Burn This Web Design House Down NOW

Speaking In Tongues

Web pages are on FIRE. Web pages and the kind of static design we do today can't keep up. Everything is firing to fast. You are on a website DOING THINGS (behaviors). Those behaviors are defining who you are, your "persona".

Internet Marketing: The Play Is The Thing
Personas are like characters in a play. Internet marketers use personas so the stage for characters that belong in a contemporary play don't look like Shakespeare. Let's extend the analogy (something regular readers of ScentTrail Marketing know I love to do). Here is the "what play do we stage for" decision tree:

• Q: Contemporary or vintage? A: Contemporary
• Q: What kind of author? Lewis Black or Tom Stoppard? A: Lewis Black
• Q: Dark comedy or comedy? A: Comedy
• Q: Politics or relationships? A: Relationships

The Taxonomy of Everyday Web Things

The web is a magical kingdom of STUFF. Right now we build a one to one relationships between keywords and presentation of the web's stuff via "pages". Soon we will move to a one to many relationship where lots of stuff is tagged and so in the "possible" circle for presentation via a web construct (a loose frame of business rules and intelligent code).

You will refine our presentation circle (what used to be called the web page) by doing things and what we know about you such as:

* New or returning visitor.
* Keyword or link that brought you to our website.
* First Action (first behavior such as clicking a link).

Those three touches will start a presentation engine, a yellow brick road where you get to the OZ you want. Designing a dynamic yellow brick road feels much more like creating a video game than a website. A video game is a complex overlapping series of branching algorithms. The more you walk the more intimate and familiar the path becomes.

As Albert-Laszlo Barabasi in his excellent book Bursts we aren't as rebel individual as we think. Our lives are really a series of interlinking patterns. If algorithms can help hedge funds predict stock market trends where the number of variables is almost infinite then the next generation of predictive analytics creates your yellow brick road journey through my website in real time, on the fly and based on the branching algorithms (the vast sea of If X then Y statements) we've designed.

Soon the idea of drawing web pages as a series of interlocking rectangles will seem quaint and old. Want to begin this journey toward the future today? Read these books:

Bursts by Barabasi
Linked by Barabasi
The Wealth of Networks by Benkler