Friday fun

There was a website I used to visit often run by a guy named Dr. Bombay. Dr. Bombay was a devotee of the Rat Pack and all that entailed. His site was large with lots of links to like minded sites and even links to things that someone seeking a fashionable Holmby Hills lifestyle might want to purchase. His site had thousands of visitors and was pretty much a mainstay for web 1.0 surfers. Then one day, he just shut it down.

The website had become a victim of its own success. Whereas the cool guy lifestyle was once an enigmatic, self determined existence, it had become available at your local mall from a Big Box store. Instead of esoteric guidelines, there was now a Dummy’s Guide.
This frustrated Dr. Bombay more than a warm Martini, so he shut it down.

The amazing thing about the Good Dr’s site is that it was never for sale. Not blatantly anyway. We were all having a good laugh and a great time. The site was focused on the content and it showed. There was nothing intrusive about the things that were for sale on the site, you chose to go to the pages that offered merchandise and it was always categorized properly, so if you were reading about Sammy Davis Jr., the link was for his music and books. So the merchandising made sense and the visitor actively participated in being marketed to.

Now we have web 2.0 and with all the Google words and SEM/SEO stuff, I’ve yet to see any algorithmic formula make up for good, smart, well placed ads.

Dr. Bombay may return one day. We can only hope. Till then, I leave you with Frank's 10 commandments of cool:
* Never yawn in front of a lady.
* Top your martini with two olives and give one to a friend.
* Make sure your trousers break just above the shoes.
* Cock your hat: angles are attitudes.
* Don't put on a brown suit at night (wear dark grey or, even better, black).
* If black tie is optional, wear it. Except on Sunday. Never wear a tux on Sunday.
* Tip big and tip quietly.
* Let the ice sink in your glass so the flavours will blend.
* Have fun with everything.
* Go gracefully into the Big Casino (ie death).