Comments on: Death of the Corporate Web site?

By: henrylow

henrylow — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 06:38:17 +0000

Having been a part of the Online Universal Work Marketing team for 4 months now, I’m thankful for my fellow team members who have patiently shown me the ropes along the way and made me feel welcome

http://www.onlineuniversalwork.com

By: Auto world

Auto world — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 13:07:07 +0000

your post has interesting information
I will add you to my blogroll so I can come back often.

By: Chocolate, Cadbury and the Corporate Site | Corporate Eye

Chocolate, Cadbury and the Corporate Site | Corporate Eye — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 08:08:16 +0000

[...] Cadbury once again at the forefront of a new trend, and redistributing the workload across the whole corporate web estate: their corporate site and [...]

By: paulsegreto (Paul Segreto)

paulsegreto (Paul Segreto) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:32:07 +0000

RT @jeffmello Check this Blog post by @ginidietrich about the “Death of the Corporate Web Site” http://bit.ly/rqKm0

By: Paul Segreto

Paul Segreto — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:41:52 +0000

A week before this article was posted, I actually pulled down my website and simultaneously secured a short url. I then directed my blog to the new url and did the same for the original website url. As the blog and website had much of the same information, I was hoping the interactive nature of the blog would be more popular, increase the number of clicks to various pages on the site, and increase frequency of readers returning to the site.

In three short weeks, my blog activity has increased over 400%. Instead of only one or two current articles receiving the lion’s share of clicks, I’m finding nine or ten articles are now receiving attention, which means visitors are spending more time on the site. In addition, as I am also receiving more clicks on my services and special program pages, requests for more infomation about the same have increased dramatically. Subsequently, new business has increased significantly during the same three week period.

As my business is focused specifcially on the franchise industry, and even more specifically on franchisors, the probability of a franchise organization searching for my company through an online search is minimal. Instead, I link my company through Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn activity, targeted email campaigns directly to franchisors, and through online press releases. Only time will tell if I ultimately made the right decision. But, so far, so good!

By: Keeping up with the times (and your users) | Standing Out From The Crowd

Keeping up with the times (and your users) | Standing Out From The Crowd — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:32:12 +0000

[...] few weeks ago, a friend of mine (@ginidietrich) wrote a blog post on the “Death of the Corporate Web site” based on another post from Mashable (Is Social Media Making Corporate Websites Irrelevant?) that [...]

By: Paul Segreto

Paul Segreto — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:21:56 +0000

I agree completely that corporate websites will die and will ultimately be replaced by interactive blogsites or other social media pages. The key is interactivity.

Today, people do not want to just gather information from the corporate source. They want more than one perspective. They want other people’s insight. And, they desire to share information. Maybe it’s reading comments on the various blog posts. Or, it may be following a thread of comments. Or, it just might be the ability to connect with other people seeking out information on the same site.

Websites do not provide these feature except to offer contact info where an email is sent and a response may be forthcoming in a day or two. Nothing irks me more than an automatic message stating,”we received your email and will contact you soon.” Websites, no matter how technologically advanced, will always come across as stale and static, especially after visiting the site more than once. The alternatives will be fresh and dynamic, and encourage multiple visits and in many cases, daily visits.

Could you imagine visiting a website every day? Think about it. Pick out your favorite website and visit it every day for a week. Then do the same with a blogsite and you’ll realize a totally different, more engaging experience. I guess that’s it in a nutshell – Websites are not an experience, just information, whereas Blogsites (and social network pages), due to interactivity between and by many parties, can be new experiences every time they’re visited.

By: Kendall

Kendall — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 12:59:10 +0000

I do agree that the corporate website will continue to evolve just as it always has but I do think it may be a while before we see much of a change with the big boys. The reason is that in order to engage in conversation–which is certainly the right and common metaphor these days–you need to have someone on the other side of that conversation. While many companies are using social media in a “dabbling” sort of way, the jury is still out as to how effective many of them are (yet) at engaging their customer in a conversation. Recall also that many of the people driving the website are the same marketing people that have been raised to think and use “controlled” messaging to get out their story. Not exactly the way to start a conversation…

This is particularly true of the new web 2.0+ services as companies are still not sure how each of these new media services even fit together. Heck, I would argue most prospective customers (unless you are marketing to the edgy crowd) are still even catching up with the new wave of social media and still rely on a fairly “static” website to get their info.

In this regard, I expect small companies and entrepreneurs who have the agility (or a very soc media savvy customer base) will lead the way but I expect the corp website to last a while until that evolution (revolution?) in thinking can be fully realized. So yep, it is destined to change–eventually–but it may be a while….

By: Luis Serpa

Luis Serpa — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 04:20:04 +0000

Gini,

I agree with you and I would go one step further:

In the next few years, users beahvior will quickly change from “surfing pages in a website” to “surfing streams of interconnected information.”

It might look like it is the same thing, but it changes drastically how users experience the web and navigate through sites. With this behavioral shift, Home-Pages may lose all their importance. Traditional information architectures, that guide users through your site’s in an orderly fashion, will not be capable to predict and control the user’s navigation.

So traditional websites (like most corporate sites) WILL die… They will will be replaced with something new, better suited for this different perspective and expectation.

Now, if you ask me how this new website will look like, I’m not sure if I know the answer. There are only 2 things I know for sure:

1. It will involve a more flexible information architecture where every page can stand alone when plucked out of some information stream and still lead the user other related information and to some call-to-action.

2. It will be personal, based on an effort to connect to all users at once on a one-to-one basis.

So, congratulations Gini! I think you are on to something.

Luis

By: Nancy Lyons

Nancy Lyons — Fri, 29 May 2009 20:10:58 +0000

I think corporate websites as we know them must die. But everyone is acting like this is news. If you’ve been working with strong interactive thinkers/developers for any amount of time it should be no surprise that the web is, and has always been, about conversation. Corporate websites have extended their branded materials to the web and expected them to facilitate relationships with their customers. That doesn’t work. Suddenly everyone’s a-twitter about social media because, well, what do you know? We can engage one another in meaningful conversations that influence how we, and our communities, view the world, or brands, or each other, or, anything really. Years ago a website was considered ’static’ if there was no flash animation on the homepage. Your website, Gini, actually lives on a platform that is entirely updateable by your staff, right? That is not static. You’re constantly responding to your audience by adjusting your content to address what they are *looking for*. And your content sounds like a human wrote it. Humans talking to humans. How novel. This is where traditional corporate websites need to start. Its about the *content* not about the site, necessarily. The content must be valuable and relevant and portable to push out to other channels, like this blog post, for instance. It’s a traffic driver–right back to the source. And now there is dialogue around it. Go figure! The new corporate website starts right here. It’s not dead, its just redefined, fluid, valuable, accessible, engaging and necessary. Excellent post, friend!