SimpleWeather.com is the best weather website EVAR. 

Check out the Vegas Weather link… 

My Man G-Man provides a great study on why people hate audio on websites.  Short and simple, its because most of us visit websites while we’re at work, and there’s no cubicle wall high-enough to block the annoyance of some dumb as hell announcement or song.  (Remember back in ‘95 when it was cool to have a midi play on your site???  Geocities…  shudder.) 

G-Man’s Intro…

About a year ago, I came across something that I thought was rather amusing so I added it to my site.

The CTR plummeted.  We’re no talking a 10% decrease but a 100% decrease.  My earnings dropped literally hundreds of dollars that day.

So what did I add that made my page suddenly do so horribly?

Audio

Yep, that’s right, when the page….  More from G-Man..

 

True, I’m a little biased here because of my hatred of approx. 95% of Flash online, but unless your site is catering to the blind, audio / video noises should be engaged by the user via a play button, not via the browser and bandwidth. 

How about you guys, what are some sites where the instant noise from audio/video is a good thing!? 

I propose it’s a way better answer than DontDateHimGirl.com. It’s a brand new site, just launched and it’s called IHateThatGirl.com.

IHateThatGirl is essentially a social networking site where users can submit pages/links containing stories etc. about evil, rotten women… Ex-Girlfriends, Ex-Wives, celebrities, etc. Once a story is submitted, users then vote on how evil/rotten the female subject of the story is. Very similar to Digg.com, however with a slight flavor of revenge and ‘venting.’ Completely harmless, its still fun to read. The webmaster is a personal friend of mine, and I think he’s got a pretty good idea here.. So far, it’s mainly been Paris Hilton bashing, however once it catches on - look out!

First Argument - Colors / Decorations
Let’s face it, aesthitcally The Price Is Right studio looks like the 60’s crapped all over the bastard child of Let’s Make a Deal and the $20,000 Pyramid.  When compared to other shows like Millionaire, Deal/No Deal the Price is Right looks ancient, but like Web 2.0, the color scheme/decorations are only there to support the content, not interfere with it. 

Second Argument - Interfaces / Displays
Much like Web 2.0, when a pricing game is put in front of them, any idiot or senior from Florida can figure out what they’re supposed to do in a matter of seconds.  The actions they need to take are straight-forward, and they know quickly and exactly what they need to do in order to get what they want. 

Third Argument - Crowd Participation
The purest, easiest, simplest definition of this phenom known as social networking is ‘Crowd Participation,’ aka user created content.  During the pricing games, the Price is Right always pauses for the contestant to listen to the shouts from the crowd about how much to price the Pop Secret at - you yell back at the idiot in the 5th row who thinks the popcorn costs more than the espresso machine.  Everyone’s contributing.

Fourth Argument - Fighting ‘The Man.’
A common unseen theme amongst Web 2.0 sites is the fight against the man or corporate giants.  (i.e. YouTube vs. Major Media, Digg vs. CNN, Skype vs. Ma’ Bell.)  It’s hardly evident, but it’s definitely there, and many times forms the hoo-rah for a site’s popularity boost.  Price is Right connection - I’m Bob Barker reminding you to please spay or nuder your dogs and or cats.

In Closing…
All the heavy hitters in Web 2.0 are close to my age, 25-35.  Regardless of your Web 2.0 popularity, Of all those bundled in that demographic, what did you always watch in the morning on your sick days, or vacation days?  That’s right, Price is Right.  The show was building the Web 2.0 phenom before the internet was ever started.