I was curious so I hit the shop button. Netscape's Netcenter pages are
really poorly done. They include more than a dozen fonts and sizes, there's
no consistency of use as in a newspaper such that the user can easily focus
out fact from fiction, article from ad. It's an extremely busy page with
no realy distiguishers requiring a lot of really close inspection to figure
out what the message is. Formatting aside, the content is ridiculous,
trying to be everythign to everyone. For instance, I accidentally clicked
on steals and deals, a side effect of closing a window on top of it and
it thinking the clicks were meant for it which it assigns to an arbitrary
link based on the window position of the other window (an ongoing bug
since about 4.01). What came up was almost laughable by juxtaposition:
1) $19.99, 6/4oz Top Sirloins + 6 Burgers. Can you imagine buying
your meat online and for a truly expensive price? This reminds me
of the meat trucks that the grocery stores used to turn down because
some of the meat was rancid, so they'd go door to door trying to
sell the meat for discount prices.
2) $199.99 HP Officejet 520 Laser Printer; Pricewatch lists them factory
direct for $175.
3) $12.95, a set of 4 acrylic wine glasses; Have you *ever* had a really
good wine in an acrylic wine glass?
4) $20.49, Wonderbra Padded Bra; and the cheesecake picture. Netcenter
must assume they can sell anything with a picture of a woman in a wonderbra.
5) 64MB Sync 8x64 168pin 10ns DIMM; as if the common netcenter idiot is going
to know if this will work with their other 30pin simms.
Other items going down the list in 'more great offers'
Champion Jersey Crop Tee (159 left)
Mini Mandoline Slicer (cuts, slices, shreds, grates--boy does it)
Hanes Her Way Bra-Wireframe (same picture as above)
Isaac Mizrahi Scoop Neck Tee (16 left at $98--pretty steep for a tshirt)
Natori Plus Size Chemise (1 left--hopefully unused--now $40 off)
IFO Velvet Floral Handbac (4 left--now $50 off-$46)
What also was annoying was the "Welcome First Time Visitor"
I can only assume they are tracking your clicks.
Disgusting. Offensive. Super Cheesy.
-- Greg Bolcer email: gbolcer@endtech.com web: http://www.endtech.com work: 714.505.4970 cell: 714.928.5476 fax: 603.994.0516