Websites and such

I need to rant for just a moment. The thing is, it really angers me that AP changed the correct style from "Web site" to "website." It's hard to remember. It was really a pointless change. And most importantly, I felt good about myself when I wrote "Web site." I felt superior, like I knew something that so many other people did not. But then suddenly I was out of the loop. I remember the day I found out. It was my first week of work this summer, and some guy came by my cubicle for a morning chat. (I have found that in the workplace, people do a lot more chatting than working.) He saw my AP Stylebook on my desk, and we started to discuss. As typical office chatter generally goes, he tried to be witty. "Yeah, I can't believe they recently changed the style for 'website.' What are they going to do next? Take the hyphen out of 'e-mail'?" I was appalled that I didn't know, so I just laughed (a fake laugh, obviously, as the comment was about as nerdy [and yet cute and journalisty, which I appreciated] as they come) and nodded my head. "I know, right?" Then I searched online diligently for whether this change had actually taken place, and I couldn't find news of it anywhere. Honestly, something like that should be publicized a little more.

But anyway, I have websites (it irks me so much) to discuss.

First there's Mooco. I'm much better at giving criticism rather than praise, so that's the route I'm going to go. First, you have to know what you're looking for. You need SOMETHING to type into the search bar; there's no browse option. I only know one person from the Southern Pines area, so I typed in his name. (I felt like a creeper.) No results were found; perhaps it's because he recently moved. After that, I just typed "J. Smith" so I could get some results. (I also tried "Wal-Mart.") I like the way the information is compiled, but honestly, I'm not sure that I saw much use for it. Basically it was the white pages, just on a more specific website. And the button labeled "website" is really just a Google search. Why wouldn't I just use white pages and Google? The website is a nice thought, but honestly, it doesn't seem to offer me anything new or exciting.

As for Bakotopia, there's a lot of stuff on the homepage. I call it stuff because it overwhelmed me and I just really didn't want to look through all of it. One thing I did like on the homepage was the calendar. Other than that, the website pretty much failed. My biggest problem was that there was no news search option (or at least I couldn't find one). If I'm looking for a specific article, I don't want to look through pages and pages of articles I don't care about. My other big concern was that the classified links didn't exactly work. They would take you to a page, but the page always said "no posts in this category." That was frustrating. A tiny contention I have, and this problem is barely worth mentioning, had to do with the ads. I realize that Bakersfield is in California and marijuana is legal there for medical purposes. I'm OK with that, and if we're asking my personal opinion, I don't see why it shouldn't be legal everywhere. That's totally beside the point. The point is that some people don't share my opinion, and when they see an ad for "420 Evaluations" that promises weed to anyone with pot leaves all over the background of it, they may be taken aback. I realize that websites need ad revenue, but if the ads you choose to run make your customers run away, is it worth it? Of course I have no research on this subject at all, and for all I know, all users of Bakotopia may love weed. The name of the site certainly makes me question.

I'm a little biased toward Ushahidi because I spent some time in Kenya this summer. I appreciated that they had an extensive "about us" section so that I knew exactly what the website was about (although honestly the video almost put me to sleep). The downside is that the application (or whatever exactly it is) has to be downloaded. That seemed like too much, so I didn't bother with it. Doesn't it seem likely that other people would feel that way too?

Bluffton, although slightly overwhelming like Bakotopia, actually had really good organization. There's a place to search, and everything is divided into sections. I like that. Guardian seemed similar, with everything you could want in one spot. 


Gas buddy, which I assume everyone enjoys, is really convenient. I think it's a great example of useful information put into an easy-to-use database. The unfortunate part is that it doesn't have gas prices for everywhere (such as my hometown), but overall, I think it does a pretty good job.


After all this rambling, you might ask what my conclusion is. And I would tell you ...

Making a useful, easy-to-use and simple database is hard.