Mint.com turns 404 ad page into date ad for developer

[chimeracoder]

I love it when companies add a little personal touch to their 404 pages (though they're taking 'personal' to a whole new level here!)

I saw an incredibly great collection of creative 404 pages a few months back. I can't find the one I saw, though Fab404 (http://fab404.com/) has a bunch.

[blhack]

The one I use for thingist: http://thingist.com/blahblahblah

And also 500: http://thingist.com/errordocs/500error.html

The site is tiny, which let's me be a little bit sillier than normal. Personally I think playfulness is the core of what it means to be a hacker, so I love this type of stuff :)

[effigies]

My favorite 404: http://www.rathergood.com/404

[sushrutbidwai]

Interestingly fab404's 404 page itself is not at all great. http://fab404.com/404.html

[blacksmythe]

This one is appropriate for HN: http://fab404.com/magnetize/

[ebun]

I've always been a fan of Good.is' - http://www.good.is/43253453rtgesrgs4

[pdk]

Bonobos also has a good one: http://bonobos.cachefly.net/fail.html

[davidhansen]

Small shameless plug for our own attempt at the "personal" 404 page: http://www.ties.com/fgswgdfjgjah ( flash required to see video, sorry )

[ComputerGuru]

Am I the only one wondering if it was a prank on Justin? I think it's more likely that a coworker was being funny than Justin's desperate for a date :)

[MichaelApproved]

He's clearly posing in the picture. He must know it's being used for something funny.

[aaronbrethorst]

Clever, reminds me of Groupon's unsubscribe video: http://www.groupon.com/unsubscribe (flash required)

[wtn]

The Groupon unsubscribe video is so awesome I recommended my friends to unsubscribe to see it…

[icefox]

The problem with Groupon's unsubscribe page is that for all of their "please come back to us" they don't have a one step "Undo" button. I unsubscribed to watch the video and then had to re-go through the whole process of making an account again. I would be curious what the logs say about how many people started the re-subscribe process only to bail before they were done.

[oconnor0]

I actually can't stand Groupon's unsubscribe video. It feels like they're trying to guilt trip you into remaining subscribed. If I don't like your service, I don't want to be bugged by that when I'm just trying to quit.

[josegonzalez]

When I saw this page committed, I smiled quite a bit.

http://seatgeek.com/404 (Image: http://d2o7bfz2il9cb7.cloudfront.net/main-qimg-e859ed4563650...)

[goodweeds]

If you've ever posted an ad on craigslist, then you know he's probably received hundreds of penis photos in the hour since this link was posted.

[bostonpete]

Pshaw. I posted an ad for a lawnmower and only got a handful of penis photos.

[guelo]

I know this is off topic but beware of Mint. As they say, if you are not paying then you are not the customer.

EDIT: ooh -4, I guess ya'll REALLY didn't want to be warned. It was just intended as a friendly warning but in reality I don't care what you do, go ahead use Mint all you want then.

[chc]

I'm sure anybody who's used Mint is well aware they're being fed highly targeted advertising. Mint isn't exactly trying to hide its business model.

[LearnYouALisp]

How dare you disagree with the mob! This isn't Reddit, you know!

[vinhboy]

Can you elaborate? I like mint a lot.

[hendrix]

This is oh so true. Wtf are you giving out your bank history and info to a website? If they get hacked…lol oh shit. (let the downvotes commence)

[Aloisius]

Am I the only one who finds the picture a bit disconcerting? It is mostly the kissy face pose. The photo seems so over the top that it just doesn't seem sincere.

And is that a sweater vest? Nice.

[maratd]

Relax. It's obviously a joke. Nobody is a desperate enough to look for love on a 404 page ...

[Geekette]

Hey, for obvious reasons, they had to capture his "amore" side. I'm sure he'll make some hipster girl very happy.

[hirojin]

I see many guys (yes, only the guys) here curious about Justin's sexuality. Really, if you're interested in him, just email him already.

[yogrish]

Other interesting 404 page http://www.foradian.com/404

[bbrizzi]

Niiiice. I just spent 5 minutes turning it along all 4 of its axis to find an angle from which it looks like a cube.

[rehashed]

1.17MB 24bit PNG with alpha transparency on a flat color background...

[hansy]

Haha this is so awesome and creative. Way to take a completely buzz-kill page and turn it into something fun and (perhaps) useful.

[richardw]

The perfect place for a really good 404 is here. Missed opportunity, I think.

http://xkcd.com/403/

http://xkcd.com/404/ <--

http://xkcd.com/405/

[beaumartinez]

I'm getting a 404 for it. Has Munroe changed it recently?

[RobertKohr]

It is not a missed opportunity. It is minimalistic art.

[jspash]

Looks like a stock photo. Has the same amount of "funny" as grannies on motorcycles. Just an opinion or two...

[sp332]

I don't think it's stock. There's something up his sleeve.

[jdelsman]

I emailed him; never heard back :(

[emwa]

Could be he's into girls.

[Cushman]

Serious question: why do we still have 404 pages?

A 404 means the server can't find what I asked for, can't tell me where it went, has no idea what I'm looking for. By definition, my browser shouldn't show me the content that was returned-- it knows it's not what I want!

If I get a 404 code, the page shouldn't change. The browser should just show a message indicating that that resource doesn't exist, include the reason message if it's something other than "NOT FOUND", and let me either try a different link or correct my spelling. If I clicked a link to get there, it could even set a style on the link to indicate the resource doesn't exist.

It's strange how much we're still living in the nineties. I wonder how many of the use cases of Ajax could be replaced by an intelligent browser using the existing HTTP standard?

[roryokane]

The server does have one way of getting an idea of what you’re looking for: the URL you requested. I’ve seen 404 pages that search the site from a slug in the URL and display the search results. There’s usually not enough in the URL for it to be useful, but I think once a site found the page I was looking for like that.

Also, if the 404 link was from another site, now that you’re on the site with the missing page, you can at least click their navigation and try to navigate to the resource yourself. Like if you follow a link titled “buy red yarn” from knitting-patterns.com to buy-yarn.com/products/8221 and get a 404, you can click Store and search for “red” and thus find buy-yarn.com/store/2539.

[eck]

The webmaster wanted you to see it. If browsers didn't show the content of a 404, webmasters would just send you the same "not found" page but with a 200 code, which would be even worse.

[gospelwut]

I don't really see a problem? I think the point is you wanted to go to foobar.com/naughtygirls but it's actually foobar.com/naughty-girls. At the very least, the 404 brings you to the right website, presumably, ideally with a coherent enough sitemap/navigation to get you to your desired place.

Though, I wonder how often 404s actually happen outside of people not properly setting up redirects. I imagine 95% of people just type in domains or use bookmarks.

[jm4]

You would be surprised at how many sites do not send a 404 response header.

[noja]

They should probably mention whether he wants a date with a guy or with a girl...

[yarone]

Next up, ad network designed for embedding on 404 pages. :-)

[CyrusL]

Actually, that already exists. Believe it or not there are ad products that pay for the people who click "Under 18" on porn entry pages.

[mindcrime]

Sounds like a good startup idea. Let's build it!

[Groxx]

I love the description. Sharp crayons FTW!

This might just take the cake for my favorite 404 page ever.

[alapshah]

Quora- What are some of the funniest 404 pages: http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-funniest-404-pages

[tomlin]

The points for this post are currently 404. I. Can't. Upvote.