List #1 – Traveler’s Wonders

• Eiffel Tower
• Colosseum
• Great Wall of China
• Sydney Opera House
• Empire State Building
• Christ the Redeemer
• Chichen Itza

You’ll notice that several of these are on the New7Wonder’s list. Taj Mahal in india is the honorable mention for this list.

How many of these wonders have you seen? What would you have in your traveler’s list?

7 wonders of the Ancient World, 7 Wonders of the Medieval World, 7 Wonders of the modern world, The American Society of Civil Engineers’ 7 wonders of the modern world, New7Wonders Foundation’s 7 wonders of the world, USA Today’s New Seven Wonders, Seven Natural Wonders of the World, Seven Wonders of the Underwater World, Seven Wonders of the Industrial World, Travel wonders of the world, Man-made travel wonders, Natural travel wonders (for more info, please see the lists at Wikipedia.)

So yeah… there’s quite a few. But personally, I would say that the “original” was the 7 wonders of the ancient world:

• Great Pyramid of Giza
• Hanging Gardens of Babylon
• Statue of Zeus at Olympia
• Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
• Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus
• Colossus of Rhodes
• Ishtar Gate or Lighthouse of Alexandria

The problem, of course, is that the only one of these wonders that a) is generally recognizable and b) still exists, is the first one. Which is probably why so many people have been inclined to create subsequent lists of the 7 wonders of the world, myself included.

The New7Wonders Foundation’s 7 wonders of the world is really worth looking at if you haven’t heard about it. Basically, the foundation created their list to “update” the 7 wonders of the ancient world. Of course it had been done before, but they attempted to make this one more of a global effort. Their underlying cause was to unite people worldwide and to protect the landmarks as a heritage for future generations. They even did an american-idol-style vote for the wonders, with people all over the globe either casting their votes by telephone or via internet. Here are the winners:

• Giza Pyramid Complex
• Chichen Itza
• Christ the redeemer
• Colosseum
• Great Wall of China
• Machu Picchu
• Petra
• Taj Mahal

Counted them? Yes, it’s 8. They left the Giza Pyramid in there as an “honorary” wonder. I love this list because it is so globally diverse. What do you think about the results?

The New7Wonders Foundation is currently doing a campaign for the New 7 Wonders of Nature. You can cast your vote on their website: www.new7wonders.com

Q: How much does a website cost?
This is the number one question I get. And for good reason — a well-designed website is an investment. We can’t just slap a price tag on it however. Why? Because websites are like houses. For example, “How much does a house cost?” The answer is… it depends. On many factors. Some of these are:

• the size (5 bedrooms/5 pages)
• upgrades (hardwood floors, granite countertops, jetted tub/flash, photo galleries, illustrations)
• how custom it is (spec home vs custom/templated website vs custom)
• how often you change your mind during the construction process (now you want a pool?/now you want a shopping cart?)
• how quickly you need it done (normal time vs rush)
• other features (balcony, walkout basement/back-end programming, content writing)

This is why most webdesigners will want to talk about your project with you before they can give you an accurate quote. They may be able to provide you with a general price range without any information, but that would probably just be a starting price. Be prepared, because oftentimes you will realize you want features that put you above that price. Just like when you walk into the model home in a new housing development, the lowest price on the billboard outside is just the bare bones of the house, not what you see in the model home.

If you know your design budget, you can share that with your designer so that they can come up with options that fit inside what you can afford (much like a realtor would show you homes that fall within your pricerange). As with houses, with good webdesign you get what you pay for. You would be alarmed if someone promised you a mansion with a pool and equestrian arena for just $100, wouldn’t you? The better you want your website to be, the more it will naturally cost.

So, to answer the question:
A: It depends on your answers to your webdesigner’s questions.
If you are getting multiple design quotes, make sure you supply each designer with the same information in order to recieve the most accurate quotes possible.

#1 Google
This is the top wonder because at times, well, it has actually made me gasp as if I was seeing the aurora borealis. Shock and awe, thats what it is. For instance, recently I used the new “drag and drop” feature in Gmail to add an attachment. It was beautiful. Its strange to realize how “everyday” it is now to do a “street view” of your own house in google maps. Google just makes things that should have existed already.

#2 Wikipedia
The concept of it is great. Now, while we can never accept any article as absolute “truth”, at least it is a good reference for what people in general believe about a certain subject.

#3 Facebook
Sorry myspace etc. this one is my pick. Why? My mom is not on myspace, but shes on facebook. It has reached across all barriers to connect us. It is a simple, clean interface that makes wasting time online easy.

#4 Youtube
Anyone “lucky” enough can get famous off of this! We are all on a level playing field now. You don’t have to have any special connections in hollywood, just be someone like the starwars kid or make the harry potter puppet pals.

#5 Craigslist
Never has such a simple looking website done so much. Text & text links. Thats pretty much it. But man, what a smorgasbord of funny posts, useless banter, and crazy classifieds. Its a good thing some people can still use it for legitimate, time-saving, or otherwise helpful things, like finding a bunch of moving boxes for free.

#6 This is a tie: Blogger/Wordpress
Imagine that everyone in the world got to write their own book. Without an editor, spellchecker, etc. That is what we have. Blogs everywhere (what? this is not!)

#7 Ebay
The thing that really wows me about it is, you can find pretty much whatever you want on there.

Anyway, those are my current 7 wonders of the web. What are yours? Why?