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RSSWhich is why I'm terribly compelled by Boston-based agency Modernista, whose current clients include Cadillac, Hummer, TIAA-CREF, Discovery Networks and BusinessWeek. As my friend Noah Brier described: "Rather than hosting anything on their own, they just do a nav overlay and drive you around what - at least looks like - the rest of the Web." In other words, Modernista completely did away with the notion of the Web site. Instead, it entered territory you rarely see any ad agency go, especially on behalf of itself.
How does it work? If you Google Modernista and click on the first result, which happens to be www.moderinista.com, the search-engine results page will reload with a cryptic red navigation overlay in the upper right corner. A flashing alert appears, which says "Don't be alarmed. You are on the new Modernista! site." If you point your cursor to "ab.ou.t," you can choose to visit the agency's Wikipedia entry or Facebook profile. Or you can choose to bookmark Modernista on one of several Web 2.0 bookmark and sharing services.
If you select "work" on the Google results page, you can choose to view Modernista's print portfolio on Flickr, television work on YouTube, or Web work on del.icio.us. If you select "n3wz," you'll be taken to Modernista's search engine results page on Google News. Finally, selecting "cont@ct" in the navigation menu will provide direct links to the agency's addresses on Google Maps, email, as well as AIM and Skype.
According to the publication Creativity, Modernista's navigation menu is actually in the site. It sits on top of an inline frame which Modernista used to load URLs from elsewhere on the web. That enables users to navigate and use the Web as they normally would without having to leave the homepage.
For an interactive ad agency, this is an incredibly enlightening piece of work. It's refreshing and cleansing because it embraces transparency and authenticity - usually the antithesis of advertising. It takes courage to leave the comfort of predefined boundaries and predictable real estate - ahem, a "Web site." But it also takes serious commitment to proactively define yourself by how true Web citizens would choose to get to know and interact with you -- via the Web's most powerful social platforms. A siteless site is a bold idea, and questions all the knee-jerk conventional thinking about what a Web site should be in the first place.
While I applaud Modernista's new homepage concept, its success should be determined by its long-term commitment and ability to drive the Modernista brand and client acquisition, not short-term hype. In addition, the living Web, which Modernista so creatively tapped into, should be engrained beyond the short-term. Let's see this idea go the long haul! Let's see it inspire existing and new clients!
And for the initiative to be truly authentic, the agency's employees must demonstrate significantly more participation and fluency in Web 2.0 -- as individuals. The first line in Modernista's mission statement is "We believe brands are like people." Ironically, I can't name one single person or face involved with the agency. The people behind the Modernista brand are mysterious creatures of the night, if they're even people at all. In other words, Modernista hasn't advanced beyond institutional status. To me, that's still the critical missing piece in what the agency is claiming to be.
Still, they pushed the boundaries far further than most.
RSS FEEDS
"Well, impressed at first, until I see that Lance Jensen does not appear to have a Facebook page at all, and Gary Koepke, if it's the right Gary Koepke, has a "?" for his photo, and zero friends.
Gary has a bare-bones Linked[in] page with 17 connections, Lance has less info and 11 connections."
Don't get me wrong, I love the concept. I just think it may be premature to be crowning Modernista with anything but a smart website concept.
For example, I clicked on their "n3ws" section and read through a few entries. About six entries down in the results list is an article that talks about how Wikipedia recently removed the Modernista entry, after wikipedia was alerted to what Modernista was doing...which could be kind of a showstopper.....
gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/004435.html [gapingvoid.com]
I have to ask what is the main goal for moving this site completely into the "web 2.0" state? And is this site accomplishing that goal? I feel like there is a perfect context for everything on the web and I am not sure the "about" section perfectly fits into the wikipedia area as a first issue.
when a band has a myspace page as their official website, it tells me the band is not serious about presenting what they do. of course the music is the bottom line but presentation matters, as we in the ad world can attest.
for most bands this approach gets them by but show me a band that has made it professionally and does not have its own site.
or consider walmart vs. boutique shopping. it's cheap, easy and popular to go to Walmart, but the small shop experience offers uniqueness and quality. sometimes you want the easy goods and sometimes quality matters.
drawing on the overwhelming numbers and 'free' aspect of the myspaces and facebooks of the interweb is a good macro approach, but not necessarily the right one for every agency. thoughts? cheers, -V
This is unique: Talk about practicing what you preach.
As you pointed out, the true test will be whether they can handle what is perceived as the downside to the open approach. While I wish no problems on them, I wonder how the powers that be at Modernista handle a sudden turn of negative press? Imagine a Spitzer-size scandal at Modernista. (I DO NOT wish this upon them and have no reason to think that would happen!) How does the agency react then? Embracing this open approach to their site ideally would give them the tools to respond and recover quickly.
Kudos, Modernista!