"The other side of the internet"

This morning I completed one of the major phases in one of the projects I've been working on this week. My task was to research a list of websites, and assess whether they were suitable to one of my clients for submitting their company listing. The project was from time to time enjoyable, and I gathered a sizable research file, but one thing became painstakingly clear -- Not all websites are designed to look good.

Sites like this one for example -- just one of the many on my list -- are rather painful to the aesthetic eye, and contain little or no graphical qualities. Yet, ironically, they are actually beneficial elements to the existance of a successful website.

In our on-demand electronic world, where everyone else is trying to come up with the most attractive way to gain online customers, there's a whole side to the internet that thrives by doing the exact opposite. They happily contain very little visual creativity. Most people never visit these sites, but they're there, standing firm and lending an ugly functional existance to make the creative side of the internet a success. They're there to build link popularity, and help the big guys improve their search rankings.

Those of us that have visited these sites, know them "affectionately" as internet directories. Those of us who also have an eye for the creative, often know them simply as eyesores. But whatever you want to call them, they don't really care. They're more than happy to do the dirty work, and more than happy to exist as the other side of the internet.

-Jon
posted by Jon at 6:14 AM  I   I  0 comments