99 things you must see on the internet

Every now and then I come across a site that is conceptually super cool, but questionable.

After all, time is money, and as much as we all like to share information on the web, most of us cannot afford the time to do it forever for free. Thus (and this may be a personal view only, so don’t take my word for it…) it is my view that many of the internet’s information pieces, regardless of their intrinsic value and their ability to enrich the lives of their readers and users, are created to generate revenue somewhere along the line.

For example. Google is awesome. It’s a powerful search tool, and it’s free. And it helps millions upon millions of users find helpful information, some of which can even save lives. But at it’s core, Google is a business and generates capital from generally unobtrusive advertising. This monetisation of a ‘free service’ is definitely fair, in fact, it is entirely necessary to keep the world spinning – after all we all have mouths to feed a the end of the day and profitting through ethical and unobstrusive means is the best way to go about putting food on the table while still satisfying consumer needs (in the Google example, the consumer need being a robust and evolving search engine allowing us to search the web freely and effortlessly).

I came across this site yesterday - youshouldhaveseenthis.com

The design of this website is minimalist, but highly effective. And the content – well, it’s just a bunch of hyperlinks. But each hyperlink, and there are 99 of them, will keep you enthralled for hours….because this after a website detailing 99 THINGS YOU SHOULD HAVE EXPERIENCED ON THE INTERNET UNLESS YOU’RE A LOSER OR OLD OR SOMETHING.

I do believe this site would have taken quite a while to compile. Though the design is simple, the content would have taken a while to gather.

Which brings be back to the basis of my original theory. I believe that most websites are created to generate revenue, in some form or another. The question is, what sort of revenue is youshouldhaveseenthis.com generating?

Is it purely to generate traffic and awareness for the author, Greg Rutter? Will it prove to be a hugely viral site that will eventually feature Google Adwords advertising and make a few quick bucks through inadvertent click throughs to Google contextual text ads.

Or is this one of those rare sites created for ‘the love of the game’. What do you think?

youshouldhaveseenthis.com

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