Coincidentally, Web Standards Awards is closing at the same time that Stylegala is up for sale. Does this mean that the standards war is won? Well, no. WSA reached the 100-site milestone in January and Stylegala has had a distinct lack of new additions in the past few months. The WSA is much more along the lines of the Web Standards Project, the core of the site is the promotion of standards, with sites judged by the great and the good of web design. The annoucement says it all:
It's no longer a myth that you can produce a stunning site with Web Standards
and the 100 site mark is a good place to bow out. Plus these guys have a lot of other stuff to do.
Job done. War won? Nope, there are still an awful lot of sites out there partying like it's 1999, but the tide has turned. The WSA stands as a showcase to standard-compliant design. Stylegala on the other hand is a gallery, a place for inspiration, although it has actually been more than just a gallery for some time. However the gallery does seem to have fallen by the wayside since the heady days of March 2005 when 20 sites were added. In the past few months only a couple of sites have made it in, despite, as the WSA declares:
beautiful sites with beautiful code are being produced by the hundreds; every month, every week, every day
Maybe the problem is that it is too difficult to seperate out just 10 sites a month to feature - what about the ones that don't make it, are they not worthy? This is probably why many recent sites have been high-profile ones (like Verlee and UX Magazine which everyone can put on a pedestal. Stylegala looks like it has just been overwhelmed.