Ram on Nostr: A few days ago, I found myself browsing one of those "modern" websites. Those ...

A few days ago, I found myself browsing one of those "modern" websites. Those eyecandy-rich but content-lean websites that try to be sleek with animations and fading text. I think they're trying to make it look and feel like a magazine but I don't think they're doing a goob job of it.

I grew up during the period between the internet becoming "the information superhighway" and just before social media hit mass adoption. During that time, "getting online" can be prohibitively expensive and as a result, not a lot of people did.

Back then, magazines were my internet. They became my portal to "what's happening" in the things that I'm interested in. They're often content, and ad, rich and they pack a variety of information about slightly tangential things that you still might find interesting.

I was and am still amazed at how efficient they were with page space and how they can make it look seamless and easy to read. Maybe it's a characteristic of the medium but I think it's a bit of a fool's errand to make the computer screen behave like a magazine.

Fancy eyecandy can look impressive but they don't really last beyond first impressions. I don't think anyone would like going through that fading scrollthrough text more than once.

In my opinion, if there's anything to get from late 90s magazines it is not that your webpage should look and feel like a magazine but rather to think about your medium and find a way to make the best use out of it.