Where the Bechers documented the stark post-industrial german landscape, Mark Luthringer has been documenting the infinite replication of the American subrb. And Chris Messina has extended the concept into a new space that thrives on universally recognizable design: websites interfaces.

via a daily dose

DSC 0371
Originally uploaded by John Keegan.

but it's fun to see scott and matt making nice. i find it disturbing that even with the recent stupidity surrounding wordpress, when someone asks me how to set up a website ASAP, the first word out of my mouth is still "wordpress" (followed swiftly by "fantastico"). it might have something to do with not being able to find a suitable importer for drupal, or habari staunchly refusing to install, but more likely it's because despite not being as open as i'd like, wordpress is still really good at what it does.

• case 1 - virb.com: since signing up, i have been bombarded by friend requests from bands, and have visited their pages to find customized pages and music samples. this is one part of the myspace experience. although it's been championed by the grown up myspace haters for it's visual panache, it's not something i want a part of.
• case 2 - facebook.com: since signing up, i have been plunged into old friendships that have been buried by time and distance. it's the same experience i had when i added my real name to my myspace profile. except with less blinking text, annoying music, and ugly slideshows.
• using the 'posted items' feature on facebook led me to understand which sites value my presence there, via the meta description tag on my profile pages:
  • case 1 - Last.fm:
    

    Listen to sunburntkamel’s personal radio station (17,480 tracks played). sunburntkamel’s top artists: dredg, Cursive, In Flames, Hot Water Music, The Appleseed Cast, Opeth. Favourite tags are seen live, emo, Progressive rock. Get your own music profile at Last.fm, the world’s largest social music platform.

  • case 2 - flickr:
    

    Flickr is almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world. Show off your favorite photos to the world, securely and privately show photos to your friends and family, or blog the photos you take with a cameraphone.

  for flickr, i am an advertising vehicle. last.fm does their advertising in the description of their home page, not my profile:

  The world's largest social music platform. Show off your taste, see what your friends are listening to, hear new music, get personal radio, recommendations, and downloads, all for free.

  can you guess which site's persuaded me to support their efforts?

i don't know if it's because i'm using PNG's, and my photoshop's gamma is off (i thought using save for web fixed that?), or because i'm not using web-safe colors, or if it's related to the issue with Safari and photographs, but it's sure damn annoying.