Yes it is!

December 13, 2008 12:27 PM

Is this your paper on single serving sites?
posted by blue_beetle (41 comments total)

Totally trumped my sweet website idea, isthisaplateofbeans.com
posted by ardgedee at 12:41 PM on December 13, 2008

And the world goes on.
posted by ageispolis at 12:49 PM on December 13, 2008

Is this your homework, Larry?
posted by porn in the woods at 12:49 PM on December 13, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

My favorite single serving site is no more, but I first found it back in '98: soup.com (taken over by Knorr's as a commercial site, so no link). It simply showed a bowl of delicious soup. On more than a few cold days at work I would load up the page and stare at some soup. That was a good page. I wish I had saved the (only) image of the soup before the site went away. Goddamn you, Knorr's.
posted by barnacles at 12:56 PM on December 13, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Alright.

I clicked on Heat of the Moment from the article, and once I made it to that site (his links are borked), I began to revel in some early '80s nostalgia. Then I thought, was that Greg Lake or John Wetton who sang? Whoever it is, he looks a little old. But if that's Steve Howe, he looks kinda young. When's this video from? So then I started thinking it's easy to make fun of Asia, but damn, it woulda been nice to see them when they played that 1000 seat theater near my hometown back before their first album came out.

Then I went back to the original article, and...what NO FUCKING ZOMBO.COM ??

What a perplexing afternoon this is turning out to be.
posted by marxchivist at 1:02 PM on December 13, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Based on data from Alexa, a company Alexa that compiles data ranking websites’ popularity, the median length of the domain names of the 100 most popular sites in the United States in November 2008 was seven characters (mean 7.0, std. dev. 3.3).
Okay, it does read like an undergrad's franticly-completed Computers and Society term paper, but this a valid topic from a business/web-design perspective. I think there are some interesting observations in here. I know I'm tired of the angry fruit salad created by advertising, Flash, and a million giant, specialized menus. This 7 plus/minus three thing rings a few bells too.

Is this your homework, Larry?
Well, I gotta tell you: I'd be very, very careful who you talk to about that, because the person who wrote that... is dangerous. This might be someone you've known for years. Someone very, very close to you. Or maybe you just shouldn't bring me every little piece of trash you happen to find around the Internet.
posted by Avelwood at 1:15 PM on December 13, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Given the amount of times I've visited Zombo Com, and the fact that I'm entertained every single time, I think Zombo is definitely a "Multiple Serving" site.
posted by explosion at 1:15 PM on December 13, 2008

The Really Big Button That Doesn't Do Anything is more or less in this genre and dates from 1993. It doesn't have its own domain name because it's from the era when domain names were free but were a lot harder to acquire.

It still displays its Top 5% of Web Sites Point Award badge. I remember those guys. Great scam.
posted by ardgedee at 1:18 PM on December 13, 2008

And, well, he also missed leekspin.
posted by ardgedee at 1:21 PM on December 13, 2008 [4 favorites has favorites]

angry fruit salad

Awesome sockpuppet name!
posted by desjardins at 1:29 PM on December 13, 2008

Just to add to the list:
Are we at war with Iran?
Has the Large Hadron Collider destroyed the world yet?

On which note I can't resist to share: when the LHC first went live BBC World Service interviewed a couple of kids. Said one particularly concerned 6-ish year old boy: "If the scientists destroy the universe I am going to be so angry"
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 1:54 PM on December 13, 2008

Has President Obama been assassinated yet? Apparently he has not.
posted by aaronetc at 1:58 PM on December 13, 2008

Is California on fire?
posted by lilkeith07 at 2:02 PM on December 13, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Does twogirlsonecup.com count? People only visit the site but once, yet iirc, those girls ate multiple servings.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 2:05 PM on December 13, 2008

Remember that page that showcased the blink tag back in the mid 90s? Only worked under Netscape at first. It was just a huge grid of the letter "o" repeated, but with some of them wrapped in the blink tag to create sort of a magic eye-looking thing. Gave me a monster headache.
posted by ben242 at 2:11 PM on December 13, 2008

Or maybe that page said "blink sucks"? Who remembers.
posted by ben242 at 2:15 PM on December 13, 2008

Does twogirlsonecup.com count? People only visit the site but once, yet iirc, those girls ate multiple servings.

