As there are lots of comments lamenting the fact that anyone might actually use this, let me give my perspective. I currently work for, and have been since the start of this whole online 3D-pageflip catalog business started back in ~2006.
To start out - I hate the pageflip effect. In the beginning, clients would drop the jaw to the floor when they saw the effect. They'd go into a coma when they saw you could drag the corners. We didn't have to do any sales beyond that - the effect alone sold it and the catalogs spread like wildfire. Sorry.
As time progressed, the pageflip effect alone didn't really cut it, especially as competition appeared. Since then we, as others, have gone in different directions, usually in the form of offering different addon modules, integration, etc. As time went on, the effect got diluted as well - we no longer offer the user the ability to actually drag the corners - usability testing proved that to be bad and cumbersome to use, instead you only get the option to flip the page by click big "Next/Previous" bars next to the catalogs. The effect is only seen while the pages flip automatically after an arrow click.
So why use the format at all? As many others say, normal scrolling is much more web friendly. However, there are billions of catalogs out there today, and millions more produced each and every day. Companies have hundreds of thousands of product manuals lying around, and they'd like to show them in a lightweight format that doesn't require you to download the 200mb PDF.
There are many retail chains that still send physical catalogs to your physical mail boxes each and every day. These catalogs are usually produced by print agencies on a weekly basis, and to also produce the same content in a webfriendly manner, that'd require tonnes of extra work. Instead, they can utilize what they're already producing and just put it online in an interesting format to read, for the common user.
To sum up - the flip effect was overused, but has now found a decent niche where it can be used. Lots of material warrant the format, even though it's not the optimal one.
I think turn.js looks very interesting. I have a boatload of catalogs running on Flash today, and I'd love to change that.
To start out - I hate the pageflip effect. In the beginning, clients would drop the jaw to the floor when they saw the effect. They'd go into a coma when they saw you could drag the corners. We didn't have to do any sales beyond that - the effect alone sold it and the catalogs spread like wildfire. Sorry.
As time progressed, the pageflip effect alone didn't really cut it, especially as competition appeared. Since then we, as others, have gone in different directions, usually in the form of offering different addon modules, integration, etc. As time went on, the effect got diluted as well - we no longer offer the user the ability to actually drag the corners - usability testing proved that to be bad and cumbersome to use, instead you only get the option to flip the page by click big "Next/Previous" bars next to the catalogs. The effect is only seen while the pages flip automatically after an arrow click.
So why use the format at all? As many others say, normal scrolling is much more web friendly. However, there are billions of catalogs out there today, and millions more produced each and every day. Companies have hundreds of thousands of product manuals lying around, and they'd like to show them in a lightweight format that doesn't require you to download the 200mb PDF.
There are many retail chains that still send physical catalogs to your physical mail boxes each and every day. These catalogs are usually produced by print agencies on a weekly basis, and to also produce the same content in a webfriendly manner, that'd require tonnes of extra work. Instead, they can utilize what they're already producing and just put it online in an interesting format to read, for the common user.
To sum up - the flip effect was overused, but has now found a decent niche where it can be used. Lots of material warrant the format, even though it's not the optimal one.
I think turn.js looks very interesting. I have a boatload of catalogs running on Flash today, and I'd love to change that.