EPR Creations LLC

Is the web dead?

I’ve been hearing strange tidbits of information as of late in how people are accessing content from the Internet.  One was that people are now spending more time using social media than they are using email.  Another was that the web was dead, but that the Internet was still alive.  And it’s not just Prince that made this comment.  Chris Anderson, the famous creator of the “Long Tail” and “Freemium” ideas wrote an article where he exclaimed that the web was dead.

When I hear comments like this, I generally distrust them at first.  The web dead?  Come on.  But as I began to look at my own online behavior, some of these thoughts began to make sense and I began pondering these trends a bit more.

Why is social media more popular than email?  How many spam messages a day do you receive in your personal email account?  How many do you receive in Facebook?  Facebook is a controlled environment.  Everyone in the world has access to your email account.  Only people you specify have access to send you a message on Facebook.

And what about the web being dead?  Chris Anderson is referring to the World Wide Web (www).  His view is that the use of the Internet is as popular as ever, but the use of the Web is losing traction.

Again, I thought Mr. Anderson was in error until I considered how I access a lot of my content now.  I have an iPhone.  In the morning, I read the headlines from the Wall St. Journal, the NY Times, and NPR on my iPhone.  Only, I don’t go to the Safari browser on my iPhone, I go to the apps (applications) that these companies have available for free for the iPhone.

After that, I may check what my friends are doing on Facebook and Twitter.  Later on, when I take a run, I use a GPS-based app that tracks my run, how fast (or slow) and how far I’ve gone.  Again, an app.  Up until this point, I have not accessed the World Wide Web.  I could go on through the rest of my day, but you see the point.  As Chris Anderson wrote, it’s “less about the searching, more about the getting.”

So, what does this mean for your company?  Will people stop looking at your website?  No, of course not.  But, the role your website plays might be shifting.

The way I view it is that your website should be the place where all public information related to your company resides.  If people really want to know all about your company, then there should be a place for them to view that information on your website.

But you should also have an app related to your company, or some sort of a mobile presence.  I see this as your interactive piece.  This is how you communicate with your clients.  This is where you have your most important information that people regularly seek (as simple as the address, phone number, open times, etc.).  The app should provide ways for clients to get your information easily, not a place where they have to search long and hard.

So, in this shifting landscape, are you preparing for this change?  Have you begun thinking about an App to release on the iPhone and other major smartphones?  Have you begun brainstroming what sort of content, games, podcasts, etc. you could have on your app?  Have you figured out a way to make money from these apps?

Websites for Small Businesses

In the last few years, websites have gone under an important shift from static to dynamic purveyors of information.  Static means that the information is placed online, much like an advertisement, and it is there for people to come and see.  Dynamic content means that a web page exists, but it’s content is continually updated by outside content relevant to the page, whether through Twitter updates, RSS Feeds, or Blog Entries.

Dynamic sites, as the word signifies, are exciting.  They are always changing, and they give website users a reason to return to your site.  If your website content is the same as it was 5 years ago, you are probably not attracting many repeat viewers to your site.  You are losing out on business.  You wouldn’t put up a billboard and leave it the same for 5 years, so why have you done that with your website?

The Atlanta Business Chronicle just had an interesting article about small businesses & their use of websites.  According to the article, most small businesses still have a static website and they do not have E-Commerce capabilities built into their site.  So they are not giving their viewers fresh content and they are not offering their users a chance to buy into their idea or product.

The Internet is changing so rapidly that you must keep your website and your content fresh.  For real estate, location is the key (location, location, location!)  With websites, content is king.  You must have good, unique, and fresh content on your site to be noticed among the millions of new web pages being added to the Internet each day.