BIG, all-encompassing websites could be as redundant as the Lesser Spotted Floppy Disk if the future of digital marketing continues to fragment and accelerate campaigning efforts to the realms of Twitter, Facebook et al.

That’s the view of Mitch Joel, on his blog ‘Six Pixels of Separation’. While Joel falls short of writing a full scale obituary to mark ‘The End of Big Website Builds’, he recognises that the direction of digital marketing will be focused in strategising across a wide range of down-sized media platforms, in order to form connections with the target audience. He says:

“The ‘game’ used to be about always driving people back to your own, controlled, website, and the truth is that the more vibrant community for a brand may be happening more through a mobile app or online social network platform… or something else or something in addition to it.”

Social interaction is already increasingly important- and the best way to determine enthusiasm for a product or campaign is to actually engage with the customer. The art of grabbing a megaphone and making a very loud noise about something is very much a hit-and-miss approach. Anyone who has ever watched The Apprentice USA could tell you that. Yes Mr Trump. Yes indeed.

Is it the end for the BIG website? Possibly- but perhaps the sharpening of knives remains premature.  In the foreseeable future, pattern shifts suggest that social networking will increasingly swarm through the middle-market and reach out to the large group of reluctant technophobes. Some though, will be quite happy to stick with the status quo for now. The home page IS the brand, and micro-models dilute the message they are trying to distribute.

Certain businesses are well suited to BIG websites and are more likely to adapt and tailor their current plan to accomodate the latest technology such as the iPad and the bitty nature of its applications.

Companies, such as Amazon, will retain huge amounts of data on their main site because the brand commands authority and will continue to be the welcoming doorway that greets online window shoppers for the foreseeable future.  Nevertheless, it’s likely that the latest products will be be increasingly marketed through fragmented sources such as fan pages on Facebook, with an option for the customer to buy directly from the page.

Having said that, come 2020, and when the inevitable ‘I love the decade’ review airs on our standard 52-inch digital HD televisions, maybe we will all have a laugh at the by-gone era of the BIG website, the reserved attitudes towards Twitter and how we once squashedasmanyideasaspossibleontoahomepage.