Say, say, say, what you want

So the new edition of Wired arrived in my mailbox the other day (it's pictured at right). The cover article is entitled, Why Craigslist is Such a Mess. In it, the author expounds on all that is wrong with craigslist, mostly stemming from the fact the Craig (the man who's list it is) refuses to adopt any web tech from after 1999. Because of this the site is "lacking": it has none of the bells and whistle the author apparently likes. This lack, and the fact that the site is one of the most popular online, perplexes the author. He believes the site would be better if updated with modern net gadgets.

To this I say: sometimes more is just more. It is not, in fact, better. Perhaps craiglist is such a success because it is simple. Perhaps it really is not that hard to navigate, once you have looked at it. Perhaps it succeeds because it does not have all those bells and whistles that most of the time are unnecessary and just add flash to a page. (Perhaps there's a reason for why that program is called Flash.) Perhaps the craigslist site succeeds because it doesn't take time to load, because it does not have a bunch of junk to load. (No, it just allows you to sell your junk.)

Perhaps craigslist succeeds just because it has a best of page....

And while I'm tangentially referring to webdesign, I will mention that perhaps certain websites will re-format their stories so that the text occupies more than 1/6th of their page and the structure/ads occupy less than the 5/6th's they currently do (and I won't even start on auto-loading of video clips and ads).

Say, say, say what you want
But don't leave me with no direction