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Ghost Sites 34
----- GHOST SITES #34 [January 17, 2000]
----- by Steve Baldwin
(steve_baldwin@hotmail.com)
Welcome back to your own monthly helping of the oldest, most archaic Web
relics you're likely to find in one place. Someday, these digital
dustballs will probably achieve "collectible status" (but we hope we're
long dead by then). In the meantime, please enjoy your stroll through
the graveyard of Cyber Decay, and say a prayer that your own site
remains with the living for the foreseeable future.
For some odd reason, the number of tips coming through the Ghost-O-Meter
spiked sharply during December, which lets us provide you with a healthy
crop of fossilized Web junk this issue. Thank you all for your Dead Web
Sitings!
*---- THE MEDIA HISTORY PROJECT ----*
----- http://www.mediahistory.com/
This official-looking project to provide a central clearinghouse for
media historians and deep-thinking journalists seems to have fallen on
hard times. Its "What's New" page dates from September, 1996, and the
site blithely continues to solicit manuscripts for a January 1997 issue
of the journal of the American Journalism Historians Association. The
site's link to "Notable Book Reviews" is also badly broken.
The fact that so many Web-based history projects are going to seed is an
almost unbearable irony that the press rarely talks about. Who shall
chronicle history when the chronicler themselves lie in deathly slumber,
I ask you?
Thanks to todoman for sending us news of the Media History Project's Big
Sleep.
Related URLs:
http://www.mediahistory.com/whatsnew.html
http://www.mediahistory.com/augsept.html
http://www.mediahistory.com/reviews/996revs.html
[4 GHOSTIES] Site is Dead, Shows Advanced Decay
*---- THE HOME CLEANING HOME PAGE ----*
----- http://www.grease.com/
The Clorox Company was prescient enough to reserve the www.grease.com
domain back in late 1995, but it's done very little with it in the last
four years - the only thing here is a pastiche of familiar Clorox
brands, including Liquid-Plumr, Tilex, SoftScrub, and other powerfully
unforgettable dirt-battling chemicals.
This page looks so amateurishly put together that it's hard to believe
it's the product of a world-class corporate conglomerate, and its
"Coming soon: the wonderful world of Clorox Cleaning Products" rings
hollow.
Formula 409? Try Formula 404!
Thanks to engorgedsafety for sending word of this dead site to us.
[5 GHOSTIES] Site is Stuffed, Embalmed, and Ready for Internet Museum
*---- INFINITE FACULTY ----*
----- http://www.infinitefaculty.com/
This site, which hasn't been updated since late 1996, isn't a very good
advertisement for Infinite Faculty Productions, a Web design company
"comprised of a broad range of individuals: computer scientists, PhD's
in English and philosophy, artists, and a few people in between".
It's hard to tell what caused this site to become unstuck in time, but
it's possible that the planned "complete revamp" of its servers ran into
some major technical glitches that the company is still trying to sort
out. But I'd lay odds that the revamp never actually took place, which
places this site among the many Web sites whose "under construction"
periods stretch beyond the time required to build the Pyramids.
Thanks to anonymous for this Ghost Site Tip.
Related URLs:
http://www.infinitefaculty.com/reform.htm
[4 GHOSTIES] Site is Dead, Shows Advanced Decay
*---- TICK.COM ----*
----- http://www.tick.com/
Here's one of the most down-and-out honest Ghost Sites we've ever seen.
Go to its home page and you'll simply read the following:
"this represents a failed project. i'm looking to recoup costs. if you
are interested in using this domain for your project, please email
want@tick.com."
What was Tick.com? A site about the sound of clocks? A Lyme Disease
Awareness site? How much money was lost in building this site?
Unfortunately, no record exists detailing the tragic story of this
failed project, leaving us all to wonder at the greatness that might
have been.
(Note: A companion site, tock.com, also bears many of the earmarks of a
Ghost Site, but it's definitely survived the ravages of time better than
tick.com. Go figure.)
