Glenn Davis (web design)

Glenn Davis
Born (1961-06-21) June 21, 1961 (age 63)
OccupationWeb designer
Known forCool Site of the Day

Biography

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Glenn Davis (born June 21, 1961)[1] was one of the first web designers. He is best known for his websites Cool Site of the Day and Project Cool and for being a founding member of the Web Standards Project.

Davis created Cool Site of the Day in August 1994.[2] Linking to one single recommended site off its homepage each day, the site soon became an arbiter of taste on the Internet,[3] and its award was a coveted prize among Silicon Alley start-ups.[4] Cool Site of the Day also sparked a large number of similar coolness awards.[5]

Achievements

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Davis became a celebrity through Cool Site of the Day, giving interviews to magazines and radio networks such as NPR[6] while fending off gifts from site maintainers who sought his recommendation of their sites.[7] Newsweek celebrated Davis as one of the 50 most important people on the Internet in 1995, dubbing him the "King of Cool."[8]

In time for the first anniversary of Cool Site of the Day, Davis inaugurated the Cool Site Of The Year award, also known as the Webby, which was first presented in Hollywood, California, in August 1995, and was given to The Spot.[9]

Davis left Cool Site of the Day in November 1995.[8] In January 1996 he founded Project Cool with Teresa Martin, a new media specialist at Knight Ridder.[1] This new venture was conceived as an educational resource center teaching web development.[10] Project Cool continued the daily award concept under the name "Project Cool Sighting." The site became a respected and widely used resource on web development techniques,[11] and its founders co-authored two books to complement it.[12][13] Davis co-founded the Web Standards Project with Tim Bray, Jeffrey Zeldman and George Olsen, among others.[10] In 2000, he founded Astounding Websites, an online forum created to review and discuss the best writing, design, and programming on the web.[14] Davis gave up on the web as a medium in 2002, dismissing it as "old hat" because he believed there was little room for significant further breakthroughs.[7]

Davis has been recognized for defining the technique of "liquid" web design.[15]

Davis came back to the web in April 2022[16] launching his new website Verevolf, where he publishes web history stories.

References

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  1. ^ a b Gerwig, Kate (1996-01-22). "Glenn Davis takes 'cool' to a new level -- Project Cool ready to roll". Internet Week.
  2. ^ Davis, Glenn (1994-08-10). "ANNOUNCE: Cool Site of the Day". comp.infosystems.www.misc. Archived from the original on 2012-11-10. Retrieved 2011-02-23.
  3. ^ Ryan, James (1996-10-07). "What's Cool on Line? The E-mail Basket, Please". New York Times. Retrieved 2011-02-22.
  4. ^ Chervokas, Jason; Tom Watson (1996-09-23). "Silicon Alley Trades Attitude for Maturity". New York Times. New York. Archived from the original on 2011-06-11. Retrieved 2011-02-22.
  5. ^ Ankerson, Megan Sapnar (2014-07-15). "How Coolness Defined the World Wide Web of the 1990s". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on 2014-07-17. Retrieved 2014-07-17.
  6. ^ Gibson, Julie Gammill (September 1995). "Location, Location, Location". American Journalism Review. Archived from the original on 2011-07-24. Retrieved 2011-02-22.
  7. ^ a b Guernsey, Lisa (2002-03-28). "As the Web Matures, Fun Is Hard to Find". New York Times. Retrieved 2011-02-22.
  8. ^ a b "The Net 50". Newsweek. 1995-12-25. Archived from the original on 2013-01-22. Retrieved 2011-02-22.
  9. ^ "1st World Wide Web "Webby" Awards Announced". Newsbytes. Hollywood. 1995-08-30.
  10. ^ a b Oakes, Chris (1998-08-10). "Group Out to Set A New Standard". Wired. Archived from the original on 2011-06-29. Retrieved 2011-02-26.
  11. ^ Brown, Janelle (1998-02-06). "A Search Engine by Developers, for Developers". Wired. Archived from the original on 2011-06-29. Retrieved 2011-02-26.
  12. ^ Martin, Teresa A.; Glenn Davis (1998-02-03). The Project Cool Guide to Enhancing Your Web Site. Chichester: Wiley. ISBN 0-471-19457-3.
  13. ^ Martin, Teresa A.; Glenn Davis (1996-12-23). The Project Cool Guide to HTML. Chichester: Wiley. ISBN 0-471-17371-1.
  14. ^ Zeldman, Jeffrey (2001). Taking your talent to the Web: A guide for the transitioning designer. Indianapolis, IN: New Riders. p. 390. ISBN 9780735710733.
  15. ^ Finck, Nick (1999-08-29). "Liquid Web Design: Build it right and it will work no matter what the container". Digital Web Magazine. Archived from the original on 2011-03-01. Retrieved 2011-02-16.
  16. ^ "By way of introduction - Verevolf". 2022-04-30. Archived from the original on 2022-05-24. Retrieved 2022-06-09.