Review: CrossDaily.com
By Charles Morrison
CrossDaily is the portal that grew out of several website projects launched by Michael Koehler of the Toronto, Canada area. In my opinion, CrossDaily is a good, no great lesson, on what to do when building a portal. There are two perspectives that one can look at a site. One perspective is the User viewpoint, and the other is the designer's angle. From both vantage points, CrossDaily shines.
User Features
Instant Submission
From the web users perspective, quickly updated databases mean current relevant information. For the website owner/promoter, getting that site listed instantly is a real bonus.
All-in-One Submission
While not automated, CrossDaily has the added benefit of having one of Christendom's best multiple site submission services. Admittedly, it is mostly a manual process, and seems a little dated, at least the last time I checked, however it is a process that I never omit in my submission process.
Volume of Sites
At over 14,000 site listings at last count, and growing rapidly, CrossDaily represents one of the largest databases of current and relevant Christian listings. While it may not be thee largest the combination of the other features and solid execution and controlled growth, make it No. 1 in my personal bookmarks.
Competitive Intelligence
CrossDaily requires more geographic information than most, and their 'detailed' view makes the other sites traffic, voting, and geographic information available. It's nice to know there's somewhere to go to find out where your competition lives.
Mature Features
One of my most popular criticisms levelled at wannabe portals, is the lack of development and maturity of individual features. CrossDaily has alot of content, and executes the content well, while providing a breadth of material, that is all well developed.
Vote Rankings
CrossDaily's method of listing the most voted-for sites first, provides a good incentive for webmasters to include a voting link to CrossDaily. It also gives those who give in to peer pressure, a reason to visit the site often, to see 'how the site is doing."
Designer Features
From the website designer and practitioner's viewpoint, there a number of things that CrossDaily does well, that make it worthy of emulation.
Quick Load
CrossDaily's sparse use of graphics, and abundance of text links, make it a quick load, even on the oldest computers among us. Few webdesigners continue to cater to the 10 year old computers that continue to surf the net. Success has ensured that the site's content continues to be front and center, in the interest of minimizing bandwidth usage.
SQL-PHP
CrossDaily is an excellent example of how the use of open source code such as mySQL and PHP, can be used to maximize return on technological investment, and sweat equity.
Controlled Growth
Many websites try too much too soon. They try to incorporate immature features, to their detriment. In observing CrossDaily and its predecessor, Awesome Sites, one can't help but notice the slow, but steady and calculated addition of interesting and mature features, such as wallpaper, chat, and friendship. Managed Deployment in action.
Advertising
From the vantage point of managing Advertising on a Portal, CrossDaily is one to watch and emulate. I'd rather not give all my observations away, but suffice it to say, they've made their
volume delivery of banner, button, email, and text advertisements a sweet science.
From top to bottom, CrossDaily is worth a visit, a study, and tour for everyone who considers deploying a portal, I recommend at least an hour visit. Watch and learn.
Charles W. Morrison is CEO, of CrossCanadaSearch.com and a student of portals, directories, and search engines. Charles is currently working on a Portal for his own Canadian province of Manitoba. JesusManitoba.com is set to launch on February 1st, 2001.
Article Index
Talk about this Article in our Forum
