It’s a well-known fact that “Web 2.0″ design fads — the smoothly-refreshing AJAX, the ease of syndication, and those maddening widgets drowning in OPML — seriously reduce page views.

Since advertising is mostly sold on page views, it follows that commercial websites should avoid the latest pointy hairdos (figuratively speaking).

Evan Williams discusses the problems of page views and other metrics in a wide-ranging article that’s been much commented on. Here’s a snippet from it that caught my ever-watchful eye :

“… part of the reason MySpace drives such an amazing number of pageviews is because their site design is so terrible.”

Say no more, Evan.

I much prefer Chris Pearson’s idea of Information Architecture to snazzy effects, and simple utility to “design”.