Well, as one who has the oppertunity to design sites and has had to spend a lot of time understanding the physcological impact a WEB site should have, I have to say that the HTC WEB is dead on.
This is not a game, this piece of software has crossed the line from the generic, blow them out of the sky game, and successfully made the transition to being a full fledged sim. It is a serious piece of work.
The colors and design of the home page drive this point home.
This does not mean all people will like it, but then again, it is impossible to design a WEB site that everyone will like. It mostly has to do with the viewers perspective.
If I was designing this site, I would have to tell myself, "I need it to look good, but serious and because I know it will set the expectations for the sim, I need to make sure I do not go overboard."
I think Ronni has done an outstanding job of attaining that balance while providing a very easy to navigate site, which has ample information on it.
Pongo, I respect your opinion, and also know it would be impossible for any site designer to create a site which everyone would like.
Whether you know it or not, the site does set some physcological expectations for the product HTC is offering. Here, Ronni has done one bang up job.
When you hear people in the sim saying "WOW", "AWESOME" and such, it is because their expectations were a bit lower due to the site. This is good, very good marketing.
Never raise a consumers expectations past the point of what you can deliver or you will fail.
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Roy "Skuzzy" Neese
President, AppLink Corp.
http://www.applink.netskuzzy@applink.net