Re: Front Pages

At 08:38 p.m. 08/27/98 -0500, Jeffrey Frazier wrote:
>I think it is directly analogous to shows such as "60 Minutes" that use the
>magazine format for television.

But they don't use a magazine format for television.  They use a
television format.

>However, I think that this format works better on
>the web than it does on TV, because you don't have to wait around for the article
>you want to read to come around.

No, you just have to wait for the "cover" to load. :)

>First of all, statistics are your downfall as far as readers turning back goes.

Are you sure about this?

>The magazine _The Elysium_ (http://www.shallowearth.com/elysium/ ), which is
>quite popular and well frequented, uses both a cover page and a warning page, but
>not in that order.

...but that doesn't mean _they're_ doing it "right", either.
(In fact, it looks pretty much identical to your site -- did you
make this one too, or merely ape their look-and-feel?)

You'll notice that NONE of the major websites, including those for
magazines, use a "cover page" or "splash page".  You don't go to
Yahoo and have to download a 35K image before viewing the site,
nor do you have to see a "cover" to cnn.com.

In fact -- the 60 Minutes website doesn't have a cover, either! :)

>And inasfar as bookmarking the content page goes, that's fine
>with me. They would have already read and understood the warning page. And as for
>the splash page, I'd say by that time it would have already fulfilled its
>purpose. The reader would have already understood the mood of the page, and the
>cover story and issue information are included in the content page itself!

Then what point at all is there for the splash page?

Your contents page set the style well enough anyway; believe me,
few people really want to see a pointless graphic, just to be
put in the "right frame of mind".

--
Kynn Bartlett  <kynn(at)idyllmtn.com>             http://www.idyllmtn.com/~kynn/
Chief Technologist & Co-Owner, Idyll Mountain Internet; Fullerton, California
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