Subject: Re: The horrors of ASCAP [was Re: Mismatch at Newslink] From: docdon@pinn.net (Don Taylor) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 1995 00:13:55 -0500

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At 03:38 AM 4/29/95 -0400, David H. Rothman wrote:
>>I think I've already seen enough complaints from people who get turned off
>>by slow-moving, no-value graphics to consider your viewpoint a minority.
>>Personalloy, I haven't seen any graphics yet that was as interesting as the
>>text. Graphics on the web does not serve the same purpose as graphics on
>>paper. Someday people will learn that.

Sheesh, good ting my Englich techer ain't lookin.

>Hear, hear, Don! You do need some graphics, but people overdo. To suffer one
>of the worst sites on the Web, check out the horror from ASCAP
>(http://www.visualradio.com/ascap/as0.htm). Even with my 28.8Kbps
>connection, it took forever tonight to download the mostly black graphics;
>the opening screens seemed to give me nothing more than equivalents of
>simple menus. Notice the "visualradio" in the URL? I wish ASCAP would stick
>to sound. As it happens, ASCP has a rep on the NII Advisory Council. I hope
>she understands the Net better than her group's Web perp does.

Well, I wasn't really suggesting graphic abstention. But something like
Graphics Lite. Its very easy to visualize and get excited about a
graphic representation of things like VisualRadio. The same thing has
happened with Windows-based bulletin boards. But then the delivery becomes
an extreme yawn with a massively negative effect. The bulletin board world
has learned three things are important if they care for return visitors:

    o   To scale down the graphic size (usually down below 10K).

    o   To use the graphics as "neatos" for first visits that return
visitors tire of.

    o   To provide an immediate path around the graphics for return visitors.

>I love the sites with lots of text squeezed in. Looking over the Nando Times
>(http://www2.nando.net/newsroom/nt/nando.html), I get a *lot* of information
>in a hurry. If word people can keep the designers under control, we'll all
>be the better for it. Even Nando should give us less white space and still
>more text. The old newspaper rules don't quite apply. TV movies offer
>tighter shots than do theatrical movies, and not just for budgetary reasons;
>the medium is different. Same's true here.

Right! Do people visit the first time for the graphics? Do they return for
them? Is this "content"? On paper they help attract the eye and explain the
text. The need for attraction isn't the same on the web - they're already
there. So the objective is, IMO, primarily complimentary aesthetics, memory
branding, and in some cases added functionality

Tally Ho

    Don

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