Me and @agentdeal have both recently been noticing an increased interest in analogue clock-based time interfaces on the web. Pleasingly, the practice has been implemented across web development disciplines, proving that it’s not just loopy Flash developers who spend their time making utterly pointless widget-y gizmos — even Steve Jobs and his panting army of fanboys can have a go!
The trend seems to have started with bbc.co.uk’s lovingly crafted piece of old test card nostalgia, made using Canvas:
It continues in spectacular fashion with the new Times paywall site thetimes.co.uk, which has a heartbreakingly pathetic laurel-wreathed carriage clock, rendered in Flash, updating in real time, presumably sitting atop a digital mantelpiece as a retirement gift to the online news industry:
The newest kid on the block, and definitely the showiest, is the timezone-straddling multi-clock Flash display of Globe Trotter, purveyor of hand made luxury luggage:
What fascinates me about all this is that surely every single example here and elsewhere is completely redundant. Is there a device anywhere that doesn’t display the time and/or date somewhere in the interface? I’m pretty sure that anything running a web browser also has a clock or calendar in view a mere eyeball movement away. But that is what makes these internet clocks so great — each is a conceit made of whimsy and I love them.