404 the story of a page not found Renny Gleeson

so what I want to try to do is tell a

quick story about a 404 page and a

lesson that was learned as a result of

it but to start it probably helps to

have an understanding of what a 404 page

actually is the 404 page is that it’s

that broken experience on the web it’s

effectively the default page when you

ask a website for something and it can’t

find it and it serves you the 404 page

it’s inherently a feeling of being

broken when you go through it and I just

want you to think a little bit about

remember for yourself

it’s annoying right when you hit this

thing because it’s the feeling of a

broken relationship and that’s where

it’s actually also interesting to think

about where does 404 come from it’s from

a family of errors actually a whole set

of relationship errors which when I was

started digging into them it looks

almost like a checklist for a sex

therapist or a couple’s counselor you

sort of get down there to the bottom and

things get really dicey but before

before yes but these things are

everywhere they’re on sites big they’re

on site small this is a global

experience what a 404 page tells you is

that you fell through the cracks that’s

not a good experience when you’re used

to experiences like this right you can

get on your Kinect and you can have

unicorns dancing and things you know

rainbows spraying out of your mobile

phone a 404 page is not what you’re

looking for you get that and it’s like a

slap in the face like I’m just trying to

think about how a 404 felt and it would

be like if you if you went to Starbucks

and there’s the guy behind the counter

and you’re over there and yet there’s no

skim milk and you say hey could you

could you bring the skim milk and I walk

out from behind the counter and they got

no pants on and you’re like oh I didn’t

want to see that that’s that’s the 404

feeling

I mean I’ve heard about that so where

this comes into play and why this is

important is I head up a technology

incubator we had eight startups sitting

around there and those startups are

focused on what they are not what

they’re not until one day a flee path

which is a website that focuses on

services for extreme athletes found this

video no he’s not okay all right

they took that they took that video and

they embedded it in their 404 page and

there was it was like a light bulb went

off for everybody in the place because

finally there was a page that actually

felt like what it felt like to hit a 404

so this turned into a contest daily path

had offers inspiration put inspiration

on there 404 page stay hound which helps

you find pet sitters through your social

network commiserated with your pet right

now each one of them found this it

turned into a 24 hour contest at 404 the

next day we gave out four hundred and

four dollars in cash and what they

learned was that those little things

done right actually matter and at

well-designed moments can build brands

so you take a look out in the real world

and you can the fun thing is you can

actually hack these yourself you can

type in an earl and put in 404 and these

open these will pop this is one that

commiserate with you this is one that

blames you this is one that I loved it

said this is an error page but what if

this error page was also an opportunity

right so it was a moment in time where

all of these startups had to sit and

think and got really excited about what

they could be because back to the whole

relationship issue what they figured out

through exercise was that a simple

mistake can tell me what you’re not or

it can remind me of why I should love

you thank you