Sep 12, 2002, 1:35pm

As you may have noticed on this website, and on two other websites of mine, www.coffeekid.com and www.coffeegeek.com, the front page was changed to a black remembrance theme for September 11th. It wasn't much, but it expressed my thoughts and I wanted to show that the event will live forever. It also makes me more cognitant of what I have in life.

Yesterday, I didn't work much, but I decided to surf around the web to see what other websites, some huge, some not, were doing for Sept 11th. I've got a small list of kudos, honourable mentions, and yes, some pans as well. One irked me more than anything else... I dunno why.

Kudos!

These are websites that did some drastic changes to their front pages, or did something special to help fund various charities surrounding Sept 11. Clicking each image will open the full size screencap of each page.

	Amazon Amazon changed their front page to feature poems, drawings and letters from a book by kids involved in Sept 11. They also directed all profits from the book to charity.		1st Line Equipment 1st Line changed their front page to black with this simple message. Kudos to Jim and crew.		Macromedia Macromedia replaced their promo big flash box on their front page with a memorial message, which linked to another page on their site that gave donation options and a message from the company.
	eBay eBay changed the front of their page, taking off all the promo stuff for a day and putting a big message up.		Harley Davidson Harley Davidson had a nice splash banner across the front of their website with a flash ticker.		Yahoo Yahoo went gray on September 11, and offered up lots of options for donating money, finding out more about the tragedy, and other efforts.
	Williams Sonoma WS replaced their promo flash movie on the front with a tasteful, simple message about September 11th.		WinAmp Winamp replaced all their website banner ads with links towards a September 11 memorial site with info about donations, etc etc.		HP HP set up the ability to send a video email on the rememberance day to victims and families.

Honourable Mentions

The following websites didn't go as far as the ones mentioned above to show their corporate concern for the events of Sept 11, but they still did something special. Clicking each image will open a popup with a full sized screencap.

	Chef's Simple text and table box on the front page saying "We Remember".		Alta Vista Small blue banner with some links, and a very nice scrolling list of all the victims' names from 9/11.		Brighthand Featured a front graphic and a link to a short article written about 9/11 and an invitation to discuss.
	Nascar Some audio and articles with interviews with drivers concerning 9/11.		Paypal Small graphic on the front page in a place where they normally don't put anything.		Sony Message on the front page about the 9/11 event and Sony's corporate thoughts.

Pans

Many popular sites ran the day as "business as usual". Some even tried to profit from September 11th, which I found personally dispicable.

Barnes and Noble
They did have a thing on their front page - a link to a "September 11th Book Sale" with all the books they sell on post Sept. 11 events. While many of those books direct their sale proceeds to charity, Barnes and Noble made no mention of what their own profits from the sale of these books would do. Shame.

Microsoft
Business as usual at Microsoft. Nary a mention, a flag, anything on their main front page.

Adobe
Ditto with Microsoft above - no mention, biz a usual.

Buy.com
For guys who directly compete (or want to directly compete) with Amazon, they sure dropped the ball on Sept 11.

Spammers
Spammers barely let up on September 11. Over the 24 hours, I recieved 182 spam messages that made it through my rudimentary server side filter. On a normal weekday I receive about 200. What bothered me most is some of the titles, and "from" names on some of the spam invoked Sept 11th in some way. Absolute crying, dispicable shame. Spammers are the lowest of the low.

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Mixelania

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