Why H2G2 sucks
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
The best way to find out why Douglas Adams' (or rather, Douglas Adams' slightly dozy employees') online version of the Hitch Hiker's Guide to The Galaxy sucks is to go there. It's difficult to fully explain unless you've seen E2 and H2G2 side by side. Basically, H2G2 is a very lame rip-off of the original Everything where even the most simple operation requires 6 click-thoughs. Every write-up has to be checked over by their editors (read lawyers). There are currently (over a year after launch) about five write-ups on the site. There are also some baffling (in their pointlessness and poorness of execution) Flash movies, which have nothing to do with the actual books/radio show/etc. Presumably, the server is not running on a Mac (that would be silly). On checking the site today, it has had a redesign to make it look more like a crappy generic Netcenter style portal. They also have a (vapourware) WAP version in the offing, although unlike E2, they may have to rebuild from the ground up to allow this.
With the greatest respect to Mr. Adams, you should stick to what you know. Really. Or turn H2G2 over to Blockstackers and properly realise its potential. Look how big E2 is with effectively no publicity, whereas you get loads, and H2G2 is still pathetically tiny.
Oh, and I've written this entire entry in the time it's taken for H2G2 to process my registration data (yup, I've had to register again because they've redesigned the front end. This is called BAD F*****G DESIGN.)
Clicking the Don't Panic button results in a 100K+ document. F**k!
Update! It also crashes Netscape. And is really slow.
And you get a number instead of a name. And this from the author of Bureaucracy?
And did I mention it's slow?
With the greatest respect to Mr. Adams, you should stick to what you know. Really. Or turn H2G2 over to Blockstackers and properly realise its potential. Look how big E2 is with effectively no publicity, whereas you get loads, and H2G2 is still pathetically tiny.
Oh, and I've written this entire entry in the time it's taken for H2G2 to process my registration data (yup, I've had to register again because they've redesigned the front end. This is called BAD F*****G DESIGN.)
Clicking the Don't Panic button results in a 100K+ document. F**k!
Update! It also crashes Netscape. And is really slow.
And you get a number instead of a name. And this from the author of Bureaucracy?
And did I mention it's slow?
