ABBA On The Web - September 2004
New ABBA websites are popping up all the time. Many of them feature the same old sort of stuff that most other sites already cover. Occasionally though, there’s a site that stands out from the crowd, and this time we’ll take a look at one particularly exceptional new site.It’s called The ABBA Express, and its creator is Paul Wood from the UK.
The ABBA Express is a very clean and neat looking site, with a very easy to use navigation bar down the left side, accessing every page. I asked Paul about the actual creation of his site, and he says “All my pages are handcoded, I never use an html editor so I spend quite a lot of time designing and typing up each page up.” As a fellow webmaster, I know just how hard and time-consuming that can be!On The ABBA Express you’ll find some features common to many ABBA fan websites – a discography of group albums plus the girls’ solo work, biographies of the ABBA members and the group as a whole, picture galleries featuring some well known photos of the group plus some more unusual, less common shots.
It’s when you get down to the Downloads section and beyond that things start to get really interesting here.In the Downloads section you’ll find wallpapers for your computer desktop, WinAmp skins, plus you can download the ABBA font.
Next down the list is Fun & Games, which is exactly what it says: here you’ll find some familiar but ABBA related games, such as Hangman (guess the ABBA song title), a Memory game where you match ABBA album covers, a Jigsaw puzzle, and Tic-Tac-Toe (or Noughts and Crosses, if you prefer). These games are lots of fun and highly addictive! There’s also a monthly poll, and ABBA tune ringtones you can programme into your mobile phone.A popular feature of The ABBA Express is the daily video clip, where you can watch an ABBA TV appearance (but never anything that’s been officially released by Universal Music).
Paul tells me that he started of his site as a tribute to Agnetha (his favourite member), but “just got carried away” and expanded it to cover the whole group. He says that he’s working on it almost every day, making improvements or fixing the occasional error. Paul says “I try to change or add content at the beginning of each month so that there is always something new and the site is not just static and left alone like some sites.”Finally, Paul says that at the moment his site is hosted on free webspace from his ISP, but he’s looking to expand in the next few months and the site will get its own domain name. So pay a visit, and keep an eye out for new on the future of The ABBA Express.
