WH-D: Web 2.0 Site Comes With Object Lesson - Some Important Links
(Page 3 of 4 )
Okay, so I can’t get to their media kit. Let’s go down the list and find out more about the site. What do we get when we click on About WH-D?
Well, okay, that’s short and to the point. Despite the fact that this screen shot is cropped and resized, this is EVERYTHING that was included in the About WH-D section. There is no mention of founders, no talk of any special vision for the site, no description of previous experience for anyone involved in the site. Also, perhaps it’s just the editor coming out in me, but the last sentence ends in both a period and a question mark; that’s improper punctuation, and doesn’t belong on a live site.
It gets worse. Hoping for an actual explanation, I clicked on the "How it works" link. This is what I got:
That’s less informative than the previous page. In fact, it’s clearly a placeholder. I’d like to point out another detail: in the upper left you can see Home >> About Pligg. This site is WH-D. What is Pligg? Apparently it’s WH-D’s content management system. Why is it showing up as part of a breadcrumb? Somebody forgot to change something. As they say, the devil is in the details.
Okay, so the About page wasn’t much help, and the "How it works" page was useless. Surely the FAQ page will provide the information the other pages lack, right? Not in this case.
In other words, the FAQ page is another placeholder, and an ugly one at that. Okay…so what about the link to the blog? Company blogs usually talk about all sorts of interesting stuff; in start up web 2.0 companies especially, they serve as a communication bridge between the people building the site and the users. They give the CEO (or someone who speaks for him or her) a chance to discuss new features, smooth over any ruffled feathers caused by site problems and in general share the excitement.
Again, I was out of luck. The blog link at first took me to the FAQ page, then later in the day it took me to the About WH-D page. None of these pages are intended to be dynamic in a web 2.0 sense; they shouldn’t be blank! I thought it was a basic practice to check every important link on a web site before the site goes live. I don’t believe I’m old-fashioned to think that those links are important. When they don’t lead to something useful and informative, I have to wonder how much I can trust the rest of the site, whether the content is generated by the users or the site owners.
Next: Other Problems and Some Good Points >>
More Web Hosting News Articles
More By Terri Wells
