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... because the majority of people still like things kept simple

I had to laugh yesterday as I watched a discussion develop on a well-known blog that spends a lot of time looking at search engine marketing in the world of Web 2.0. One of the bright young things that work for the company that runs the blog was complaining about the ugliness of many websites out there.

For some reason she decided to focus on fishing sites and pointed out all the failings that she saw in them. There was nothing faintly related to Web 2.0 about those sites she declared and they were prime examples of sites that really needed to be brought into the modern era of site design and user interaction.

Of course her comments were boosted by a bunch of other Web 2.0 sycophants (that must be my word of the week - I've managed to use it twice so far this week) who all proclaimed that the world needed more Web 2.0 friendly sites. As the posts went on I began to wonder how long it would be before the light bulb would go on and they might realize that the people who use those sites do so because they're comfortable with them, they don't want to get all trendy, they just want information about fishing.

I think they'd still be waffling on about how fishing sites needed user interaction but for the fact that one fairly blunt commenter pointed out pretty much what I was thinking. If the users don't want sites like that then why do the site owners have to ram Web 2.0 down the throats of those who visit the site? As that commenter said, 'If it ain't broke don't fix it'. If the site is still getting the page views then why change things?

Another commenter pointed out that there was another important reason why the fishing sites didn't need to be changed and would probably lose page views if they did change. He pointed out that many of the people who use fishing sites live outside of the major urban areas and they may not have access to broadband Internet connections.

That commenter then compared one of the dreadful Web 1.0 sites with the only fishing site out there that could be classed as being close to Web 2.0. The download time for the old site using a 33.6kb modem was something around 33 seconds while the modern site took something close to 279 seconds to download.

The fact is that you simply must design websites for their target audience. I'm not fundamentally opposed to Web 2.0 - in fact a lot of my work lately has been involved in sites that want to embrace the user and give them a chance to join in the conversation - but there are a huge number of surfers out there who simply want information and nothing more.

They're not interested in joining in conversations, they're not interested in sharing pictures and video and if they're fishermen they're never going to share their favorite fishing spots with anyone. So including Web 2.0 factors into sites designed for those people is a complete waste of time and resources and probably very counter-productive.

And the lesson for us here in adult is even more important to learn. Newbies are still coming into this industry with grandiose schemes of building sites that would dwarf Wikipedia. They think they have the talents to build a site like that, they think that they would certainly use a site like that and so they think it's going to have a wide appeal and make them a lot of money.

The fact is that it probably won't. Instead it will become a millstone around their necks as they fight spammers and free loaders and spend far more on time and bandwidth than they'll ever make on sales.

The fundamental here is that in adult it's all about keeping it simple because simple really does sell. Simple page design, simple navigation, simple text and simple graphics are all important here. If things get too much for the surfers to handle they simply go elsewhere because we're dealing with people who want to see porn and don't want to spend time trying to learn an involved navigation system or spend time waiting for unimportant fluff to load.

They know they can get what they want in other places so if they hit a site that takes time to load or wastes their time with less than intuitive navigation they're gone in the blink of an eye and so has the site owner's chance to make money.

So keep it simple and leave Web 2.0 to the bright young things that have lots of enthusiasm but very little experience.