I was reading a post today by Joshua Porter of Bokardo called The Live Web. Joshua’s main M.O. seems to be centered around websites that encourage and are architected to support human activity rather than just experience or voyeurism. While I agree with this in principle, I don’t think every website has to be a web application. Sometimes you just want to get some basic info out to people, or even just show off something visually intriguing. At the very least you need a way to get in touch, right?

On the other hand, how does the emerging ‘Live Web’ support almost every business’ goals, needs, and requirements?

As Joshua says:

We can watch the creation, growth, maturity, and death of opinion on Twitter Search. We can watch as we build evidence for something within our Del.icio.us bookmarks. We can watch our own interests change in our Amazon book list. We can watch public opinion sway back and forth at FiveThirtyEight. These applications are not trifles. They are the future.

Amazon is a great example because all of the lists, reviews, recommendations, etc. support a core business need: selling books. And it is dynamic. Everytime you go back there is something new being fed, recommended, or offered to you.

I was looking at a number of Yoga and Zen meditation websites that other day, and found myself thinking: “I have no idea how long it has been since these have been updated.” Now I don’t do yoga, but shortly thereafter, I found myself thinking of all the different ways that some of these studios could engage me, a non-yoga guy, on their sites in order to gain my business. These are just a few ways I came up with:

• Have timestamped photos from recent yoga classes rotate on the front page, along with comments and class descriptions a la Flickr
• Discussion boards and class / teacher reviews and recommendations based on my needs and fitness level (am I interested in having more energy? Meditation? Slowing down? Do I want to meet people? 1 ond 1?)
• A way to meet and connect with other students who volunteer their information, profiles, etc. similar to Facebook.
• A way to listen to and purchase music used in the classes, similar to Last.fm
• A way I can post information and requests for yoga retreats, private and semi-private lessons, health food store news, and other related events in my area similar to Meetup.com

And these are just a few, the list grows longer….The point I am trying to make is that there are numerous ways to architect and develop both small and large web applications to meet your business goals and increase your customer base. Younger generations are completely used to actions like connecting, friending, recommending, voting, submitting, and commenting, that it makes business sense to consider asking the hard questions as to how your business is equipped to handle consumers that expect these things rather than just consider them value-adds.

The more time I invest in uploading those yoga pics, getting to know the people in a class I take, or reading up on the lastest health food trends, the more I am hooked and actively participating in what your business has to offer!

Tags: social web business

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 11th, 2008 at 3:06 pm and is filed under SignalFive News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.