Almost everyone looking for a new Web site wants it to be the latest and greatest, to be better than the competition. But more often than not, the wow factor is not practical and you have to bring them back to reality gently in order to achieve a successful online presence while remaining practical.

MSN has a great example of a wow factor that is not realistic for this type of media: high-definition videos online.

Things like bandwidth and filesize are constant concerns for those involved with online media. In this case, high definition filesizes almost triple the standard filesize – resulting in enormous delays during download, a much slower internet speed, and poor quality of video… It would be hard to find a practical reason for using that level of clarity online for most Web sites out there.

One part of the article that stuck out in my mind was a comment by Josh Martin, an analyst for IDC:

"Is that story less compelling because it's not high definition?" Martin said. "I don't think so."

When it comes to the Web, the ability to browse through sites quickly is one of the most compelling reasons to go online. While you should always want to shoot for greatness, it's more important to accomplish your users' goals successfully than to overshoot your own.