What made a Japanese girl crash into the wall ?

A 404 error. Let me explain > I recently watched a tiny TED talk that changed the way I look at my website (and maybe changes yours as well). The speaker talked about 404 pages, you know, the error pages you see when you want to access a page on a website that doesn't exist. On most websites, you see a generic error page that goes like this "please go back / return / go back to homepage blah blah". It's annoying to get to 404 pages - so why don't you turn this unpleasant experience into a enjoyable one ? If people accidently hit your 404, will they see a regular "404" page or something unique - something funny or memorable that will turn a mistake (a false page) into something that makes your visitor giggle and bond closer to your brand ? After watching that talk, I changed my 404 page immediately. It now shows a battered Japanese girl (see above) and talks about how accessing this error page caused a disturbance in the space-time continuum and caused the J-girl to hit a brick wall. Yeah, it's nonsense, but isn't that more fun than reading your standard "ooops 404 error page" ? I think so. So what the hell is your takeaway here ? Simply this - little things on your website matter a lot. It's important to have a slick site design and a nicey banner, but THAT'S what people expect from a pro like you. If you really want to woo them, you should worry about the unexpected things - like creating a fun contact page, a heartwarming welcome message or in this case - a unique 404 page that makes your visitor SMILE.