I wondered out loud last week (on Twitter, anyway) about our increasing efforts in arts organizations to add more and more internal functions to our web sites. Calendars, blogs, news banners, rotating content, special interactive features all have their lure for our visitors and potential visitors, but they also create an increasing drag on our organizations and our staff.
Further, the odds that your web site will actually be a frequent and essential destination for any number of people goes against the power law. If you’re not hugely popular, your only minimally popular, and your increasing energy sustaining a complex web site will yield diminishing returns.
I’m not saying dynamic and continually relevant content isn’t essential to a web presence. I’m just wondering if we really need to build such systems internally, when another alternative is spinning all around us. A ‘web presence’ and a ‘web site’ are no longer the same thing.
Consider a web site that only managed the most essential, logistical, perhaps even static information as an internal function of the web system. Everything dynamic would be posted and managed in the various free systems around the web that already get high traffic. Event announcements would be posted on Twitter, Facebook, and Blogger (or similar). Event schedules would be posted to Google Calendar or similar. Photo galleries on Flickr. Video interviews and event previews on YouTube. And on and on.
Your goal on such a site would be to locally host as little as you possibly could, so that your communications and related staff spent the bulk of their time out and about in the on-line world. Any communications you post out there, of course, would be included on your site as dynamic feeds. But you wouldn’t have your own internal software or systems to manage them.
Essentially, your arts organization’s web site would be an aggregation of your communications elsewhere. It would recognize that a ‘destination’ web site is a false hope, and perhaps a dysfunctional goal. Certainly, you’d want basic information about who you are, where you’re located, and where to park (although Google maps and streetview could manage much of this, too). But really, what more do you need to host internally anymore?
In the personal on-line world, such an aggregation of multiple streams is becoming known as a ‘lifestream‘. And there are some really compelling examples of what this approach looks like (check out the lifestream site of web developer Shimone Samuel, for example. Or the slightly more chaotic Tom Beardshaw).
Perhaps organizations are already doing this and I haven’t noticed (the Center of Science and Industry, among others, at least points to their various content streams). But every time I turn around, it seems another organization is installing new web software or commissioning custom code to make their site dynamic, while also asking their staff to keep current all over the web.
Management guru Peter Drucker was fond of reminding organizations where their true work lived, encouraging them not to look at their desks but out their windows. Said he:
“…the single most important thing to remember about any enterprise is that results exist only on the outside. The result of a business is a satisfied customer. The result of a hospital is a healed patient. The result of a school is a student who has learned something and puts it to work ten years later. Inside an enterprise, there are only costs.”
So, what would a web site look like if it was just a local container for a global conversation related to your organization? And why would you ever install another complex content, calendaring, or conversation system again when the real conversations, the conversations with impact, are happening elsewhere?
For us (at Cambiare) the goal of the web site is upfront logistics, what’s next and how do I get there. Along with the longer form who are we, and what have we done. Think of it as a college view book.
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The one best reason to host your content is ownership. When a web property goes down, or changes it’s terms and conditions – I have my materials and I haven’t licensed them to someone.
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But we go GET the conversation – go where people are.
I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit lately, especially as we’re (Madison Opera) considering a web revamp in the near future. There is a general feeling right now that we need to make our website more interactive & audio/video friendly. But the reality is we have a dynamic multimedia presence elsewhere on the web via Facebook, Blogger, YouTube & Twitter, so a lifestream or otherwise minimized website might make sense. But I wonder, would this migration of content away from the website alienate the bulk of our audience that remains unfamiliar with social-media, the retiree who is proud to make it to our homepage alone and doesn’t want to bother with sign-ins and member pages? That person is currently missing out on most of our multimedia web content, so shouldn’t we make it directly available on our website?
I think for us the key will be finding some balance between a lifestream model that allows our younger, more web-focused audience members to easily navigate our social media pages while adding some of that content to the actual website in a non-cluttered design.
Good comments, Brian, on an essential wrinkle for all media — how to embrace the new channels while respecting visitors who value the existing channels. I’d suggest that an elegantly designed ‘lifestream’ site would work wonderfully as a stand-alone site for those who wanted everything in one place (without jumping around to all the sources). But that it would also recognize that much of your potential audience will spend the bulk of their on-line lives far from your website.
