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The web has come a long way since I first started working in online (back then we all called it New Media, capital letters and all).

As an experienced industry expert (read: cynic) I sometimes feel the web has moved away from its grassroots days, when anything felt possible and communities of interest would spring up on Geocities, Yahoo Groups, or newsgroups.

Yesterday I used a service that reminded me of the early days of the web in all the best ways. It was mentioned by a colleague in passing, I found it via a quick search, it felt a bit rough around the edges, but the idea was simple and it worked.

I think there is an interesting point here. Can websites look too polished? Can they look too Web 2.0?

I think so. I've worked with a client in the past who targeted customers in a low demographic. They had previously launched a new site. It looked great - far removed from the late 1990s throw back site they had (tables, animated GIFs, no CSS on the horizon...)

I think you can guess what comes next...their conversions bombed. Through the floor. The site looked too slick, too professional, too good - it didn't say to their potential customers: "We are cheap enough for you". It said: "We're out of your price range".

A quick roll back to the old site, and conversion levels began to return to normal. When they next launched a site working with us, we encouraged them to gather feedback from their customer profile before going live, and carried out split testing.

So...here's to websites that aren't 100% slick and are rough around the edges, here's to new ideas that are more important than the latest Flash affect or Ajax...here's to the pioneering days of the web.

PS the service that inspired this post was Freecycle.