Dramatic Web 2.0 Transformation

DeviantART, where I house some of my photography and prints are just about to revolutionise their website. And amongst all the Web 2.0-style sites that are doing the rounds at the moment, I’m just not sure that this is a good idea.

If you take a look at the first link in the post you’ll arrive at my profile page, get a feel for the look, the structure, how everything appears and works…. then take a look at the second link. Whatever about new websites and businesses adopting a “web 2.0 strategy” or approach to how their site is designed and run, is it really worthwhile to perform a radical changeover after almost 5 years of the same style of site, a site which currently holds 2m+ users and 20m+ works of art?

If you’re that well established, would you make the move?

Update: Ok, following investigation it looks more like a bad taste april fools joke – but I still think it raises a valid question, irregardless of whether the change goes ahead or not. If you were in their position, with a solid userbase on a particular model of a website, would you still press ahead and make such dramatic changes?

10 Comments

  1. keith bohanna April 2, 2006 at 8:26 pm

    Hey Ken – they posted it on April 1. Just maybe…? 🙂

    keith

  2. Ken April 2, 2006 at 10:15 pm

    Ah hell… i missed the date. Jesus if thats the april fools then i’ve been had right off the mark! And yesterday was well and good a fool-free day! Though myself and john were thinking we’d be turning up as the only people in black-tie last night, would have been interesting!

    There has been a lot of talk of turning DA into a more application based website in recent times along with the fact that its heading for its 5th birthday and is due its version five upgrade quite soon…. certainly would be a very radical change!

  3. Pavlos April 2, 2006 at 10:57 pm

    I can’t believe they April fooled you! If they hadn’t done that though – I probably never would have heard of their website. Clever marketing or just a case of bad humour?

  4. Ken April 2, 2006 at 11:13 pm

    i think its both.

    my love for all things new and white coupled with my love for DA got the better of me…. would be fairly interesting if they turned it around and actually launched it then! at least the comments that were under the original post were hinting that they whole thing was a joke.

    a much closer look at the URL in the address bar for the screenshot points to a dormant user account (or at least dormant until yesterday).

    i think i’ll have to go make a “web 2.0 version” of DA just so I can feel better about myself… 🙂

  5. John Butler April 3, 2006 at 8:08 am

    Man, you been had!
    Lmao.
    dA have just a little more sense than to go down the whole web2.0 street / plughole so dramtically:D

  6. Ken April 3, 2006 at 8:19 am

    Eh… you’ve been had! Sure what can you do, wasn’t paying attention to the date. If it was for real though, or any other company, I’d like to see their logic behind making such a dramatic transformation, or if anyone actually thinks there’s cause these days to do it? Is there that much of a trend happening where you’d give up everything to look a bit brighter on the web?

  7. John Butler April 3, 2006 at 9:10 am

    I agree it is a valid question.
    I think certain elements of web2.0 should be adopted by everyone but bandwagon has gone a bit mad.

    I still believe that running a website is about catering to your target audience and making their visit to your site as enjoyable and productive as possible for both them and you. You can do that best by employing as many available technologies that can be useful and putting them into play becuase then can enhance your users experience and not because everyone else is using it. (AJAX!!!!)
    Graphically a site needs to have a good design too, but enough of the 90% more white, size 18 fonts and retina burning colours! Webdesigners shouldn’t afraid to be different.

    Ok a little bit of a rant going on there.

    I guess what I’m saying is certain aspects of Web2.0 are great, but falling over yourself to jump on the bandwagon is just silly, if you’ve got a site that works, you’re probably already on the ball with emerging technologies anyway, a few tweaks here and there might be necessary, there’s no harm in making a few changes to adapt to a changing environment. But a mass overhaul… Not a good idea.

  8. Ken April 3, 2006 at 9:14 am

    Ok, so its decided that we’ll break out a copy of Frontpage 97 and start lashing together a few sites made up of frames with impossible scrolling and ridiculous image sizes.

    All sites should be written in Times New Roman as wel, preferably size 14 so your granny can read it when she learns how to use a copy of Firefox or Internet Explorer.

    Actually forget that, Netscape Navigator 4.5 is going to be the de facto standard for web browsing and people will be using their 30″ widescreen displays with a 640*480 resolution. Actually, if people did that, and left the lights turned on all the time, we wouldn’t need brighter web pages and massive font sizes!

    Im all for the web 2 approach, but not so much a web 2 revolution if everything is working fine the way it is… 😀

  9. John Butler April 3, 2006 at 9:21 am

    lol,
    PROgress not REgress 😀

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