact a retro-fitted version of Web 0.5 with extra swanky animated banners, but in the meantime, here's some stuff that just makes me cringe about Web 2.0.

Stupid Names

I could go into this far too much. I'm not going to say much here, but I will be devoting a whole new article to my hatred of Web 2.0 names and domain constructions. If I have to tell one more non-savvy friend to try flickr.com without the e, or try del.icio.us with a full stop after the del and the icio, I will scream.

Now listen, we all like quirky things, but a domain name should tell you what to expect and make it easy for you to get to it. There's good reasons why - it's commons sense, easy to follow and works. If you go to a site with a domain and a name like HotSteamingPron.com, you know what to expect and how to get there - but in Web 2.0 land, your pals would be saying - 'check out the babes on iwankr.com' and you'd spend the week trying to figure out the url unless one of the was kind enough to point out the missing e in the first place.

For more examples of this name and domain insanity, take a look at my Top 25 Stupid Web 2.0 Names page.

Love Our Cool Site Man

We've all been guilty of being overly informal on our websites, the web would be a fairly barren place if we weren't. However, if I'm going to give you all my personal details to use your service, I sort of want to be treated like an adult. If I see one more sign up page with surfer dude like language that tells me you'll be 'like, really cool and careful' with my details, I will DDOS you with my left nutsack.

Also under this category are maintenance pages that appear with personalised figures and trite comments about the service outage. The Bloglines plumber is funny once. Then I want to drag him by his buckles and scream 'Where's my feeds mother plumber!'

Acid Colours, Gradients And Drop Shadows

Lime green and fluorescent orange are colours that may give a cutting edge and fresh appearance. On the downside, once more, they will be out-of-fashion next year and as 95% of all Web 2.0 sites have them, they're not quite as cutting edge as you think. Seriously.

As for drop shadows, enough already. It's a flat page - you're not fooling me - just like your not with those nicely beveled and gradiented buttons and icons. It's a flat screen - the web is flat, flat is good. OK, so MAC owners may be vapid enough to need this pseudo 3D eye candy to justify the price tags they paid for 'nice looking'. Too many MAC orientated web designers have been allowed to design web pages and 'subconsciously channeled' these superfluous visual styles into the look of their 'cutting edge' web designs. Give me flatness any day.

Big Arsed RSS Icons

I love the uncluttered feel of Web 2.0, it makes getting around the site really easy. But helpfully, just in case I missed the links and tiny graphic I'm used to looking for in the horizontal navigation, the footer or the side bar, you'll give me a nice big oversized RSS icon, just to be certain. The fact it's usually a bit 3D with a nice gradient and drop shadows just adds to the charm of this dead useful big orange button.

Big arsed RSS button example 1 / Big arsed RSS button example 2.

The March Of The Copycats

Whilst marketing managers and creative directors want you to believe Web 2.0 is about freshness, interactivity and innovation, all the stuff that's out there pretty much existed in Web 1.0 land. You want community sites, they used to be called forums and newsgroups. You want to be able to do text on the web, open up hotmail. Social networking - try IRC and forums. Et-friggin-cetera.

Dressing it up in new clothes doesn't make it new. But what's worse is many new sites just jump on the bandwagon and offer nothing we haven't seen before, a bit plainer looking and less ajaxy. Innovative new old-school models like Digg have spawned armies of their own clones.

And what's more, it's like an arms race, every new site promises more integration with the raft of older services and more. Rather than bringing the Web together, this granularity is slowly forcing the web apart. Every time a new trendy Web 2.0 site or service pops-up, it dilutes the waters even more, and leads to my next pet peeve.

Integrate It Into Your Web 1.0 Sites

Yeah - ok, Digg Me! Add me to my Yahoo! Delicious! Bloglines! Etc. If you want to integrate some of this Web 2.0 goodness into your old plain Web 1.0 site, expect to add around 30 icons of differing sizes, to be really certain no-one will miss your plain old Web 1.0 monologues.

Beta, Beta Everywhere

Nothing says Web 2.0 more than the word beta. Seriously, if I see another logo with the word beta on it, I will scream. Not a polite scream, a loud, bloody, hurt deep down and gutteral scream. Some clever people have gotten around this by useing words like 'early' or 'pre' - they're not fooling anyone...

And Finally

Lot of money is being pumped into this, and it can't be to long before (the already named several million times over) Bubble 2.0 bursts and people go back to coding hand coded HTML to put food on the table. Let's exercise some common sense and there'll be enough to go around for everyone.

By David Lloyd: September 18th 2006

Updated with links: October 28th 2006.

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