Coffee table web pages?


Now there's a metaphor that deserves some attention. Just why is it that we view web sites? Of course standard lip-service demands that we say that we view them for the information we find at them, but I doubt that a statistical review of internet use would justify that claim. Yes, there are web sites that we return to again and again. Some of these are for news which more or less by definition is constantly changing so that we're not actually viewing the same information, and others may even be so helpful that we really integrate them into our daily routines. Via ICQ I once met someone who does crosswords and asked me for help finding answers. I directed her to online dictionaries and thesauri, and she made good use of these.

But all too often web surfing really is a spectator sport, and as such each site gets its fifteen minutes of fame and then gives way to another. It's really not very different from putting a conversation piece out on the coffee table. The problem is, of course, that it generates conversation when its new. Once everyone has seen it, it doesn't have much purpose on the table, and gets relegated to the shelf. And so it is with web pages. We tell others about them via e-mail and ICQ, visit them numerous times when we've first found them, and then after a while, upon finding them in our bookmarks, discover that we don't even recognize what they are. Thus sites such as Cool Site of the Day (hey, though I simply thought that it would make a nice joke, there's even a Cool Site of the Hour) are truly in the coffee table spirit of the web. I remember from long ago a "Fifteen Minutes of Fame" site from which every fifteen minutes an automatic link would be switched to a different site. People were invited to submit their sites to the "Fame" site which randomly switched among those submitted. If by chance someone chose to visit the "Fame" site while your site was the linked one - fleeting fame was yours.


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