Almost fifteen minutes.
When the web was still young daily cool sites were popular. Some of these are still around - Cool Site of the Day and Cruel Site of the Day stand out. There's even a Cool Dog Site of the Day, and many more. I'm only guessing here, but it seems that even though the web has undergone major changes in the past seven years, with major industry portals sucking up most of the clicks, there's still a market for sites of this sort. Many people still see web-surfing as a recreation sport to which they're happy to devote a few minutes each day. They're not necessarily looking for useful information, just for something to view for a moment and say, "hey, that's cool" before moving on, and sites of this sort serve that need well. On the other hand, some seem to stretch their mandate a bit too much. The Celebrity Site of the Day, for instance, seems to suffer from having to continually find something to spotlight. Though I admit that I'm not really up on popular culture, I'd expect to be able to identify at least some of the names listed in the archive of that site.
In this respect Andy Warhol's famous maxim that
In the future everybody will be famous for 15 minutes.
seems perfectly suited to the web. But of course it can have it's drawbacks:
I've carried this comic around with me for ages, and even used it in one of my early sites. And now it finds its way to the Boidem.
Of course there's nothing wrong with showcasing sites on a daily basis. The Astronomy Picture of the Day has been around for ages, and still offers a wonderful, and continually changing, glimpse into the universe. I don't, however, know if anyone still visits the site. And of course my own oft noted favorite waste of time, Arts and Letters Daily is essentially a development on the basic "cool site" idea. And even when it takes up too much of my time, I'm delighted that there are people out there who are offering me what they find on a daily basis.
Go to: on erasing an online forum.