The one idea I wish I could instil in more people I work with is that the idea of a web site breaks down when that site is content-focused. Or, to put it another way, all the time that you are lavishing on your front page? It's wasted. Because people aren't coming straight to your homepage.
One of my colleagues mentioned this at the editors' conference we had last year, to something akin to a stunned silence. I don't get the impression that her point really sank in with many of the people present. And it's not like it's a new idea. People have been talking about the web's ability to explode conventional content structures for half a decade.
This is, and always was, an inevitable consequence of the structure of the web: the link. Any page can link to any other. And as the social internet has developed we have more and more ways of recommending links to others: e-mail, instant lessening, blogs, bookmarking sites, forums, Twitter, social networks and so on. And that was the point of the video I posted the other day - people aren't going to come and visit you in the same way they pick up and read a magazine, they're going to come to you via a link shared in any number of ways - or through that 800lb gorilla we know as "search",
One of my colleagues mentioned this at the editors' conference we had last year, to something akin to a stunned silence. I don't get the impression that her point really sank in with many of the people present. And it's not like it's a new idea. People have been talking about the web's ability to explode conventional content structures for half a decade.
This is, and always was, an inevitable consequence of the structure of the web: the link. Any page can link to any other. And as the social internet has developed we have more and more ways of recommending links to others: e-mail, instant lessening, blogs, bookmarking sites, forums, Twitter, social networks and so on. And that was the point of the video I posted the other day - people aren't going to come and visit you in the same way they pick up and read a magazine, they're going to come to you via a link shared in any number of ways - or through that 800lb gorilla we know as "search",
Old Media that's got a little bit of New Media lip gloss on has a
somewhat totemic attachment to the idea of "landing pages" - magic
pages that will attract search traffic through their SEO gravity. These
pages can actually be incredibly useful, as long as they fulfil a
genuine information need. If you build a quick page which can direct
people to the best content on a breaking story, then you will reap the
benefit. But you can do that as easily in a blog or forum post as you
can in a conventional CMS. And you're still not building a frontpage,
just a "focus point" in the information stream.
I think many people in the traditional media are looking at YouTube and missing the point. They look at YouTube and say "video is popular - let's do video". And they build an online TV site. And they miss the main fact - that YouTube exploded the idea of video by making it shareable, through links or embedding. And the sites that they've built don't allow you to link directly to video, or embed it elsewhere.
I think that for as long as Old Media mentally think of ourselves as building sites, rather than contributing content in an increasingly diffuse way out into the general internet, then we'll really struggle to meaningfully contribute to the new information culture.
I think many people in the traditional media are looking at YouTube and missing the point. They look at YouTube and say "video is popular - let's do video". And they build an online TV site. And they miss the main fact - that YouTube exploded the idea of video by making it shareable, through links or embedding. And the sites that they've built don't allow you to link directly to video, or embed it elsewhere.
I think that for as long as Old Media mentally think of ourselves as building sites, rather than contributing content in an increasingly diffuse way out into the general internet, then we'll really struggle to meaningfully contribute to the new information culture.
April 7, 2008 5:31 PM | Reply
I'm reporting you to the SEO police for your heretical views on landing pages. Expect faggots to be lit beneath your seat before the day is out.
This home page fixation is funny. When I was a site manager (i.e. just 18 months ago) salespeople were still coming to me and telling me their clients wanted to go on the home page for a month and how much would that cost?
"Why do they want to go on the home page?" I would ask (as the home page views were - even then - a fraction of the total page views.
Answer came their none beyond "That's what the client wants."
April 7, 2008 5:43 PM | Reply
Absolutely spot on - been having the same conversation about the VSO site (www.vso.org) they're tying to bring in web2.0 stuff but without really getting it.
Yes, it's about sharing info but that doesn't mean you have to upload reams of it. You just have to create a community that people come in and share their own info.
The info you do upload you just need to make embeddable, shareable etc.