That’s a design and structure challenge, but I think it can be done. Anyone doing it well?
Hey there — I’m not sure this fits with your post, but figured I’d add it to the conversation. Here at City Theatre, we wanted to make information about our recent live and silent auctions available online. Our associate artistic director suggested that we look into the publishing capabilities of different blogging sites, and we were able to use blogspot to create “cata-blogs” for our live and silent auctions. I don’t know whether these helped us obtain ticket-buyers or bidders, but it WAS an attempt to use off-the shelf tools to communicate with our audience. We placed links to the blogs on our website and in email blasts. I guess I’m saying that I see ways these tools MIGHT help us develop relationships better and conduct business better, as we become more adept at using them.
See the cata-blogs at http://velocityliveauction.blogspot.com or http://velocitysilentauction.blogspot.com, before we take them down at the end of the month.
For a brilliant example of this idea pushed to the extreme, see Modernista. A design firm where the website is simply a menu leading to the content (=portfolio) hosted on other platforms:
http://www.modernista.com/7/
I’ve got four points to add to this:
1. Copyright / Ownership … you’re creating original work and broadcasting it, so bear in mind that a distinction exists between transitory fluff (the funny promo video that you hoped might ‘go viral’ to sell tickets for your 3-week performance run) and the b-roll excerpt or video interview with the author or pictures from a new photography exhibition, which are great permanent records of art and artistry. On facebook, the transitory viral video is great for a 3-week frenzy, but if you put the insightful author interview video ONLY on your blog, it’ll be lost in the feed after a few more posts. Wouldn’t it be great, from your brand’s perspective if, in 3 year’s time, when that author just won the Pulitzer, your video interview showed to the world how ahead of the curve you were in creating new work? With art, if you post pictures on flikr, who owns them? Can anyone download them and sell prints of your photos? This is no reason not to use flikr, but you should be smart about what you publish online. Some of it will be trash, some of it will be priceless. (I add a practical note of caution below, re: Equity)
2. Education and Subsidiaries … most arts organizations are doing MORE than just selling tickets. They’re engaging with communities both local and (increasingly) global. Providing information on issues and artists that are part of school curriculums across the world DOES create a destination website, albeit a niche one (why isn’t “Ruined” doing this? For a better try, see Participant Media). Arts company’s websites are going to become increasingly concerned with subsidiary activity (eg, education projects which help when applying for funds, merchandizing, licensing, publishing …) because the internet makes it easy to do.
3. Facebook is social networking. Twitter is short messages. YouTube is videos. WordPress is a blog. Flikr is photos. Just for example, if someone wants to find out more about a show before buying tickets, are you really trying to tell me they need to visit 3 or 4 external websites before they’ve found enough to make a choice? By that time, they’ve long-ago navigated away from your website. Every single one of these third-party sites needs to have the same function: lead the user TO the homepage (or the box office, or wherever you need them to go).
4. Archive … we’re designing our sites for web 2.0 now, but let’s face it, most of us hope that our organization will still exist in 20 years. Will Twitter still exist in 20 years, or Facebook? If they do, it will be in totally different forms. So … if Facebook is the only place to find that precious video, or if you don’t have a back-up of that blog, what will your supporters / customers / fans know of your history?
All of these points are essentially the same: what is your mission, and how can the internet support it. Don’t go opening Twitter accounts if it won’t serve your mission. Don’t design software or interfaces if you can use third party platforms to do all the work for you. The internet is full of “apps” that you can add into your website, to self-publish books for free, to sell branded T-shirts and underpants, to run your box office, to show a web-cam feed of your lobby, to filter tweets about you …
What serves your mission?
Good luck!
[postscript … re: Equity & YouTube.
In the USA, Actors Equity Association has an agreement with YouTube that they can immediately remove any video of live performance by Equity members. When LAByrinth Theater Company posted edited b-roll of The Little Flower of East Orange on our YouTube channel, it was removed within 24 hours by Equity. They retracted their objection, and the video reappeared, only after a long and complicated correspondence. For reference, this practice comes from Equity’s desire to protect actor members against unpaid-for bootleg broadcasts (cellphone videos, etc). In this case, Equity recognized that we DID own the copyright to post our own b-roll on YouTube, but said we’d be much better hosting content on our own site (which misses the point of social media entirely).
