This post came about as we were trying to find a way to look at the Internet so that we could explain to clients how to use it. The first approach was an attempt to categorise – to bundle sites into discrete groups, like “Social Networking” or “Photo Sharing”.  Its no small challenge but I came up with something in the end.

Initial ideas were based on the idea of evolution and how it relates taxonomy in biology. The theory was that sites had evolved over time into different forms that suited their audiences. The “best” forms lived and prospered; audience numbers and revenue raised measured success. Successful ones spawned multiples, variants or developed into similar formats independently, much like evolution. The unsuccessful died.

If the Internet behaved like the biological world then perhaps we could categorise websites like the Linnean taxonomy in biology (Kingdom>Phylum>Class>Order>Family>Genus>Species). However, a branching categorisation system didn’t work. There were no divisible characteristics that create categories in Biology, so it turned out to be a bit of a false start. And websites don’t breed so we can’t draw a clear relationship between them.

So starting again, I thought that the task seemed daunting because of the idea that a complicated thing like the Internet needs to be looked at in an equally complicated way. But what biology lends is not a categorisation system, but a guiding principle – that very simple rules lead to great complexity. In biology the theory of natural selection leads to evolution, the ultimate outcome being the complex natural world we live in. The hard part about a simple premise is figuring it out.

The first relevant thing that sprang to mind about the Internet is that it must have a reason to exist. History says it was because people wanted to share academic papers by publishing online. The good part about that was that other people wanted to read them.

This is a task-based way of looking at things – which is the way that I work as an information architect. To create a website you would create a list of tasks that need to be possible. Things like downloading a PFD or finding some content. This is used to create structure and functionality. If tasks define websites, and websites are small structures appear within the larger form of the Internet, then perhaps its reasonable to think that its structure is defined by the tasks that people want to do within it.

With this in mind, I started considering if you could define the most fundamental tasks; the ones that shaped what we see online today. I came up with six and then added one with the help of Simon Carter, our Consumer Researcher.

• Find
• Learn
• Trade
• Share
• Store
• Talk
• Play

These task names refer to specific things that make up a restricted vocabulary where each item has a definition and examples. This vocabulary covers off things from a scientific/methodological perspective – everything has a definition. It also ensures that we can talk to each other in a language that we all understand.

This restricted vocabulary also ignores a certain philosophical debate (for those of you who are unfamiliar with French post structuralist linguistic theory, please ignore the following). The debate is about the difference between the sign and the signified and whether or not meaning is being constantly deferred in an attempt to define it. I say, that’s fine and it’s a fun debate, but it doesn’t really affect our ability to make a definition in the sphere of working in the Internet biz.

The list also allows categories to be blurry. They are fuzzy as opposed to mutually exclusive. Strict categorisations that we keep trying to apply in things like biology and library categorisations keep failing because there are exceptions, or new things come along that won’t easily fit into a scheme. So in this case its best not to try. That’s a bit heretical in terms of “traditional” information architecture, but the rise of faceted categorisation and tagging systems show us how exclusivity, (at least in terms of categorising content) is flawed. A fuzzy categorisation allows us to see that websites serve multiple tasks and allows us to create a task matrix – which is how the following was developed.

The matrix is based on the idea of being able to develop a rating or ranking system for websites. It would be based on audience surveys with a particular question-set about a website and tasks. The results mapped to the diagram show us a “task-space” for specific websites. This would let us:

• Make comparisons between sites.
• See differences between what audiences want to do and what we let them to do (when we make websites or applications for them).
• See if an audiences’ wish to do certain tasks matches with existing digital properties (like Flickr or YouTube or Facebook) – in doing this it might be possible to locate the best destinations to create experiences for them.

The next step is to test our model and see how it works, much like the application of the scientific method – to put the hypothesis and try to disprove it. Figuring out whom to ask what questions is the next tricky part; although Simon does assure me that he has a theory about how we can make a system work.

Some would say that this is a subject not worth explaining – being nearly a decade old now (blogs first started gaining popularity in 1999 and one of the first social network sites (Friendster) was founded in 2002). But I find that while some apply the convenient label onto it, very few perhaps understand what it is or what it is about. So here’s the first in a series of the very basics about what social media is. But for today, an introduction.

