What We Want in Websites

Here's a lesson in website-making from two of the most famous comics on the internet:

xkcd.com thinks:

Oatmeal.com agrees:

"BBM Helps You Flirt..."

James Sturm writes: 

"Lately I’ve been keenly aware of the amount of advertising that insists connective technology is essential to our happiness (Faster speeds! Fewer dropped calls!). Four months ago, I barely noticed it; now it is an affront, a lie so obvious that it’s insulting. Adding to my anger is the fact that until the Web came around, I’d successfully avoided the addiction gauntlet. I’d steered clear of any trouble with gambling, booze, and drugs. To be blindsided by the Internet (my helpful and wonderful friend!) doesn’t seem fair. But complaining is useless, isn’t it?"

This ad is a perfect example of this:

It's terribly sad that the people featured in the ad have replaced the pleasures of face-to-face flirting, personal, actual, human interaction and connectivity, with typed words, and "received" notifications. All the body language, the "instant conversation" that would come with a real life conversation are now on their phones.

And am I the only one that thought that the woman "eager to trade her BBM Pin" comes across as ridiculously desperate, while claiming to play "hard to get?"

In an age where we are all perhaps a little too connected, is this an effective ad strategy for RIM?

..and the Ugly

The worst website I've seen in a while.

Welcome to 

http://www.dole.com

• It takes forever to load, and simply moving your mouse moves the whole scene around.
• The creepy real-people-in-a-cartoon-background all speak at you, often freezing
• If they attempt to list their products anywhere, I couldn't find it. 
• They place way, way, way too much emphasis on all this health and nutritional stuff. Does Dole really need a section for men's health, one for women's health and a different one for fitness and prevention?
• None of the "blog-type" sections has been updated since 2008. Most updates were in 2005 (I'm assuming this was when the site was made.
• There's a whole bunch of videos hidden under "Dole TV" which cannot be found elsewhere on the Internet (hint: Youtube channel anyone?)
• The Super Kids section is overstuffed with games, comics, music and a lot of other budget intensive things that I'm sure no kids really visit anyway. 
• It is impossible to navigate your way around simply to anything. Click on pink-shirt-lady, then the package-of-fruits-with-halo, then the banana, then the banana again to reach the page that gives you nutritional information about fruits and veggies.
• Did I mention clutter? It's overflowing with content. I feel overwhelmed and overloaded and just simply don't have the patience...

the Bad

A half serving of vegetable for dinner? Mixed in with all the wonderful processed Kraft Dinner ingredients?

And when compared to the regular Kraft Dinner,

KD Smart has:

12% more saturated fat

9% more sodium

12% more sugar

4% less protein

(Thank you Weighty Matters for the information)

the Good

I've been hearing a lot of negative things about food advertising lately: dishonesty about ingredients, marketing to children, glossing over the important health details etc.
Maybe they could take a page out of the Ontario Government's (low-budget) books?