t h e h om e pag e i s b e yo n d yo u r co n t ro l
WHAT’S THE POINT OF THIS SITE?
eTour was10 a very interesting and (to me, at least) useful site with a simple concept: Tell them what your interests are (by checking off categories like Travel, Genealogy, or Web Design) and they’d whisk you to another hand-picked, highquality site that matched those interests each time you clicked on their "Next Site" button. It was effortless, rewarding Web surfing—all wheat, no chaff. I used to take eTour out for a spin every few weeks just to get a fresh sampling of what was new out there. I think they did a very good job conveying the point of the site by reducing their story to three short phrases and numbering them 1-2-3 to suggest that using the site is a simple process. Their tagline ("Surf the Web Without Searching") was less successful because it forced me to think about whether searching is really what makes Web surfing difficult. But as taglines go it’s not bad.
Each click on eTour’s "Next Site" button opens another site.
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Of course, eTour was luckier than most sites. Since they didn’t have a content hierarchy that they have to make visible, all the Home page had to do was convey the concept and the value proposition. But even so, they did a better job than other similar sites because they stuck to the main point and resisted the temptation to tout any of the site’s other features. Like any good carnival barker, they understood that the only thing that counts is getting people inside the tent.
eTour fell victim to Web crash in 2001, shortly after I wrote this, so I’ve changed it to the past tense.
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