Thanks to Peter Stern for pointing this site out to us.
[3 GHOSTIES] Site is Dead, but Well-Preserved
*---- DIRAE MAGAZINE ----*
----- http://www.dirae.com/
Dirae Magazine was a San Diego-based online 'zine that launched in early
1999 and it only seems to have survived for about four weeks before
succombing to the evil tides of entropy.
Direa seems to have been conceived as a general interest magazine along
the lines of Slate or Salon (perhaps the biggest mistake aspiring Web
publishers can make when designing an online magazine). Its expansive
editorial mission (to cover "Sex, Politics, Culture, and Technology")
evidently exceeded its resources, and it folded up shop back in April of
1999.
We have no idea what happened to Dirae's staff of 14 employees, but we
hope they've found work elsewhere.
Thanks to dpeter508 for sending us news of Dirae's demise.
Related URLs:
http://www.dirae.com/leftbar/masthead.html
[3 GHOSTIES] Site is Dead, But Well-Preserved
*---- WXMZ 106.3 ----*
----- http://wxmz.somewhere.net/
Need more proof that Rock is Dead? Check out the moldy Web pages
constructed by this Ohio-based "Classic Rock"-format radio station.
Ghost Site correspondent RnR Is Cool provided a succinct analysis of the
bitrot in an e-mail message:
"Radio stations pride themselves in being up-to-the-minute, immediate
providers of information. Except for this one. http://wxmz.somewhere.net
has not been updated since June, a full six months ago. They still list
a City Council meeting on their "Community" page for June 21, and the
"Concerts" page is outdated. Not to mention the "New Stuff" page, with
Scorpions, Styx, and Lenny Kravitz. In addition they no longer have the
"All-Request Lunch Mania" as promoted on the home page."
[3 GHOSTIES] Site is Dead, But Well-Preserved
*---- LUCID SUPER DREAMS ----*
----- http://home.onestop.net/nightfire/
Ghost Sites correspondent Randee Dawn sends word that this peculiar site
has grown long in the tooth, and a quick inspection proves that advanced
rigor mortis has indeed set in at Lucid Super Dreams: every link on its
page is broken.
The demise of this odd, homegrown humor site (whose slogan, "World's
Greatest Newspaper" slogan is somewhat reminiscent of the far more
successful Onion) will probably not be mourned by many (and I'd be the
last one to say that the world grew significantly darker when this site
turned cold).
In death, however, its ugliness and sophistry looks almost stately
(especially if you squint your eyes).
[4 GHOSTIES] Site is Dead, Shows Advanced Decay
*---- HIMALAYA.COM ----*
----- http://www.himalaya.com/
Is there no escaping the ghostly electronic wake left behind by the
departed Dr. Frederick Lenz (whose own personal Ghost Site we've talked
about at length in a past issue)?
Apparently not - Himalaya.com is another expensively produced,
elaborately furnished multimedia shrine built by the good doctor to
commemorate his "Surfing the Himalayas" and "Snowboarding to Nirvana".
Here, you can send electronic postcards, download Lenz's instructional
videos, read interviews - in short, you can do almost everything except
communicate with any living human presence - this site is as dead as Dr.
Lenz, which makes it one of the most hauntingly surreal experiences
you're likely to find on the Web.
Thanks to someone who calls himself marcopolo for this tip.
Related URLs:
http://www.disobey.com/ghostsites/gs991006.shtml
http://www.himalaya.com/postcards/postcards_frameset.htm
http://www.himalaya.com/video/video_frameset.htm
http://www.himalaya.com/interview/interview_frameset.htm
[5 GHOSTIES] Site is Stuffed, Embalmed, and Ready for Internet Museum
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http://www.disobey.com/ghostsites/
Copyright 1996-1999 Steve Baldwin Associates.
Webdesign, hosting and publication by Disobey.
http://www.disobey.com/
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