


----- GHOST SITES #2  [August 8, 1996]
----- by Steve Baldwin




Welcome to the second issue of GHOST SITES OF THE WEB -- your graveside tour of abandoned web sites. I'd like to thank all who e-mailed me about Ghost Sites you've found: These tips have really helped our skeleton crew get out this new issue. 


*---- THE OFFICIAL ROLLING STONES WEB SITE ----*
----- http://www.stones.com

A year ago, yes, this site was a clear leader, and among the first to promote streaming Java audio, Java games, and a rash of MBONE concerts.  People used to actually crowd around PC-equipped cubes to look at this site! But now the Stones' famous tongue has turned gangrenous: The band's newest tour schedule is ancient, the press releases are moldy, and nothing else on this site appears to have changed since last November. The wholesale neglect is particularly evident in the site's interactive fiction area, where unrestrained idiocy now holds sway. 

Can't Sun, or maybe Mick's manager, pull the plug on this thing? It's so old that it makes the band seem young. 

Related URLs:
   http://www.stones.com/TourDates.html
   http://www.stones.com/Press.html
   http://www.stones.com/fiction/

[4 GHOSTIES]  Site is Dead, shows Advanced Decay 


*---- MECKLERWEB ----*
----- http://www.mecklerweb.com
 
Note: this link just points to a place holder -- read on to get the real story on MecklerWeb 

Remember this one? MecklerWeb was the Web's first truly epic business fiasco, and the Byzantine reasons for its spectacular 1994 flameout are beyond the scope of this humble survey. But MecklerWeb's simultaneous launch/destruction set the precedent for other legendary site suicides such as MCI/Delphi. MecklerWeb's original mega-site -- conceived as a grandiose "Internet-based corporate communications and marketing system" -- is of course, long gone, but what keeps it alive is the fact that one of its visionary architects, Chris Locke, has thoughtfully preserved an archive of founding documents, including the incredibly dense press releases of MecklerWeb and its 26 high-tech partners. These documents, and a postmortem by Locke himself, are required reading for anyone attempting a serious history of business hubris on the WWW. 

Related URLs:
   http://www.panix.com/~clocke/press/mecklerweb.html
   http://www.panix.com/~clocke/press.htm
   http://www.panix.com/~clocke/finale.htm

[5 GHOSTIES]  Site is Stuffed, Embalmed, and Ready for Internet Museum 


*---- WOODSTOCK-94 ----*
----- http://metaverse.com/woodstock/index.html#live
 
If Woodstock-94 had had the misfortune of happening a year later -- in 1995 -- I'm sure that the whole Web would now be clotted with fan pages, silly Woodstock e-zines, and rotting corporate sites devoted to the event. Thankfully, the Web really hadn't developed into an efficient huckstering tool when Woodstock-94 occurred, so the only official sites that live on are a bunch of puny gray pages that are appallingly amateurish. If you have any inclination to relive the silliness leading up to this grand non-event concert, spend a few minutes with Woodstock-94's breathless countdown pages. And thank your lucky stars that you missed the whole muddy thing. 

Related URLs:
   http://metaverse.com/woodstock/countdown/pages.html#1

[3 GHOSTIES]  Site is Dead, but Well-Preserved 


*---- BOULDER WEEKLY ONLINE ----*
----- http://www.earthnet.net/~altnews/home.html

It might be too early to proclaim this lively local Colorado journal dead, but missing eight weeks of updates doesn't bode well for any weekly. For my money, the left-leaning Boulder Weekly Online didn't have much to offer the world, although its earnest coverage of a local supermarket strike showed some real progressive passion. But seeing a one-person operation fail is always sadder than seeing an impersonal monolith go down. (Special thanks to Chris Stamper, who monitors both left and right-wing sites, for this tip). 

Related URLs:
   http://www.earthnet.net/~altnews/052396/kingsop.html

[3 GHOSTIES]  Site is Dead, but Well-Preserved 


*---- THE DEFUNCT WORLDWIDE PUBLISHING CONSORTIUM ----*
----- http://www.rt66.com/twl/WWPC.index.html

It's rare that a dead web site comes right out and says, "Hey, I'm in a body bag!", but the Defunct WWPC site accepts its own death with a jaunty smirk. If fate had only dealt this consortium a kinder hand, I'm sure it would have made a fine standards-setting body -- the consortium was dabbling with heady topics like Economics of Flourishing in an All Digital World and The WWPC Experimental Digital Daily shortly before its demise. This unfortunate site is laced with human pathos: check out "Calendar of What Had Been Upcoming Events","What We Were Up To", and "How You Could Have Joined". It's too bad that the project's sponsors, which included Adobe, Agfa, Apple & Kodak, probably didn't shed any tears when the body bag was zipped tight. 

Related URLs:
   http://www.rt66.com/twl/all.digital.world.html
   http://www.rt66.com/wilt/Digital_Daily.html

[5 GHOSTIES]  Site is Stuffed, Embalmed, and Ready for Internet Museum 


*---- AFTERSHOCK: WHERE QUAKE AWAKES ----*
----- http://www.nuqneH.org/aftershock/

At the very peak of this summer's worldwide Quake fury, one of the most intelligent private sites devoted to Quake news, hacks, and hints gave up the ghost. Why? According to webmaster Joost Schuur, he torpedoed Aftershock because updating the site meant spending "far too much time in front of a computer." (Hey Joorst, isn't that what Quake is FOR?) Schuur's decision to unplug Aftershock seems especially ill-timed in light of the fact that a competing Quake site, the Quake Stomping Grounds, recently started running commercial ads, a clear indication that there are big bucks to be made running well-trafficked Quake sites. 

Related URLs:
   http://www.stomped.com/

[3 GHOSTIES]  Site is Dead, but Well-Preserved 


*---- WATERWORLD ----*
----- http://www.mca.com/universal_pictures/waterworld/index.html

It's probably unfair to expect that one of 1995's major film flops would still be associated with an active web site, (although other 1995 duds, such as Johnny Mnemonic, persist in the form of aging promo pages). But it's still a bit chilling to see the warning "This Site Has Been Archived" running below Kevin Costner's face like a building inspector's condemnation notice. A bunch of high-priced people worked on this site: If you're one of them, I've fished out the first page of the Waterworld interactive adventure so that you can review your work, grieve, and move on. 

Related URLs:
   http://www.sepc.sony.com/SEPC/AboutSEPC/Press/PressReleases/Johnny_Debut.HTML
   http://www.digiplanet.com/universal_pictures/waterworld/phase1/one_intro.html

[5 GHOSTIES]  Site is Stuffed, Embalmed, and Ready for Internet Museum 


*---- TELECIRCUS SAN FRANCISCO ----*
----- http://www.well.com/user/tcircus/index.html

TeleCircus -- a "homegrown art circus and sideshow" hosted by The Well -- is evidently an early interactive experiment that nobody had the common sense to take down after it outlived its usefulness. This graphics-rich site is as dead as a dodo -- even the copyright notices are from 1994. Trying to escape TeleCircus by following its links out to The San Francisco Digital Media Center doesn't help: the center's main image map is broken (which is always a bad thing to have at a Digital Media Center). 

This is the kind of cute, information-poor, hypersmug site that deserves to expire. Please resist the temptation to click on any of TeleCircus's links: Perhaps the Well's webmasters will see their hits increase and revive it! 

Related URLs:
   http://www.well.com/user/sfdmc/sfdmc.html

[3 GHOSTIES]  Site is Dead, but Well-Preserved 


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