Web Bloat

The notion of "bloatware" is not new, our chum the Gorilla from Redmond being the primary offender in this respect.

But it seems to us that the phenomenon is increasingly infecting the Web, in the form of large, unwieldy sites which take an age to load. Like this page from Artura Design & Development , which sports several nice, fat juicy images each of which weighs in at a hefty 100k+. As suppliers of "innovative web design", they really should know better...

"Web bloat" is attributable to four factors:

• Unnecessary markup
  
• Image files being larger than necessary
  
• Multiple copies of the same image within a site
  
• Space (and time) consuming bells and whistles
  

(You can find an admirable e xposition on this topic at Phundria, "Scotland's first online lampoon magazine".)

So what? you may ask. We've all got fast modems, local unlimited calls and unlimited Web access, haven't we?

Well...no.

Apart from the general requirement for a site operator to be user-centric in both the provision of information and the design and architecture of their site(s), in the UK, for example, all calls are metered.

Indeed, some UK service providers are now placing restrictions on outbound bandwidth consumed by their non commercial customers. If you exceed the limit on some sites, you're told either to shut down or go commercial. On other providers, you get shut down for a day.

While we expect the UK telecom model to emulate the US one, in the shorter-term, most non-US telecoms meter all calls. And as the Web reaches saturation in the US (the rate of increase has already started to slow), so more and more people from "the Rest of the World" will be looking at your handiwork...

--John Blower

Utility/Futility

Utility

Peapod is one of a growing army of "home-oriented" service organizations (which seem to be particularly prevalent in the Boston area).

Essentially, the company contracts with local supermarkets, receives your order online, and delivers the goods to your door. This is the kind of service for which the Web is tailor made - you can place your order at any time of the day or night, specify brands and so forth.

Convenience is the name of the game, which makes this type of operation a boon for working parents, those with irregular schedules, or simply those (like us) who can't bear the thought of actually going to the supermarket.

Of course, one pays a premium for this kind of service, so we would ask ourselves whether or not Peapod will survive once the current rosy economic picture loses its lustre...

Interestingly enough, we found the Peapod site through a promotional floppy.

Futility

On the face of it, one would have thought that accountants would have recognized the utilitarian function of the Web and have been in the forefront of using it.

After all, for most of us here in the US, the need to communicate with an accountant is but once a year. And, in general, such information as needs to be conveyed doesn't need a face-to-face.

We picked - at random - a firm based in California. Their site was an execise in futility - it looks as if they have a site "because they should".

Instead of offering up-to-the-minute tax hints, a ready-reckoner and the invitation to receive files via FTP on a secure server, we have nothing more than a rather amateurish online brochure.

The company would have spent its money better by concentrating on traditional advertising and promotion, offering FTP to its existing client base and slowly establishing a web presence through regular, timely updates of information.

Utility is the key to successful exploitation of the New Medium.

--John Blower