Today, self-publishing has never been easier and prettier. The era of Web 2.0 has ushered in the slick simplicity of sites such as Wikipedia, Flickr and Blogger that allow users with no technical ability to easily carve out their online presence with dignity.

Then came MySpace.

In one fell swoop, Web design was pushed back a decade. With millions of users creating their own pages and grafting on endless doohickies, this social network has become a hotbed of garish graphics, illegible fonts, crazy colors, incessantly blinking .gifs, automated musical slideshows and more – often thrust at the viewer all at once! Deja vu?

Ugly tools are made available to ugly site builders; in fact, it is a thriving industry. At BlinkYou.com you can find martini glasses or pulsating hearts to rain down your profile page at different speeds. Or how about a rotating 3-D font that shimmers and explodes? At PimpMySpace.org you can get a cursor in the guise of Tony the Tiger or Raphael, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. An animated flying demon with giant wings anyone?