This is a snapshot of Modernista!'s new website. Yes, they are using their Wikipedia page as their homepage (though apparently Wikipedia took it down for a while due to this unconventional usage). They also use Google News for their "news" section and Flickr for their portfolio.
I'm not the first to write about this. PSFK wrote about it last week, as did MarketingVOX and others. Before that, a number of bloggers - Gareth Kay, Paul Isakson, and Tom O'Keefe, among them - weighed in both for and against this novel approach.
Some (like Mitch Caplan) found it "Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant." Others, like Mr. O'Keefe, were less impressed. The pro-camp sees it as the ultimate acceptance of Web 2.0 reality, in which your online reputation defines who you are. The cons see it as lazy, ugly, or just one step beyond what Zeus Jones had already done.
I think the difference between the Modernista! site and the Zeus Jones site is significant insofar as the latter is an actual site with links to Zeus Jones-flavored content, whereas the M! site is really just a widget leading you to M! content across the web.
At the same time, Modernista!'s move reminds us that, in spite of the spatial metaphor inscribed in the term, a website is not a place or a location. It is a set of relations between disparate elements. In fact, the elements related are often sets of relations themselves, such as Google search results.
This may be the reason that information architecture seems more cutting edge than graphic design on the web. When "sites" are reduced to their content, or even more radically, consist primarily of continually changing content from other sites, who cares about white space, color palettes, and buttons?
I know this much, the content doesn't!
Something that comes to mind that no one has talked about. Would you visit their site again? When visiting their site now do you even look at the work they do? or Are you just so taken back by being directed to other web sites that have their content? The thing is this. If i were to look for a firm to work with I want to go to a solid site that is easy to get information that is needed to determine if in fact I would consider them a firm I would work with. Getting press online good or bad doesn't do it for me. I want to see a client list without having to be directed to some other site. I want to view projects/case studies without having to deal with Flickr.com's U.I. etc. If I wanted a firm to develop a brand for me would I use a place that doesn't have a brand of their own? Would you?
Just my take on it.
I think you have a good point, Mark, and I think I was kind of flip with my last line. Content doesn't care about anything. Your USERS, however, really care if they are finding what they are looking for when they visit your site.
To rephrase the question implicit in your comment: Once the novelty wears off, does this approach to site design actually meet the user's needs or does it needlessly frustrate them?
Of course, with their client list (Cadillac, Hummer, etc.), maybe the main purpose of their site needs to be: "We are very clever..."
Does anyone know of a good article spinning script. Looking to take my articles and PLR articles and spin them.
Steven Walsh