The popularity of the MySpace web design train-wreck

Commenting on Web 1.0 vs. Web 2.0: User Content and Lock-In, I think maybe Web 2.0 vs Web 1.0 is not necessarily the best scenario. Maybe it's simpler, maybe web standards is a waste of time, when you see how popular myspace is right now, and yet it's a web design train-wreck.

Somewhere between the popularity of MySpace and the simplistic usefulness of Basecamp lies the future of the Web. At least the near future, as trying to see too far ahead is becoming difficult as technology and software develops and mutates ever-quicker.

I've seen some disgusting looking MySpace sites, not just from a technical web production point of view, but visually the colours and layout are awful. But on the whole it obviously works, and as we all know people rarely actually complain about stuff they don't get or can't use online, they just go somewhere else and find what they want.

I couldn't survive at work without my Basecamp, to-do dynamic lists and email reminders saving me from searching through pages of written notes, ideas and lists.

But to those that don't work inside the web industry daily, something as simplistic as a MySpace page speaks - particularly younger web users - to them in a simple voice. Here is a wake-up call for all web designers of large and small-scale sites alike, the importance of engaging with your audience, in terms of not only the content, but the layout and visual structures.