It’s like they took early 2000s web design and added just enough modern elements to make it intrusive and slow. And when it stopped being about stuff that jumped the shark, it did indeed jump itself.
Well, the greatest website of all time, Walter Miller’s Home Page, stopped updates around 2001, I think. Then the waltermillerhomepage.com domain went away completely, and all that’s left is the old GeoCities version, which seems to only have the Wedgie Page section, and as we know, that’ll vanish soon. Luckily it is on the Wayback Machine.
If you’re unfamiliar, WMHP is a prototype/parody/satire of every godawful blog ever written, and it started before the word blog even existed.
Our local newspaper’s website went from user friendly to a pretentious piece of crap that is barely navigable, much less readable.
Oh c’mon tell us which one 
Me three.
Used to go there constantly. Haven’t been there since The Change.
Seriously - the new layout is awful, and there’s way too much crap that isn’t TV series reviews. Frankly, they started going downhill when they changed their policy about reviewing comedies.
BBC’s weather pages. They’ve turned it into a Flash-heavy monster that takes ages to load while conveying less information, less conveniently. If you want to know minor details like WHAT THE TEMPERATURE IS LIKELY TO BE, you now have to click on a separate tab and guess what temperature “pale orange” is supposed to represent, there being no key. Why not just have a symbol showing the temperature in degress C or F, like before? On the same map as the other weather info? If you want to see the pressure charts, pretty useful for gauging the upcoming weather, well, you can’t. They’ve removed all that scary technical stuff except for the Atlantic pressure chart hidden away somewhere. I could go on.
Annoyingly, when you eventually throw your hands up in despair and hunt around for the “post your comments about how much the unnecessary redesign sucks” link, all there is is a blog from the development team, full of business bullshit terms and patting themselves on the back about how great it all is, a testament to “agile development”, yadda yadda yadda.
Cyclingnews has just been updated, and it’s terrible. They flashed it up very badly. I have been using it since around 1994. It’s a damned shame.
On the forum the posters bitch about the new design, but I think it’s hopeless.
Yeah, I could maaaaaybe tolerate the new layout if the old content was still present, but since they took it out I have to wonder why the site even exists anymore. We had a thread about it a while ago.
The original TWOP founders (Glark, Wing Chun and Sars, I think) were bought out by Bravo. All of the changes since Bravo started taking control have ruined the website, IMO. I used to visit almost every day to check for recaps, but I haven’t been back in a year, at least. Too bad - it was an entertaining resource.
Have you checked out the Onion AV Club? It’s an excellent alternate resource for TV series recaps (and lots more). I’ve pretty much moved over there permanently.
Large portions of the Internet, from Hulu to Comedy Central, are now made of nationalist fail. A lot of folks won’t realize this, but a whole armload of Amerikan sites block people from outside Amerika. Comedy Central, for example, will not play videos for me because my IP address traces to Kanada. I am tartly informed that I must go to “The Comedy Network” if I wish to view any of their videos, and of course The Comedy Network requires you to drop your pants, grab your ankles, and spread your ass cheeks for any applet they might wish to ram, throbbing and pulsing, down your tender bytehole. This growing and deliberate balkanization of the Internet will be the death of it, as it defies everything for which the Internet stands.
“The Internet” is a global network of computers. It is not a lifeform, has no consciousness, and does not “stand” for anything.
If you’re so annoyed by not being able to watch Hulu in Canada (which as I’ve mentioned before is spelled with a C) then focus your energies on reforming international intellectual property law, not blaming your lack of South Park lulz on nationalism.
It’s also fairly easy to spoof.
Dude, just do a Google search for “watch Hulu from anywhere.” You could have implemented a solution and been watching Hulu videos to your little heart’s desire in the time it took you to post that weird anal rape fantasy or whatever.
I came into this thread to mention JumpTheShark.com and found that it was mentioned in the OP. I used to check that site all the time and now it’s just gone. Sad.
Yeah, they completely fucked it up. Utterly and completely. I read Savage Love, look for weird food reviews, and hightail it the hell out of there.
Joe
Eh not really. I’ve tried that and been unable to find anything that actually works. The various free proxy servers i’ve been able to find don’t work with streaming video. Or at least not with Hulu’s streaming video. Some of the pay sites purport to but i’m not keeping a subscription to a proxy server just for Hulu.
On the other hand i’m not sure what Smash’s problem with The Comedy Network is. I watch them often, both online and on tv, and have never once been anally raped by them. Nor do they require any proprietary applets. They work with whatever comes with Firefox.
Years ago, Borders changed their web site from a simple “search for books and local store inventory” page to a big fancy flash-heavy site that made it a lot harder to search for local store inventory, but they left their old site available at www.bordersstores.com. After a few years of that, though, they finally changed bordersstores.com to just bounce to their normal borders.com site, and now you can’t look up local store inventory from your cell phone anymore.
tvtome.com used to be a fan edited list of tv program episode guides, mostly txt files. easy to fond anything youd want. then tv.com bought them.
www.bloody-disgusting.com used to be an easy to navigate blog-style horror movie news website. the came the mounds of flash and menus and various nonsense.
See, this is why Kanada sucks. Say what you want about Amerika, all our applets ever did was try to sell me a spy cam. Actually getting cornholed by one sounds awesome . . . terrible!! I meant terrible. I don’t suppose you actually have the code for those. Just so I can warn myself when I’m searching the web frantically trying not to find one.
I’ve gotta say that the Westboro Baptist Church’s website has gone way downhill over the past couple of years. I liked its design circa 2005. Remember that, Phellow Phelps-watchers? You had four forms on the front page divided into press releases, news items, links to other godhateswhatevers.com, and something else–probably links to Playgirl and Studfarm, I dunno. The point was that all the hate was right there on the front page, and it was as easy as figuring out what you wanted to be disgusted by that instant. Now it’s all sound effects and cheesy animation, and you’ve got to go clicking five or six times just to make sure you didn’t miss the latest reason we’re all going to hell this week. How about taking pity on those of us with jobs.
Oh, and those music videos are terrible. And godhatestheworld.com has too many graphics and too little information architecture. They’re just trying way too hard over there. Just relax Phelps’s. OK? Everyone still thinks you’re crazy. Stop trying to force the insanity and just let it flow.