11.16.98
Just stopped by a much-ballyhooed site.
Reactions? Ummmmmm...
Well, I suppose as yet another link page to a bunch of Web zines goes, it's designed well...
Okay, talk about raised expectations. Honestly, as just this guy, I had no clue what to expect. I mean, I'll be the first to admit that I'm in awe of Lance's talents. (Lance, for those who don't know, is the majordomo of Glassdog, which is, in my opinion, the best site on the Web.) Not just his design talents - I think his voice is amazing. (And I'm not talking about Spice Girl snippets or amazingly convolouted scatting either.) Most people praise Glassdog for its design - I praise Lance because he actually has something to say. I suppose I differ than the majority of people who want to read "personal storytelling", which I could give a crap about. To me, that's turning your diary into The Story of You, and quite honestly, I don't care much for confession or the sublime prose of someone baking waffles or whatnot. Lance has talent, and while I still believe the Web will never produce a work of art, Lance comes damn close.
And maybe that's why I'm let down by glassdog.net. It's a collaborative-site portal. And the people who would visit such a thing already know about afterdinner and Flabjab! and whatnot. I don't know, I was looking forward to Lance lunacy, unveiled on a new and twisted scale. Instead, I see a tepid index of sites that, in all honesty, get boring after a while. As much as I paw through Glassdog, I never get bored because Lance's voice is so powerful.
What's with the lack of ambition on the Web? I mean, Jesus Christ, if people want the Web to be art, they gotta post more than treatises on knitting! A collaborative site is even lazier than a personal site, because you just tack someone else's words onto your page! There's NOTHING INTERESTING. There's NOTHING COMPELLING.
The Web's personal sites are myopic. If you're gonna plunk $70 plus a monthly rate for a virtual domain, do something grand with it. Like Glassdog.
Glassdog.com - not Glassdog.net.
Here's a challenge - send me the URL of a site that isn't a diary, isn't about "personal storytelling", isn't an ad, is actually close to a work of art. Convince me.