Single Serving Sites: A Semi-Personal History

Rex Sorgatz released his annual year end round up of blogs today, and I was exceptionally honored to earn a mention. It wasn't for my blog, however, it was for a website I launched almost a year ago now that typified a trend: the single serving site. In addition to Rex' post, just before the holidays Ryan Greenberg released an academic paper on single serving sites (aptly titled "Is This Your Paper on Single Serving Sites"). As my website makes an appearance in each I thought I should discuss my role in all this, and my thoughts on the subject. In the interest of radical transparency, I should also mention I've got a pitch in on the subject to Wired. We'll see how that goes.

One thing I tried to do with Barackobamaisyournewbicycle.com was to make a point by using the URL itself. In fact, the idea for the URL address predated the idea for the site by several days. As I've oft repeated now, the phrase was something I had been saying to my wife for a couple of weeks. I then repeated it to Andre Torrez at Toronado on an unusually balmy Sunday afternoon, who immediately "got it" without explanation. (But in case you need one: the idea of Barack Obama as a blank screen onto which we all project what we want to see.) So it was kind of funny, but how to make it work?

I essentially applied the URL idea to a concept I'd seen repeated in various ways in the previous weeks. Namely: Damon Zucconi's Sometimes Red, Sometimes Blue and the aforementioned Andre Torrez' C-O-L-O-R.net, both of which had a wonderfully odd randomness about them, applied to a single page format.  Another thing about both of those sites is that they have really cumbersome URLs if you're trying to key them in. They certainly don't follow the five letter rule of thumb that marketing knobs are so fond of. In my opinion, the rules for domain names have changed. Everybody's bookmarking and linking now because it's crazy fucking easy to do so. A href equals whatever you say it does, mang. You're no longer telling your friend about this great website you saw ("Have you tried Google dot com? I think it's even better than Altavista."), you're linking to it on Twitter or Facebook or Delicious or Blogspot or Digg or email or whatever. And not just you, webdude. Everyone's linking these days. My dad, a guy who won't even leave AOL because he's scared of the Internet, sends me formatted links via email now.

Hence the URL as idea or message. Not that the idea is anything new, but it's one that I think works exceptionally well in the Single Serving Site format. In fact, I think that's the single serving site's greatest strength: it's a super-efficient idea delivery tool. The URL itself is often a function of that idea delivery, but it's the sites' overall tendency towards small, efficient and focused messaging that makes them valuable and, I think, popular.

So that's it. Thanks, Rex and Ryan for letting me get this off my chest.

Oh. And I made a few other single-serving sites as well. Most of them have some combination of features of the above in common. To wit:

http://barackobamawilllookyouintheeye.com
Rather self explanatory, I think.
Interestingly, while Andre provided me with inspiration to launch BOIYNB, his wife Amber helped me with the site design for BOWLYITE, which explains why it looks so much better than all the rest of my sites. I owe the Torrez family a dinner, now that I think about it.

http://yahoorezinr.com
Launched during the summer when the Yahoo! attrition rate was exceptional. Again, I wanted to make something funny, but I was also trying to make a point.

http://whatisgaryveeon.com
I was sort of afraid this one was going to get me sued. It's meant as nothing but a huge compliment to Gary, whose productivity and output are nothing short of stunning. I hope that guy has a good sense of humor and doesn't take me to court. (Oh, and that's a Dead Milkmen reference, but you knew that.)

http://thatbuttondoesntactuallydoanything.com
This is an old school Web reference, but you knew that too. It's linked from the site immediately above.

http://happybirthdayto.eu/
Currently in production, by which I mean I am ignoring it but intend to come back to it really, really soon. Maybe this week. Maybe not. Although it's currently dedicated to the lovely Mr. Brian Oberkirch, and was formerly dedicated to the equally lovely Mr. Erik Malinowski, it has a special purpose for the future. It's eventually going to work like this: http://mhonan.appspot.com/Any.Name.Seperated.By.Dots.Works Oh, man. Please don't steal my half-assed idea.

http://douchi.es
I grabbed this URL with domai.nr, which is a super-hot tool for coming up with interesting domain names. There's an awards site on the way. Try not to win one.

Comments

[Jennifer Kutz]

OMG I am SO SO excited for the Douchies!!!

[brittney]

"Marketing knobs" made me laugh. Knobs doesn't get enough linguistic play.