Looks like there is talk about creating an Association of Web Directory Owners in the Digitalpoint forums. Is this a good idea? As if the Inquisition that controls life and death of directories in the Digitalpoint forums is not enough. I mean if you were to look carefully at what is happening in the directory subforum of Digitalpoint forums, you will realize that it’s the leaders who are in charge and they are the ones who have the last say. Not the community. And these lies in the hands of only a few people. They really control the web directory industry through monetary manipulation, peer pressure and of course media control and propaganda. I am a regular visitor to Digitalpoint forums and I realize that these group of people control the market by buying their supporters(who are usually web directory owners themselves). So do we really need such an association? Do we need more control from these people? And who will be the people in control? Will it be the same old group?

And will webmasters doing the submission be faced with the problem of monopolistic prices? If an association was to be formed, will prices be fixed? You know like OPEC? And with this price fixing, will we then see less innovation since there will be a lack of motivation for web directory owners? That could also spell the end of the web directory market. And how will big directories react to this? Will this association engage them or will they be seen as a competitor? Do you really want to go against big directories? But if such an association engages these big directories, will it be swallowed whole by these big monsters?

How about membership? Will it be something like a pay for membership thing? Or is there some sort of standard for web directories to be included? And who will setup these standards and who will be the judge? If membership to this association becomes very important for a directory owner to succeed, will it be prone to abuse by those with the authority? Is there anyway to regulate the behavior of those in charge? And will this association’s policies be transparent or will it be like those little rich boys club? Greed is the main driving force and I am sure all sort of abuse will happen. Just take a look at DMOZ and some of it’s editors.

Sure, having such an association can result in a better web directory scene. Perhaps we can see better web directories and directories with a higher editorial standard. And we will definitely see less of crappy directories out there. With a clear set of common rules and regulations, we can hopefully see better directories out there as these directories strive to follow these rules. Webmasters doing submission will have a more informed choice and a better understanding on which directories to choose when they do their submissions. It won’t be so messy as we are now. I mean the web directory market right now is really bad.

However we must always weight the benefits of creating such an association, especially when it is likely to be abused. Not only that there is no guarantee that it will benefit the directory owners, it may create more problems for us in the long run. I hate to see the association being used as a tool to further benefit some of the already powerful players in the web directory industry.

Singapore is definitely the place you want to go if you have a fetish for fat and obese people. Truly, how are Singaporeans going to live if one day, we don’t have any fattening foods available? We are all going to die without such rich foods! I heard that in Singapore, the people here are so fat and greedy, that all restaurants had to cancel their buffets and only allow ala carte for the fear of people exploding. We won’t want that to happen now do we? Exploding fat people is dangerous to everyone around them. I heard that when they explode, they give off the same amount of energy as 3 nuclear bombs.

After you have finished your medium raw three pound steak with massive potatoes topped with rich milky sauce, and you are still thinking of more fattening snacks to wash your beef down, you can take a look at The Butter Creations. As the name states, it’s all about butter and cookies. And they do make some great looking cookies. They have this butter cookies with a cookie chip on top as well as corn flake cookies, which I believe is butter cookies mixed with corn flakes. Yes, yes they look sinful but with is life without any sin? All you have to do is to avoid looking at the mirror like forever and you don’t have to worry about the weight gain anyway. And to make you feel better, take a look outside and you will find that you are not alone. There are many other fat and out of shape Singaporeans out there. Some who are even fatter than you are! So go ahead, take a bite…..you will find happiness in every bite. Till your overworked heart gives out on you.

Oh, and The Butter Creations delivers right to your doorstep! You know what that means. You get to eat butter cookies and you don’t even have to leave your house! Just sit in front of your computer, send an email and wait for the cookies to be delivered to your place. Life is just so damn wonderful.

This question is for web directory owners. What type of sites do you find acceptable to be included in your directory? I am talking about accepting sites in the general sense. Not  for a niche market or anything like that. I find it very difficult to figure out a way to truly do that and still make your directory a valuable asset for your visitors. How do you define good websites in the first place? And how to tell whether a website does provide some valuable and useful information? And with this information how do you judge a site? I know all of us have difficulty to determine whether a site is acceptable or not. It’s not an easy job to do.

For me, I first look at the following:

1. Design of the site. Yes, sure it does not mean that a well-designed website is good or even has any content. But someone made the effort to beautiful their site, so that someone did some work. It’s shouldn’t be too far off for me to say that the site owner takes his/her site seriously.

2.  Relevant content. This is a very important criteria for me to judge a site. Content must be relevant to the site’s subject and topic. No point having tons and tons of information that are meant to be spider bait but of no use to the visitors. Visitors expect certain information to be on a site and these should of course be related to the main theme of the site. Even flash sites can have relevant information. Flash game sites are an good example.

3. Writing style. A simple read of the main page and you can at least understand what the site is about. It’s about how well the content is written and it would show that the site owner has made the effort to really write content for their site. I have seen a lot of poorly written sites which I am sure anyone reading it will know that the site isn’t serious.

4. Text? Image? Video? For me, it doesn’t matter. I am no Search Engine, so just because a site has a lot of texts doesn’t make it useful to me. Seriously, images and even video really help build up and improve the usefulness of a website. Readers will get bored too if you don’t have any image to spice up your website. And images or videos are important to help illustrate your point, it’s a superb tool if used wisely.  And I don’t need to mention to you how popular videos are on the Internet. Just think YouTube.

5. Links. I don’t mind links, just that a lot of websites, they have too many links. And worse, I can even spot those paid links, mainly from irrelevant and useless links to crappy websites. And these links are placed on their mainpage! What I find attractive are links to related information on other websites. Hey, that’s what the Internet is about, a linked group on the web so that people can find useful information easily. These is no single website on the Internet that had any the information in the world and it doesn’t need to refer to other sources. That’s next to impossible.

6. Advertisements. If a website has too many advertisements, then I will give it the boot. No visitor should be tortured into seeing so many flashy advertisements that it becomes more like a billboard than a website. Even if it does provide good information, it’s just way too distracting and it reduces the effectiveness of the site itself. I would say if a site has 1 or 2 advertisements on their page and it is not too prominent, that’s okay. Hey, webmasters got to eat right?

Hope that these little tips will help you when the next time you need to check your directory. If you have any good tips or techniques, I would like to hear about it. And good luck on your web directory!