The Pretenders
2008 saw a recent spate of new sailing websites and services that sent us on a little research trip around the interwebs to check on the ‘state of the net,’ and we walked away shaking our heads. A tiny handful of sites offer something useful or at least creative, but the vast, vast majority of the sailing internet just flat-out blows. Every site on the World Wide Sailing Web falls into the following categories:
The Wannabes: These sites almost invariably are associated with one or more dying print publications, and their sites are ripoffs of every mainstream news site. They feature massively busy layouts, an overload of poorly written, totally outdated information, and an assault of blinking, flickering ads that moronic companies are suckered into paying thousands of dollars for. They all claim something like “wow, we’re interactive!” despite the fact that the only people interacting are the people on the payroll. Examples: Sail Magazine, Cruising World, Sailing World, Yachting Monthly
