Move out of your website (if you can)

  By Jason Moriber | March 19, 2010 - 8:25 am | Comm

Websites are not websites, they’re plants (vines are an even better analogy). Websites used to be apartments, either furnished (web-building software) or unfurnished, that you moved into, decorated, and often redecorated. Now, they’ve become organic ongoing enterprises that need to grow/change/respond with your visitors/customers/clients in mind. Vines.

I was speaking with the amenable Ben Kunz a little while back about the need for websites to finally break free from the 2-Dimensional design manacles of brochures and postcards. It could be that “apps” are the new sites, that sites themselves will be less about pages and more about functions. Maybe one one day my own site will be a button (a widget) that does something cool, something my clients need, something remarkable.

BUT…until we all get to the near-future we need to fix the here and now. We need to stop thinking of sites in 2-D, we need to model them in X-D! The X is for the non-linear, fairly emotional, and hopefully rational way real people live their real lives. This X factor needs to become part of your website. But how?

The current trend is to move out of your website, live in the public space of social networks, and drive people back to your boring old apartment. What if we didn’t go back? What if we all stayed out here, in the sunshine, offering widgets of functionality that lived out here in the open? What is the open?

I think all will become function, and not form. The architects might scream, “ugliness!” but these new interconnected functions might mimic the natural world, not gardens, but jungles. And then over time we’ll probably clear cut them for farmland again (as Tac noted in his previous post, it’s exhausting to live in our always-disruptive arena). In the meantime, how do we both grow a jungle, manage it, and eventually transverse it, in the most productive way?

What do you think?

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About Jason Moriber

A salty veteran of the dotcom boom, I currently work at Waggener Edstrom Studio D, where I am the Director of Digital Strategies. I have an MFA in drawing, launched and write for a handful of sites/blogs, and have created and implemented programs for auditors, start-ups, and organic farmers. I am in constant awe of the amazing people I learn about, meet, and fortunately get to work with.
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  • http://www.apgordon.com/ Andrew

    Hey Jason –
    Very interesting.
    RE: “The current trend is to move out of your website, live in the public space of social networks, and drive people back to your boring old apartment. What if we didn’t go back?” … I’ve been feeling more and more lately that staying out in the sunshine, on Facebook and Twitter, etc. is going to lead to less and less production and more and more consuming. I may be a dying breed, but I feel like the website offers the 4 walls, a room, and ample space to actually SAY SOMETHING, not just RT or throw up a link to something else. I feel like most people are turning into consumers of the web now, and fewer people are producing the content (search for recent blog post [I found the other day] that showed FB has surpassed Google in web traffic).

    I don’t know though. Just a thought. I like your site, though, very cool, will subscribe. Take care.

    -apgordon.com

  • http://local-marketplace.com/ Steve Koss

    Fascinating…web sites, social networks…mmm…might be time for an environmental scan and X-files perspective to discover both are nothing more than the old yellow pages mentality…both lack commerce.

    What is the X-files perspective? The truth is out there. Much like a giant jigsaw puzzle, the review of many sources can shed light on perceptions versus reality!

    The media coverage of web sites, social networks has the commerce equation out of sync. Social networks can harm the social commerce (revenue) equation. Web Site = A to C to B, Social Network = A to D to C to B, moreover should not the yellow pages mentality shift to Commerce 2.0 or eCommerce, or fill in the blank of a pizzazz buzzword (____) for the simplistic equation of A to B!

    Let’s take a look at reality… Local and social technologies are the buzz in the marketplace. What is missing is the Leonardo Da Vinci systematic thinking to connect all the dots. Many small business merchants and the big players walk potential customers up to the virtual doors of their web sites or social network presence, only to not make a sale.

    The big box stores, such as Walmart and Sears are dipping into the well of ecommerce through innovation processes creating e-Marketplaces. To fish in the site-less web pond requires a change in the type of fishing. Change the trolling rod of electronic yellow pages (web sites, social networks) to a fly-fishing rod to catch sales and new revenues in the ecommerce and social commerce ponds.

    The realism is that it is a paradigm shift to “Products/Services 1st, Business/Brand 2nd for A to B equation success.

  • http://twitter.com/fuentism Krista Fuentes

    Interesting post! Recently a friend of mine had a marketing analysis done for his informational website, including phone interviews with a group of what he considered his ideal audience. He was shocked to hear that this group, while passionate about their subject, had no real loyalty to any particular website, in some cases not even being able to name one site that they trusted. Instead most of them read articles sent by friends via email or facebook, or found by direct search. Most read articles on the topic daily but only through the medium of their choosing. The conversations these people were engaged in spanned multiple sites but were tied to none. It's good to consider how to become useful or fun enough (perhaps through apps etc.) to get invited to those parties rather than always trying to lure folks back to your smelly old apartment.

