I'm thinking a lot about Web genres these days. OK, here's an exercise. Click on the link below, turn away as the page loads, take a quick peek back, and try as fast as you can to determine what kind of site it is.
Ready? Here's the link to the test page.
No, don't read on until you've done the exercise.
Back again? Thank you, that's a compliment. Don't know about you, but I first thought I had come to a store selling computer books and occasional hard drives. Only a bit later did I realise it was the homepage of a serious university lecturer.
My point here is not to make fun of Dr. Gauntlett, quite the contrary. I just note how much colous, fonts, use of images and lay-out has to say for our genre placement and understanding of a web site. I mean, Dr. Gauntlett doesn't look like a boring professor type, does he?
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