The Death of the Destination Website?

I recently uploaded a comment to Bruno’s ‘The First Dumpling’ blog (posted 28-11-08). Following on from this I’ve expanded my thinking around the debate we had about 'The Death of the Destination Website', which I’d like to share with you…

The original debate was sparked by the fact that more and more internet users are pulling content of interest from sites via RSS feeds, widgets, podcasts and the likes so reducing the need to visit specific websites. Such tools are in effect acting as filters. In addition we also have more and more people subscribing to the curated behaviour, views and opinions of other people – in effect trusted ‘tribe’ leaders. So it’s not just tools that are acting as filters but also people themselves.

So let’s get back to the debating point about destination websites. Do brands need them? Or is it better to focus marketing spend and efforts on being in the flow of consumer conversation thereby negating the need for a website presence – or at the very least a ‘front-of-house’ version of this?

If portable content enables brands to meaningfully engage consumers without ‘forcing’ them to visit a destination website, perhaps it’s more profitable for brands to invest more of their marketing £££s on ‘fishing where the fish’ are.

However there are still many people who prefer, want or need the total brand experience (perhaps akin to say the different consumer shopping experience of buying the latest iPod product from Curry’s versus the Apple store).

So what if the construction of a brand’s website became truly ‘modular’ beyond the current RSS et al capabilities? Within this concept all content would still exist holistically within the website (giving the full brand experience) but it would also thin-slice into a variety of consumer driven content typologies that exist outside of the website. In addition, this portable content could have intelligence built into it (semantic web apps) to help anticipate and meet peoples’ needs in being really interesting, relevant or useful. This could be further strengthened through brands adopting an ‘open’ philosophy of encouraging consumer content collaboration and making it easy for them to pass on to others.

Take for example someone that exhibits search and browse behaviour particular to booking a holiday. Just think of the possible benefit to both consumer and brand if British Airways could serve an ad within the browsing site that gives this person the choice, in situ, to either purchase tickets; request further specific details; set up a mobile phone price alert; IM friends with the details; as well as visit the website for fuller information.

So to end, I believe it is both simplistic and folly to sound the death knell of the destination website. Instead it is better to suggest that the concept of the monolithic website is dying out. Perhaps this will lead in the not too distant future to the evolvement of the modular website – where consumers engage with content in its assembled or disassembled states according to their individual needs.

Importantly with the above scenario it’s not really a question of website content versus portable content; but one of developing ubiquitous content that co-exists independently or interdependently to a brand’s website.