I have been uneasy for some time about developing a fancy website when it was becoming clear to me that the social interaction with my work as an artist/ writer was taking place on blogs Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
And it makes sense. A personal website is simply a useful basic tool for aggregating these different streams .
Ann,
Thanks for the comment. I’m glad I reinforced the notion that you have other options for your own web site than to make it internally complex.
While the ‘lifestream’ approach to web development isn’t fully cooked yet (there aren’t many easy avenues to get there). There seem to be services just on the horizon that will facilitate that approach. Some links and resources are available here:
Overview of some lifestreaming-like services:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/lifestreaming_primer.php
Web hosting provider Squarespace is promising lifestreaming soon (and showing it’s prospects on their own site):
http://live.squarespace.com/
The Lifestream blog offers on-going examples and developments:
http://lifestreamblog.com/tag/squarespace/
To me, the basic website is the place where subscribers, ticket buyers and donors go for in-depth information about the organization. It should cater to their curiosity, their appetite for details that connect them to the organization.
The Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and other social network sites are useful for finding new audiences. Their formats and popularity are dynamic and changing. The history of the internet shows that it is never wise to put most of your eggs in someone else’s basket.
I also think it is madness to expect ticket buyers to somehow find your information by requiring them to jump around half a dozen websites to be able to find you and plan the evening. Sure it is difficult to set up all the required information in one place. And maybe the gross number of page views is not particularly impressive.
Here I will take quality over quantity. What I care about is how many tickets are really sold, how many are new faces, and how can I keep them thinking about my work, not sending them on a scavenger hunt in order to find out what I am doing.
A superb example of excellent marketing is this page from Arena Stage which I recently discovered:
http://www.arenastage.org/season/08-09/sub-text/looped/
Brilliant, and IMHO effective at selling tickets.
The usefullness of a website is entirely determined by your customers and your company’s ability to fullful customer needs for service, convenience and information.
We do not rely upon our website to be discovered. We drive people to it with reasons to go there. And 75,000 do so each month.
I think most commenters are missing the point, which is not to re-invent the wheel. Or, more accurately, not to try and design, build, maintain and troubleshoot your own wheel, when someone has already done it … and makes it available for free.
I don’t think anyone would suggest that you “send” patrons searching 4 or 5 sites around the web for information about your productions. Instead, take advantage of those sites that do what they do well, and then include that content on your own site via APIs or other means.
As an example, you want to maintain a list of upcoming events. Instead of hiring someone to code the front- and back-ends required to do this (and to train staff on how to use it), why not just create (for example) a Google Calendar or Facebook group, and have staff add the information there. You can link to that calendar/group from your own website, and/or use a bit of coding to display the information locally (so most people wouldn’t even be aware it’s on Google/FB).
Organizations will save time, money and headaches with this approach. And since you should be using these social networking sites to promote and expand your organization, you’ll kill two birds with one stone.
I’d be willing to guinea pig my website if someone can hook me up with a genius.
I was making the same argument with a potential client (a small independent publisher) but the word I used was “hub”. I also argued that not hosting certain types of content locally (albums on flickr versus on the domain, links on Diigo/del.icio.us vs. on the site) increases the organization’s visibility. So yeah, the distinction between web development and web presence is an important one, and Trevor’s post on content ownership issues brings much food for thought.
Sorry so late to the party, but Vancouver opera is essentially doing this now. We didn’t spend any money on a new website or on consultants, we just let our junior and web savvy staff start up all the social media and ran with it this first year.
Now that we are a year in, we have sat down and reviewed and come up with a 4-5 page document that is our social media plan.
Key item: the home website is “the mothership” it is static, in-depth, official information; the “newspaper of record” with a a very formal voice.
Everything else, all the dynamic content is hosted elsewhere.
i look forward to passing along your blog post and these comments to our social media team, and encourage you to check us out online anywhere, anytime.
http://www.vancouveropera.ca