**Weather Badge from Lawrencevilleweather.com
I have a client who has loaded their website full of slick little badges from some big well known sites like this tidy little weather badge. While I was patiently adding amp; after every single last ampersand in the pasted in code(those badges are never valid,never) it occurred to me that the attraction of these doohickeys is that they make your website look busy and like you have a lot going on. To me they’re not just a validity nightmare they’re also just not very interesting.
People new to having a website of their own may develop an inferiority complex when comparing their website to another website they’ve always admired. Big websites with about 20 programmers working behind the scenes are impressive. A modest little blog/personal site can seem rather paltry when compared to film.com.
There are 75,000 new blogs thrown up on the internet everyday. Every day.
Like my art teacher told me in my final year : only 5% will actually do something after they’ve graduated. I feel this percentage could be the same for the 75,000 new blogs. Most people might have the attention span of a mentally handicapped 4 year old and will not be able to devote the time and energy it takes to maintain and update and grow a website. Out of those 75,000 only a few will make it past the first 20 posts.
If you want a website with a lot going on in it put up new pictures and video. Write, link, interact. Having a lot of badges and widgets on your pages can’t replace original content created by you.
I don’t care how many widgets and badges your website has.I enjoy reading.Give me something to read over a shiny badge any day.
** As far as I know Lawrencevilleweather.com is not a big well known website but it does have a rather nice weather badge.
I had to go on site yesterday for a new project. I went from being an independant to being an employee and now I get talked to as if I were an employee.Which I am,I suppose… But I haven’t felt that particular you are an employee vibe for such a long time. I don’t really care for it to tell you the truth.