Interview with Mark Connell - Part 3

[Internet Brothers] There is certainly a dearth of awards on the web right now. Should anything be done to curb proliferation, to enhance overall quality, or is this an acceptable use of bandwidth?

[Mark Connell] Humm... Well, I believe that everyone has the right to build whatever they want, so I would never be in favor of anything that restricted that... and I don't think it would be possible anyway. Lots of awards have come and gone over the years and some maintain. It is just the way it is.

[IB] Internet Brothers has its own award, IB Presents, recognizing sites that go out of their way to give something back to the Internet Community. We know what we like. How can beginning web developers make their sites ready for reviewers?

I think they will do best if they put the awards out of their mind and consider their potential audience. Make the concept and the content strong first, and acknowledge who the target audience is. Too many sites try to be everything to everyone... and usually end up being weak as a result.

Reviewers want to select sites that are valuable to their visitors. Your site might not be the type of site they want to highlight, even if your site is great. This is especially true if your target audience is very small or not the same as their target audience.

So, my advice would be to define your target audience, create valuable content for that audience, and build the best site you can around it. Make sure the site is complete (no broken graphics or links), and get feedback and suggestions from people you respect, but build what is in your heart.

You can't rely on other folks for everything and building what is in your mind makes your skills stronger. Let your imagination take you to places that other people say you shouldn't go. Don't let them stop you from creating something special... and people will always tell you it won't work. Have confidence in yourself and keep moving forward.

If this effort results in awards, great. Either way, reevaluate your efforts, check out other innovative developers, and make improvements for the next effort. If you do this often enough, awards will follow.

[IB] Most web awards seem to exclude pornographic, racist, profane, or otherwise offensive sites from their reviews. Is this a good thing? Should a cottage industry service that portion of the web?

[MC] I think it really goes back to determining who your audience is. If someone wants to target the people who are looking for porn or that other stuff, go for it. Actually, I think people are already doing it. It isn't the audience I was seeking when I developed WebbieWorld.

I will sometimes weed out sites from the WebbieWorld database. It is rare, and offensive is relative to the viewer, but sometimes I do it. We don't have a category for sexual sites and we don't really have a demand for it, so it hasn't been an issue.

Other than sites that are obviously intended to be offensive, the only other sites I will remove are sites that have absolutely no content. It amazes me that sometimes people submit their site and it only has a graphic that says "under construction" or something lame like that. I take those out just because they are a waste of time to my visitors.

[IB] What technologies and inspirations immediately turn you on as soon as you open a web site? And conversely, what tells you a site is not even worth a second look?

I like to see something different, new, valuable, surprising, and interesting. It can be a new way to use older technology or interesting cutting edge technology. What is cool to me changes all the time because the scale is always moving up.

I like to see innovative design, great content, ease of navigation (or sometimes an innovative use of navigation...). Usually I like to see some elements of everything. A great design with no content or great content that is hard to access and poorly designed are equally lacking.

I like to be able to tell the site's purpose with a single look. If the site is heavy on the design side, I'm willing to drill down to find out what the site is about.

The Internet Brothers have implemented hierarchical menus for navigation. Easier done than said.

The hierarchical menus were created using Peter Belesis' © Dynomat DHTML scripting tool from Webreference. Give them a visit, you'll like what you learn.

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"I believe that everyone has the right to build whatever they want, so I would never be in favor of anything that restricted that."

"Reviewers want to select sites that are valuable to their visitors."