'Nauseous' Mirabilis.com wins ugliest Web site award
"This is the Web equivalent of all you can eat. And it makes you just as nauseous"
-- John Dvorak, contributing editor, PC Magazine.
"This page makes Times Square on New Year's Eve look empty"
-- Lincoln Spector, syndicated columnist.
"[It's] like the label on a Dr. Bronner's soap"
-- David Coursey, Upside Magazine columnist.
That was the consensus of the judges of the Mud Brick Awards -- the ugly Web site contest sponsored by NetStudio Corp., a maker of Web design tools.
NetStudio put out the call for Mud Brick nominations, and was deluged with submissions for Web sites that represent "the very worst of the Web." And Mirabilis -- an Israeli company recently acquired by America Online Inc. (NYSE:AOL) and renamed ICQ -- came out on top, winning the Mud Brick for a Web site that was so crammed with information it made judge Dvorak "nauseous." That violates one of the ground rules for design, said NetStudio CEO Manish Vij.
"One of the cardinal rules is not to overwhelm people with tiny content. That's one of the critical things they violated," he said. "But it also points out that Web sites, as a marketing mechanism, are given a very low priority. Any designer who looked at that [site] would have seen it."
ICQ took the award in stride.
"We all consider it a badge of honor to get this because the site is a site that only a Webhead could love. It's just overwhelming the amount of stuff that's there. But ICQ continues to grow leaps and bounds," said Jeanne Meyer, spokeswoman for the company.
"It doesn't stop people from going there every day."
Ugliest small business site: ColumbiaSC
In the small- to mid-size business category, Columbia SC, a South Carolina Web hub operated by All Net Media, was the winner. Here are the judges' considered opinions on ColumbiaSC:
"This is the 'messages on the refrigerator held on by magnets' approach to Web site design"
-- Dvorak.
"Forget about content. Come to the page that's nothing but links to advertising. Where else on one Web page can a bartending school share space with a local chapter of MADD? Also of note is the three-cell table with two links in it, and the Goals page, which advises you to set goals in black letters on a dark green background. Gee, maybe they realized that the text wasn't worth reading anyway"
-- Spector.