Details, details. Favicons and your web site.
Favicons, those custom little icons that appear in a browser's url address window, have been around for a while. And they do serve a purpose. Then why are some of the biggest web site operations in the country doing them badly, or worse, not at all?
At left is a typical favicon example, in this case the one used on one of the most trafficed web sites in the world, msnbc.com. The image is unreadable because the designer didn't avail of a good, freeware icon generator online. A list of these freeware applications can be found at: ClickFire.com. The result is an icon that is oversaturated, sharpened to extremes and breaks down in critical detail areas. If it was a criminal, I wouldn't be able to pick it out of a lineup. Why even bother?
This favicon for Veer Images veer.com is another example of poor execution on a fine, but important detail. They attempted to put their entire name (it is their logo) in the favicon area. That is 16 pixels by 16 pixels. The result (again): unreadable, oversaturated. It is sure to annoy any customer who sees it on a regular basis in their favorites lists. In their case, taking the 'V' in cursive alone and placing that in the assigned area would have been much better.
Favicons put your site in the forefront when your customers and prospects save it to a larger favorites list. Having one, then, is a good idea as details go. As of this writing, companies like Yahoo! (didn't get it right) to amazon.com (didn't do it at all) still surprise with their oversight. 