The web is social. There is no getting around that fact. And social media is just the convenient label that’s been slapped onto a constellation of blog posts, status messages, tweets, rss feeds and what-have-yous broadcasting every individual opinion into the ether.

So what is social media? If you’ve ever added a friend to Facebook, written or read an Amazon review, watched aYoutube video or even more recently ‘tweeted‘, then congratulations, you’ve participated in social media and are now part of the phenomenon.

The ‘traditional’ internet (circa 1995) worked much like traditional advertising (approximately) – your webpage was your brochure, your shopping cart was your mail order service. You chatted with your friends about your latest find via email. Web development tools were still in their infancy and the general public wasn’t quite connected yet. That said, the traditional forms of advertising worked well; display an ad, watch the money roll in.

That ‘traditional’ internet is dead.

And in its place we have the social web. In a lot of ways, the social web is like your traditional web – your webpage is your brochure, shopping cart is your mail-order service. You chatted with your friends about your latest find via email. Scratch that, the social web is nothing like your ‘traditional’ web.

These days, if Facebook news streams are any measure of relevance, then your latest finds are more likely to end up as a status update than an email. And if my younger sister is any measure of relevance, she’s just told 450 of her closest friends about the shitty time that she’s had at your store. The evolution of sophisticated publishing tools has made it easier than ever to broadcast your experiences, actions and even thoughts to an audience of hundreds, if not thousands.

And this data is out there, on Facebook, on Twitter, on Youtube, on blogs and a host of other social media. And this data is available to be stored, aggregated and redistributed in an endless array of ways; as demonstrated by the recent ‘100 Mentioned Brands on Twitter‘ or even the far less useful, but no less amusing Cursebird (a ‘real-time feed of people swearing on Twitter‘). And with Facebook opening up user newsfeeds to developers – we’re only beginning to see the beginnings of the deluge.

Which brings us to a case study. Just recently, Domino’s (US) was hit by a series of prank videos shot in their own kitchens by their own employees (since taken down). Almost an urban legend reenacted, one showed a male worker putting cheese into his nostrils before reusing said cheese to make a sandwich for a customer. Another still graphically showed said worker wiping his rear off with a sponge before using it to clean a pan. It wasn’t long before the internet community (i.e. everyone) was in uproar and Domino’s was beginning to feel the backlash.

This was however, an isolated incident. And when it began, with a mere 180,000 views on Youtube, it didn’t bear bringing to the wider attention of the general public. So Domino’s reached out, first to Youtube (to obviously have the videos taken down), then to the public, not via an unfeeling announcement, but via employee and official Twitter accounts and blog comments, answering questions and assuring the concerned. The internet reached out in return, figuring out who the culprits were and passing on that information back to Domino’s.

Domino’s ultimately released a public apology (once the numbers hit a very credible 2 million views). And, execution criticisms aside (wooden, canned), they chose the most appropriate path: a direct apology on the site of origin: Youtube. It was appropriate, it was targeted and more importantly, it gave consumers a face to relate to. The buzz soon turned positive (though not before skyrocketing as industrial media outlets picked up on it).

And while this was a fairly negative case study, what it does serve to illustrate is that the internet, unlike your ‘traditional’ media is a space for conversation. Whether that conversation is you talking to them, or them talking to each other, or even just you listening, the fact remains that the online, the line between reader and publisher are distinctly blurred to the point of insignificance.

So what does this mean? Does this mean you should be on Youtube? Or that you should be on Twitter? Have a blog? Start a Facebook account? Not necessarily. Though some have done it to some success, i.e. The Whopper Sacrifice(Facebook app), IKEA’s This is Home (Twitter & blog), Samsung’s HD Camera Trick Challenge (Youtube). Every business is different though, and as such every business has different needs. And your needs might not be served in the same way.

What it does mean though is that the website as a brochure no longer works. A website as a brochure is boring. And a website as a brochure probably won’t get you anywhere.

What it does mean is that you should take a chance, invest in an idea, engage your customers and ultimately, on your website, build an experience.

After all, as illustrated, the entire internet/social web is talking. Why not give them something to talk about?

Maybe next week: The internet’s latest social media darling – Twitter