Over the weekend, I finished switching my Web site over to a new content management system. I had been using Mamboserver, but wasn’t as thrilled with it as I thought I’d be, so I switched to phpWebSite, which is a vast improvement. Interestingly, on the heels of the switchover came some input that suggested, perhaps, that static Web pages are a thing of the past in light of the conversational nature of blogs. Are static Web sites (and, for that matter, magazine ads) dinosaurs that should be consigned to the dustbin of communication history?
I’ve given this extensive consideration, weighed the implications, and reached a conclusion:
What a crock.
If we’ve learned anything over the last several years, it’s that all new media and communication channels are additive. I would defy you to name one-ONE-new medium that has outright replaced an older one. These predictions have always accompanied the introduction of a new channel. Radio was supposed to replace print. Television was supposed to replace radio. Now blogs are supposed to replace Web sites.
The truth is, new media channels assume the roles for which they are better suited than the older channels. And the older channels adapt to do what they’re best at. Consider television. Before TV, radio consisted of programming that included dramas and comedies, soap operas, game shows and variety shows (from “The Green Hornet,” “Inner Sanctum,” and “The Shadow” to “Texaco Star Theater,” “Beat the Band,” and “Quiz Kids”). When TV came along, these kinds of shows quickly became TV staples because they were better as visual presentations. Did radio die just because “Days of Our Lives” was no longer part of the programming mix? Nope. Radio adapted into a channel for programming that was better as audio.
Today, newspapers are struggling in the face of challenges from blogs, online classifieds (e.g., Craig’s List and eBay), and online news channels, but I don’t for a minute believe newspapers as a medium will vanish. There’s too much evidence suggesting that people scan Web content but read paper.
Some newspapers that don’t adapt will certainly perish. But smart publishers will figure out how to evolve their publications into something that is just better on paper than it could be online. New newspapers with fresh approaches that leverage print’s inherent strengths will appear. These will thrive.
E-mail is another example. Think back to when e-mail was first introduced at your workplace. Did IT simultaneously remove your fax machines? E-mail became a new alternative, not a required replacement.
So what’s the benefit of a static Web site or a magazine ad?
Let’s start with the Web, and let’s look at the Microsoft Office campaign that Steve Rubel wrote about. I agree completely with Steve’s assertion that Microsoft has wasted an “opportunity to use what I call ‘conversational marketing’ – e.g. blogs, podcsating and RSS.” But that doesn’t mean there should’t be an associated Web site. Once somebody has engaged in a conversation, there should be a place to go where they can quickly navigate to information they need. Remember, good Web sites are built on principles of information architecture, easy retrieval of information. Further, information found on the static site may well be what leads someone to want to engage in a conversation.
(By the way, the special Microsoft site, with its slow-loading Flash and streaming video files, sucks. It looks like it could have come from one of those extinct Web design companies of the mid-1990’s. And no, I’m not suggesting that Steve ever said there should be no Web site at all; Steve gets the idea of integrating all appropriate media to achieve a business
outcome.)
Another example: government sites. With the ocean of information available, do I want to engage in a conversation just to find, for example, how to get a camping permit in Yosemite? Well-constructed Web pages are far more
useful: Click, click, there’s my answer. I don’t have to wait for somebody to respond to my post. And let’s not forget commerce sites from Amazon.com to the online stores at places like Circuit City or Home Depot. Adding customer service blogs to these is a great idea. Replacing them with blogs is, well, dumb.
And what about magazine ads? People still read magazines; print still rocks.
And if you can create the awareness that drives readers to an online conversation, increased share of market follows.
Finally, it’s still worth noting that, according to the oft-cited Pew report on blogging, only 27% of the online adult population in the US reads blogs at all. That’s an impressive number, but it’s still a fraction of a company’s total potential audience.
You’ll find no bigger advocate for the social customer, the business/audience conversation, and the value of new communication channels than me. To achieve genuine and meaningful business results, however, it’s important to temper enthusiasm with practicality. Blogs, RSS, podcasts, and wikis are exciting and important and transformational, but they are a part of a larger communication landscape. Communications that integrate them will be far more successful than those that rely solely on them.
To bring this full circle, that’s why I have a Web site, a blog, a wiki, and a monthly e-mail newsletter. I can engage people in my blog. But someone who wants to know what my intranet audit service entails can find that in two clicks on my Web site. (I still get a lot of business that way.) People who don’t read blogs remain aware of me through the newsletter, which is also posted to a separate blog so I can distribute it as an RSS feed. I have an RSS feed of the news items on my Web site’s home page. I have no plans to give up my site and go blog-only any time soon. Each serves its purpose. And all is right with the world.
