Stumbled upon a great article explaining why splash pages are a bad idea. It’s written for people who build websites, but it has some good information that anyone (not just tech people) can easily digest. Here’s my favorite part:
You want to minimize the number of steps involved in
reaching your offerings. Having an extra click from a splash page does
not align with this idea.
The bouncing ball intro for the ASAE Annual Meeting website comes to mind (which has since been taken down). Not only was there no “skip intro” link until the ball stopped bouncing, but there was also sound. Loud, annoying sound that couldn’t be turned down on the event’s internet stations. It was basically a roadblock to the information everyone was looking for.