I think it was just the same single serving recycled over and over, so I guess they're okay on that score.
posted by Avelwood at 2:18 PM on December 13, 2008

SCIENCE!
posted by Legomancer at 2:23 PM on December 13, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Then I went back to the original article, and...what NO FUCKING ZOMBO.COM ??

The article is about the exact opposite of Zombo.com. The article is about sites that have "a narrowly defined purpose (if any)". And that "do one thing - or nothing".

Meanwhile, you can do anything at Zombo.com. Anything at all.

The infinite is possible at Zombo.com. The unattainable is unknown at Zombo.com.
posted by Flunkie at 2:37 PM on December 13, 2008 [13 favorites has favorites]

This paper doesn't really have much to say, but I am quite fond of many of these sites. Keep them coming.
posted by mai at 3:08 PM on December 13, 2008

My favorite (and not on the list): emptysite.org
posted by twoleftfeet at 3:16 PM on December 13, 2008

The article is about the exact opposite of Zombo.com. The article is about sites that have "a narrowly defined purpose (if any)". And that "do one thing - or nothing".

Meanwhile, you can do anything at Zombo.com. Anything at all.

*slaps self on forehead*
posted by marxchivist at 3:22 PM on December 13, 2008

Anything?
posted by blue_beetle at 3:59 PM on December 13, 2008

Is this your paper on single serving sites?

If it doesn't mention zombo.com, then I'd have to say "no."

(Still, good paper. Just not, you know, my paper.)
posted by Navelgazer at 4:54 PM on December 13, 2008

Oh, I get it. It's very clever.
How's that working out for you?
posted by brevator at 6:02 PM on December 13, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Ha, oh Zombo.com you still make me happy. Maybe I will buy your t-shirt and spread the love.
posted by emjaybee at 6:33 PM on December 13, 2008

Don't want to forget Abe Vigoda Status and doineedajacket.com.
posted by Space Coyote at 6:35 PM on December 13, 2008

How about example.com?
I've sure used the site alot, but I never actually looked at in a browser.
Until just now.
There's 2 seconds of my life I'll never get back.
posted by hexatron at 7:51 PM on December 13, 2008

How about example.com?

I just recently had the flash of brilliance to put 127.0.0.1 example.com in my hosts file so when I'm reading a web development ebook / site I can just click on the links and they'll actually work if I'm running the server software on my own computer. One of those things I should have thought of ages ago.
posted by Space Coyote at 7:59 PM on December 13, 2008

I'd never thought I'd be able to say, "Doesn't goatse deserve some credit here?"
posted by shadytrees at 8:32 PM on December 13, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

A while back, a friend of mine found a way to make an online app out of a Giger counter.
posted by darksasami at 3:40 AM on December 14, 2008

Steamroller
posted by jefflowrey at 5:58 AM on December 14, 2008

I can't remember if the original Prime Number Shitting Bear was a standalone site or just something on some dude's larger site. But this thread made me think of that bear for the first time in years.
posted by marxchivist at 7:49 AM on December 14, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

LOL, I see I am not the only one whose first thought was "zombo.com"

You know...you can do anything on zombo com...anything at all...
posted by Xoebe at 9:27 AM on December 14, 2008

Single Serve
posted by tellurian at 3:26 PM on December 14, 2008

I went to the list of SSSs to check if abevigoda.com was on there, and was clicking happily through the links until I got to genderanalyzer.com.

Apparently, there's a 73% chance that I'm male. o_0
posted by the latin mouse at 4:12 AM on December 15, 2008

what was that one that had a picture of a boat and you could hear a man telling a REALLY long story about it....
posted by mrmarley at 7:19 AM on December 15, 2008

oh yeah.... It was a windy day

http://itwasawindyday.com/
posted by mrmarley at 7:20 AM on December 15, 2008

The isobamapresidentyet site is broken. It says "yes", but he's only the president-elect.

I love that yourethemannowdog.com became a single-serving website collection. So it's no longer a single-serving site, but rather a vast community built around them.

"http://itwasawindyday.com/"

Though not a strictly single-serving website, I still like doineedajacket.com.
posted by Eideteker at 12:54 PM on December 15, 2008

Has President Obama been assassinated yet? That's going to be a mad depressing site if it ever happens.
posted by saul wright at 9:55 AM on December 19, 2008

My tech support site: Did you try rebooting?
posted by furtive at 5:01 PM on December 19, 2008