Why we are still using 88x31 buttons
39 points by pushcx
39 points by pushcx
I think part of it is just because they are so small.
You get to do a lot more "pixel art" to make them look nice, and they generally get a distinct look because of it. Larger formats just don't have those constraints, so they, in my opinion, just ends up being a lot more boring to make, and look more like "downscaled and poorly compressed artwork" than a distinct thing, like 88x31.
Mine required me to manually recreate some artwork at a smaller scale. Most scaling algorithms you find in editors just doesn't work well at these sizes.
That being said, I might just have to create a 120x60. It still seems small enough to not just be "arrange things in gimp and export", while giving a bit more space.
I find that the 88x31 button size is like the 2.5" rack unit. There's nothing special about the size, and most people would choose something else, if they were free to choose. But most websites that use buttons want to stack them, and to stack neatly, they have to be the same size.
Banner ad networks could tell banner makers what to do, . But the only universally agreed upon format among independent webmasters is 88x31, so we are stuck with it.
Instead of 200x40, I would suggest one of the depreciated banner formats from the IAB's old recommendations like the 234 x 60 Half Banner or the 120 x 60 Button #2. Why? Since the half banner and 120x60 button survived into the early 2010s you have over two decades of banners and buttons in archive.org snapshots to riff from or include outright for "flavor".
The other factor is that there are handy collections of 88x31 buttons. It would be nice if someone made a bunch of 200x40 or 234x60 banners for currently popular things like FOSS web software, Fediverse services, etc.
"...we will display your company or product logo in the Netscape Customer Showcase - free of charge - and will give you a 10 percent partner discount on advertising on the Netscape Internet site."
I had no idea that the "Netscape Now!" program offered incentives to people to put that button on their website.
IAB referenced!
Hmm, tbh I would have just said: Lindy effect. There was no other non-commercial size format that was in any way a de-facto standard.
Interesting article nonetheless, but not necessarily because of the headline.
There's a physical law that the emissivity of anything (the fraction of its black-body radiation that can escape) is exactly equal to its absorptivity (the fraction of radiation that gets turned into heat upon hitting it). The interesting thing about this law to me is that you can prove it's true without saying anything about why it's true, by showing how anything violating it could be used to passively concentrate energy.
All that to say the Lindy effect is interesting in its own right, but it doesn't really say anything about why an individual thing survived as long as it did. So I think the headline is fair enough and the article delivers what it promises.
