Gimmicks vs. Usefullness (Score 2, Insightful)

From a practical point of view the information provided by the site in question is useless (not to take away from the efforts of those involved). The focus really should be on the convenient, useful aggregation of content, while providing ease of use for visitors to the site.

I was roped in by the "wowee zowee" stuff as IE battled Netscape in the 90's. Eventually we all realized that coding to the lowest common denominator was the key to creating a consistent, error free experience for our end users.

The bottom line is to make our sites useful. If done properly the sites can look great, be secure, provide great functionality and be compatible with all platforms. The caveat is that we remain at the mercy of browser quirks, making standards compliance a serious inconvenience for both users and developers.

This is the direction that emerging (AJAX, for example, is not new. It IS emerging) techniques and technologies should be focused on. Such a focus could cause new tricks to enhance compatibility/usefulness across platforms.

Thanks for letting me participate in the discussion!