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com tacanderson

    Driving traffic to your website via social media for information is the equivalent of going to a party & trying to take a girl back to your place to talk.

    There are reasons to take girls back to your place and there are reasons to drive traffic to your website. Information and conversation are not those reasons.

  • http://twitter.com/jelefant jason moriber

    Hi Andrew,

    Maybe websites become content/engagement vehicles vs capture nets. They could still have the ample space to say something. Maybe they are welcoming front porches versus tabbed layers of data? I can visit you, you can visit me.

    I do think you're right too, that less production could be a symptom, but if we are aware of this we can work to correct it.

    BUT, maybe it's less important, from a business perspective, that we the business say anything at all. Maybe all we really need to do is offer a platform to listen and respond with the services that make productivity possible.

    Thanks for your comment,

    -Jason

  • http://twitter.com/jelefant jason moriber

    Thanks for your comments Krista!

    (In all disclosure I've known Krista for a few years, one of her former gigs was a client of mine).

    Right, the effects of the connectivity is the plethora of choices. It's kinda like living in the big city and deciding where to eat (or meet up with your friends). It could be that after a few years we'll settle into our favorite routines, or that we keep on checking out the limitless amount of restaurants (and most restaurants fail!). Myth and fame have a lot to do with it, plus offering an excellent service. I'm not sure what the answer is, but I think we need to get radical about “websites” if we want them to be productive robots.

    Thanks again,

    -Jason

  • http://twitter.com/jelefant jason moriber

    I had 4 roomates in a warehouse with 2 windows, no one, not even my best friends, wanted to come back to my place.

    But you're right. The trick is the ROI of whatever online entity/drive you put into place.

    Thanks as always Tac!

    -Jason

  • http://twitter.com/fuentism Krista Fuentes

    lol- New Yorkers understand better than anyone how hard it is to get visitors.

    All the effort spent on trying to get people back to the (informational) site might more creatively spent if we could just figure out alternatives to selling adspace as primary revenue.

  • http://twitter.com/jelefant jason moriber

    Hi Steve,

    Thanks for your comments. I had thoughts about your point, was trying to describe this shift to an entrepreneur the other day. I liken it to be “the fast fooding of business.” I need to do more research, but in short there is a commodification of services taking place, where these services can be purchased like goods. There is the ad series on TV for a car insurance company that personifies this selection and purchase.

    Also, the other wave, is that there is no middle. There are not a lot of medium businesses spending money, so you have a gap. Walmart and Sears are doing well because their price points match the trend. There are many great medium businesses that get the traffic, and not the sale, because though the market wants the service, they can’t afford it. In a way many of these businesses might have to price like the airlines; offer the lowest ticket price so they appear competitive within the aggregate comparison sites, then add on fees after the initial transaction.

    But ultimately I agree with you, “products and services” are the magnet in the equation. Brand is the glue for the long term.

    Thanks again,

    -Jason

  • rileybiz

    I suspect your post was motivated by seeing a plethora of static websites, most of which are uninspiring. However, I don't think the situation is hopeless and that we should abandon our sites. Three things prompt me to say that. First, websites really fulfill a different function than social media. It's primary job is to create awareness of the business and help establish its credentials. That need will continue for the foreseeable future. THe second reason is that businesses are starting to add blogs to their web site. That adds a social element and provides an excellent tool to start building customer and prospect relationships if managed properly. Thirdly, people and businesses with websites have invested a lot of time and money establishing them. Why walk away from that investment and have to reinvest money and time to build a new platform somewhere else? Your site will be what you make it…a garden or a jungle. It seems to me we don't need to move to be able to create that environment, but I grant you, let's start the gardening process.

  • http://www.workplace-excellence.com/ Dan Bobinski

    Excellent metaphor. And yes, the architects *and the neat freaks* will scream ugliness. And yes, it IS exhausting to live in the jungle. It's never safe. Danger lurks everywhere. One can get eaten by another if not alert.

    And yes, worklife is lived in the open. But throughout history mankind has almost always had a safe place to retire in the evenings. Go hunt mammoth by day, return to the safety of the cave at night. Go farm and fight for the feudal landlord, and return the safety of his fiefdom at night. Go work at the factory, the office, or the family farm and return to one's home at night.

    Yet in the 21st Century, technology has so connected us to the outside world that it now invades our homes 24/7. And with more people working out of their homes, they've invited even more aspects of the jungle into their once-sacred caves.

    I agree with the need for the way we conduct our business online to evolve into more practical applications … friendly, functional, intuitive apps that move at the speed of life. But to Tac's point, I think each person using those apps must learn to draw boundaries about how far those vines are allowed to grow into our private places of rest.