Someone just called 999 on Websites. The Fire Brigade responded… a little later than usual. [sorry]
[Apologies for late posting of this Fire Brigade, (WARNING: plug/lame excuse coming) Kindred is crazy busy right now with new business.] There’s a lot of confusion in the PR industry… (hell communications industry) right now about social media (and…bumpbumpbuuuuuuuuuuuu… it’s not who ‘owns’ it). I hear it all the time from prospective clients “we want to do x, y and z like yesterday” and yet they have a bigger problem than their enthusiasm, their websites. 9 out of 10 are shocking, unoptimised messes that have less direction than a Britney Spears career circa 2008. I don’t blame the 80% who don’t go below the fold. Although, for all my slagging off they are still the lifeforce of the web…or are they? I put it to the Fire brigade. When it is easier to create a WordPress blog and reskin (sorry “brand”) that sucker with some Grade A CSS and rock out with your proverbial can we ever justify the huge budgets some case studies tout? Oh, hold up, control mentality wants to say something. It’s the same with creating a custom Ning social network for £25, can a £150k bespoke social network solution ever be justified? That’s for another time I guess although I believe the point is solid when it comes to websites too. As the battle for whizzy intensifies and different technologies emerge (iPad etc) I envision a very different web and internet experience emerging. It has to. The one we have today can resemble three day old lettuce. Interestingly, the Fire Brigade and I are at odds with this one – most believing that websites have years left in them.
“Websites aren’t numbered but the best ones are evolving. If brands have the visions to talk with their audience then there is actually opportunity for some websites to become social media hubs in their own right and this could also allow greater brand transparency. The new Asda website is a great example of this.”
- Jonathan Welsh / Biss Lancaster
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“I think corporate websites will increasingly be called on to offer customers a direct channel to interact and engage, so for these groups, I see them evolving and growing to answer this demand. I think websites will continue to be an important educational and marketing base for businesses to reach customers (and potential customers) because the internet is one of the easiest and most accessible channels for people researching their options and trying to find products or services, and in my mind this will only be relied on more heavily in the future.”
- Kerryn Dinsdale / Barclaycard
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“I believe Web sites for businesses will continue to evolve and become stronger and more interactive. They’ll continue to be an extension of the brand, avenue for communication, and automatic “go-to” place when people want to learn about a company.”
- Kelly Hubbard / Largemouth Communications
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“I agree in part, design of websites will change, caused by a platform shift towards mobile internet. The uptake of mobile compared to people connect to the net via PC, especially in Asia is massive. According to a study by UK-based research firm mobileSquared – India’s growth of mobile internet will be around 233%, which by 2015 they will have around 260 million people connecting regularly to the internet via their mobiles.”
- Todd Lopez / Creative Order
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“I agree and disagree with this statement. According to Apple’s Steve Jobs, flash web site design is in fact dying (it’s about time, isn’t it) and the mobile web is exploding exponentially. The more accurate statement would be that web sites are evolving and changing, but certainly the Internet and the online sites that comprise it, are not going anywhere.”
- Christine Kirk / Social Muse Communications
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“I think web sites will, over the longer period (10-20 years) will become more niche. If the app ecosystem pans out, we’ll see more dynamic apps being developed for mobile platforms that contain much the same content as a web site. Your uses for a web site may become more limited, dependent upon the business you’re in. Ultimately you want to position your digital presence where it is more likely to be seen by the most amount of people, or the largest chunk of your target market. If your target market primarily uses their mobile devices to search the web, then thats where you will primarily want to be. Sure, you’ll have a WWW site, but it might just be a placeholder, with a link to where you can download the app.”
- Ben LaMothe / Freelance Digital Consultant
