WHAT'S COOL ON THE WEB
Glenn Davis isn't merely Mr. Cool-author and editor of the Web's Cool Site of the Day . He's a Web celeb, a humorist, a recluse, and a poet-philosopher. In RL (real life) Davis' business card identifies him as Webmaster. He administers the Web site for InfiNet, and is also head of InfiNet's publishing and graphics department. Glenn Davis is cool through and through; he actually gets paid to choose the Cool Site of the Day-it's part of his job.
Cool Site of the Day was born on August 3,1994, when the president
of InfiNet said, "Wouldn't it be great if we could show people
something cool every day?" Davis came back a few hours later
with the CSotD home page design. They went live that day and history,
as they say, was made.
Originally Davis' Web page attracted several hundred viewers per day; at last count in February, some 22,000 viewers were cruising CSotD. Playboy and CompuServe Magazine cited Cool Site of the Day as one of the Web's hottest sites.
WWWiz contacted Mr. Cool by phone recently, and he shared some thoughts about what's cool, what's hot, and what's not.
WWWiz: You've become somewhat of a Web celeb. Is that something you ever expected?
GD: It's not anything I ever expected. I'll tell you, it's really cool though. I went to a concert a few weeks ago, and I actually had someone recognize me. He got all beside himself because it was me he was talking to, and that was just so humorous.
WWWiz: How did he recognize you?
GD: I've got my picture available on the Web. There's a picture of me with some friends. I'm the one holding the camera. It's a mirror image, taken in a ladies bathroom. There's a little story there you can read about.
WWWiz: So this celebrity is a good thing?
GD: I think so. I know that there are places I can go, such as the WWW conference in Chicago in October. I had people recognize me, coming up to me saying, "Hey, you're Glenn Davis! You do Cool Site of the Day!" I've gotten used to it. It was hard on my ego for a while. I had a huge ego that I've had to pull back a little bit. But it's still a lot of fun.
WWWiz: You receive as many as 200 emails a day. How many of those are requests to name cool sites?
GD: About half. I go through and look at as many of them as I can. As soon as I hit one I like, I choose one. That becomes a site. I don't look any further. The next day, I'll look further and further, until I hopefully find one.
WWWiz: Is it hard to choose?
GD: Sometimes it's very hard to choose. Sometimes I'll sit there for an hour or two to find one. Other times, something will strike me right away.
WWWiz: What makes it hard to choose-is it that there are so many good pages out there?
GD: Sometimes it's because there are so many bad ones out there. Anybody can put together a page. And that's scary right now. Everybody thinks they can do something very well. And a lot of people are doing things very well, and a lot of people are showing potential to do things very well. I wish I could take the time to help all those people, but I can't even answer my email.
WWWiz: You keep your page relatively simple...
GD: Yes, I do. I want it to be able to load well on a 14.4 modem. I want more people to access it, so I don't make these huge graphics pages. Now a lot of people I link to don't come over well on a 14.4 modem. But my page, I like it to come over fast, even if you have low-speed connection to the Net.
WWWiz: There's a certain amount of commercialism out there...
GD: There is a ton of commercialism out there, and there is more and more. You would not believe the companies that want the exposure that I can give them in 24 hours.
WWWiz: Has anyone been willing to pay you to choose them?
GD: Yes. I had one company that came right out and said, "What does it take to bribe you?" I didn't respond. I looked at their site and it was medium-cool. It didn't quite make my cut.
WWWiz: So you have a degree of integrity and a level of standards.
GD: Definitely.
WWWiz: Do you have a rating system?
GD: It's all a matter of my opinion, and how I'm feeling at the time. I'm an editor here, and this is my editorial opinion when I pick a site every day. A lot of people seem to agree with my opinion, or like the things I pick, so I must be doing something right.
WWWiz: Are you a trend-setter?
GD: In a lot of ways. I think I have a lot of influence, because
people come to me to see what I think is cool and I think some
of them try to imitate what I show them. So in that way, I think
I am setting trends. Somebody asked me once, "Who made you
God?" That was a very disturbing question. I just happened
to stumble into this role that everybody looks to now. Sometimes
I pick sites that are controversial.
WWWiz: Is Cool Site of the Day politically correct?
GD: I like to think that I answer to a greater morality. But at the same time I don't like to exclude the diversity of human nature. Sometimes, well, the things I choose might be treading a fine line. But then I have to say, these are my opinions. I can't say what everybody likes or dislikes.
The fact that I have an influence sometimes does bother me because I do watch some of the things I pick sometimes and they are things that I would never consider. You would not believe some of the things I've seen on the Web, that people emailed me and suggested as Cool Site of the Day.
WWWiz: Such as?
GD: Memorials to serial killers. I'm not kidding. Pages devoted to death and murder. I just will not feature anything like that. Also, there are sites that I couldn't feature that I wish I could. So I do watch. I do have some kind of inner standard.
WWWiz: Do you think that the Web is a self-censoring medium? "Censor" is a taboo word, but you know what we mean...
GD: I do know what you mean. Sometimes it is censorship. But at the same time, you're always going to find people will go to those pages. I think what we've got here is something that is basically a mirror of humanity. You're going to find the dregs, and you're going to find the elitists, and you're going to find the middle of the road. And they're all going to attract a particular audience. I think they're all there. I think it's humanity, and I think it's always going to be like that.
WWWiz: I've heard that people have gotten jobs as a result of being featured as Cool Site of the Day. Is this true?
GD: Sure. People have written to me what has happened to their careers since being featured. Sites have acted as resumes, showing a person's work. I had one guy actually suggest a Cool Site and all it was, was a resume. It was very well done, and very cool. But I didn't feel it was cool enough to offer him employment.
WWWiz: Do you think the Cool Site will become a status symbol?
GD: I think it already is. If you look at the previous Cool Site pages, probably 70% of the previous sites list when they were a Cool Site. Because its an honor for them. Right now, it's the most prestigious daily award on the Web. There are a couple of annual awards-which Cool Site is up for, by the way. But right now it's the best instant exposure a site can get, which is kind of scary for me because it gets back to the question, "Who made me God?"
WWWiz: It seems like a vote of popularity, actually.
GD: If I like it, suddenly the rest of the world likes it.
WWWiz: So, are you cool?
GD: I don't know. That's a good question.
WWWiz: Do you get fan mail?
GD: Some. I don't know if you call it fan mail. I get a lot of thank you's, keep up the good work, you're doing a great job, some I hate you. Some people don't like it. There's always something I'm going to do that someone's not going to like. I'll do a site every now and then and I'll suddenly get people writing saying, "Hey, that's not cool at all," or "Get back to your usual standards." One time I did a couple of sites in a row that some people didn't like and they wrote me and said, "What did you do with the real Glenn Davis?"
WWWiz: You're coming up on a one-year anniversary. Are you going to have the Best of the Cool Sites?
GD: I've thought about that. I'll probably go through the list and select what I think are the best sites out of that list, and feature them and ask people to vote for them, which ones they think are the coolest. I see a lot of stuff out there that I think deserves a lot of attention.
There are talented people out there, capable of doing some really neat things. They might not have a college education, and they might be doing this on the side, but there's a lot of talent in the world. There's a lot of Cool in the world. And I'm bringing that to people.