wwp@yahoogroups.com:
Re: new promotional possibility - Fullscreen QTVR site
Aldo Hoeben 2006-Jul-18 07:17:00
I'ld like to add some thoughts to the already heated discussion. I am
opposed to the presented idea. I don't personally hold anything against
VRWay, on the contrary, they are doing great things publicising
panoramic VR, but I really don't think incorporating the WWP in the
fullscreenqtvr pages as proposed is a good idea.
First, let me debunk the 'every link is a good link' concept.
I would hope that Google's crawlers are smart enough not to rank >1000
links from site A to site B in the same way as 1000 links from site A to
sites across the internet or vice versa. There are two possible
scenarios for the 'massive parallel links' (my term): It's either a
mirror, or link spam. A mirror should not get you 'googlepoints', and
link spam will even get you penalised on Google, so you'ld better hope
the Googlebot doesn't regard it's such.
I'ld guess that VRWay doing a 4 times yearly special, highlighting a
handfull of panoramas would give you far more 'Google-points' than a
virtual mirror. People blogging about the wwp on their own blog will
even be infinitely more effective.
And then there's the confusion this move will lead to...
- Confusion on who's project this is
The current mockup looks exactly like any other VRWay product. Yes,
there's the WWPano logo, but even that is incorporated in the layout
the same way as Arounder, VRMag and panoramas.dk, all three of which
are VRWay 'products' (whether Hans likes it or not).
Will the Geoimages project and the Berkeley University like it when
a project where they sponsor employee time and LOTS of bandwidth is
presented on a site like this, suggesting a tie with a commercial
entity from Europe? Will it even be legal to spend american tax
dollars this way?
- Confusion about the crippled experience
People are going to see the WWP project for the first time through
the fullscreen panoramas page. They will get list after list of
thumbnails, sorted Asia first, and wonder 'is that all?'. They're
getting a crippled experience, and will think that's the WWP. They
will miss out on the opportunity to find the places they've been to
in reallife, or explore those places they've always wanted to visit
from a wold map. They'll miss all that because to them the WWP is
that list of thumbnails.
- Confusion about the layout and style
When going from the fullscreenqtvr index/thumbnails page to the WWP
page, people are going to think 'where did I go to now?' or even
'oh, this page must not be entirely done yet...'. The difference in
style is just too big.
- Precedence
If VRWay can mirror the WWPano project, then why can't I? And make
some money off it too, using Google Adsense (I have to cover my
hosting, right?)
Finally, consider this about the current mockup: how many panoramas are
there in the WWP project? And how many in panoramas.dk? Why then is
panoramas.dk listed on top? And why then does VRMag get twice and
Arounder four times the screen realestate of the WWP (arounder cities
AND arounder special projects)? The WWP would be the star of that page,
so it'ld better look that way too!