Open source, RSS and APIs - ignore at your peril
Along with everyone else, Microsoft are having to constantly adjust their business models and behaviour. Amongst other things, the actions of the European courts, Blu-Ray appearing to gain supremacy and supporting the newest operating system Vista are providing fresh challenges almost every day. Daniel Lewington, head of digital and managing client director at The Brand Union explains more...
And then Google go and launch Google Sites - the most coherent and visible threat to their most ubiquitous products - Word, Excel, PowerPoint and perhaps, most worryingly for Microsoft, the SharePoint platform; the foundation for a large number of their new collaborative services. And we all know, to within an inch of taking our own lives, that it's all about collaboration and community.
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Now although this last event wouldn't appear immediately relevant to the marketing community it is further reinforcement of trend that's worth noting; a gradual, incremental reduction of the need to develop your own web sites. And why is this important? It's important because it means shorter time to market, lower budgets and more reliable sites for your brand's online communications.
I should be more precise. When I say ‘develop your own web sites’, I'm referring more specifically to building websites completely from scratch - writing enormous amounts of code, doing a lot of testing and defining new user interfaces. Open source, RSS and APIs all allow applications and data to be accessed, manipulated and combined, and consequently provide interesting, useful and visually stimulating services for visitors . Photo Time Capsule emails you with photos from your Flickr account that you took a year ago (ah, online nostalgia). Runner+ is a site that combines data from Nike, Garmin, Jaiku and others to provide a meeting place for joggers to share and compare. Netvibes, for me the ultimate RSS reader, simply brings all the sites that I read into one place. And then there are the numerous Google Maps and Google Earth integrations - house prices, news, cinemas, transport, television, weather, missing children.
I've got work to do but I'm sure if you spend 10 mins thinking about it these ideas could easily apply to a variety of brands. I'm not saying you should steal the idea - just realise the immense possibilities.
Now this isn't just a paean to the mash-up. If you're looking for something a little more substantial, I can think of at least 6 projects in the last year that have asked for elements of personal profiles, file and image sharing, shared calendars and forums. How about using the excellent Basecamp/Highrise/Backpack set from 37 Signals? Or perhaps set up a group on Facebook (there I've said it)? Or did I mention Google Sites?
I realise that it's pretty easy to shoot this all down. It won't suit many brands who demand the 'unique online experience' involving shooting lots of film, 3D rendering, post-production, sound design and 'revolutionary' interface. But beware. Limited attention span and the enormous amount of choice online (well over 100 million sites) makes it pretty hard to get noticed. Perhaps you can find a way to work with well-known, existing online services through sponsorship or affiliation and benefit from their online might? Or make like a VC, scour TechCrunch and play angel to some of the most vibrant, exciting and innovative technology and software companies to provide a useful, on-brand product or service and create your own fame? In the process there's a possibility that you'll create an online presence that people will find useful, visit more than once and, as a result, feel warm about your brand.
Do online audiences really want to visit another site championing some yoghurt?
