We’ve all seen it – a website that is woefully out-of-date as a result of something significant happening. Business closure, acquisition, loss of funding for a particular initiative. Websites have a peculiar tendency to stick around in a way that other media don’t have to worry about after the curtain has closed. Normally in the world of website creation and management, we focus on the beginning of website’s lifecycle: LAUNCH.
If we are lucky, and a solid content strategy is in place, we enjoy the benefits of a robust governance plan throughout a website’s productive life.
But, rarely is the focus on the final part of the lifecycle: decommissioning. Richard Ingram wrote about this very phenomenon in a fabulous post on his blog titled “Decommissioning a doomed website.” He carefully outlines the major steps that a website owner should take when decommissioning is imminent: announce, downsize, single page, redirect.
Decommissioning: The Final Course
Recently, on a trip to my home state of Iowa, I encountered this issue first-hand. Here are the highlights:
Friends recommended a chef-run restaurant
I called restaurant to inquire about a reservation [got the answering machine]
I visited the website [everything seemed normal]
Wife and I pull up to it, greeted by a sign taped to the door: “Closed for business.”
What were we to do? We went to the regional sub shop instead [also delicious]. We asked the help there about the restaurant. They said, “Oh yeah, the chef got a Head Chef gig down in Des Moines at some fancy place.”
Hmm…
Business Not as Usual: An Opportunity
In a geeky fashion, I immediately remarked to my wife that there were several missed opportunities on this website from a business perspective. While the chef was no longer the owner of the restaurant where he wielded knives and pots, he did stand to benefit from any additional traffic to his new place of employ.
To assist in this matter, the chef could have:
Used the closure to announce his new position/chefdom
Placed a redirect to a page on his new employer’s site
Offered a discount at the new place to people that mention his old restaurant
Informed past diners of the continuation of some favorite dishes in a new place
There are dozens of places to make this type of announcement. Facebook pages, Twitter, Yelp [in this case], etc. However, the single most significant place to make such an important announcement remains the website. [It is still the top Google search result.]
I can’t be alone in my dining preferences as a visitor to my home state. Certainly others would have heeded the call of this fine chef to make the trek to his new kitchen in the state’s capitol city.
When customers are loyal, they are loyal to more than just a thing. They are loyal to a presence, a talent, a personality. It goes a long way. I only wish that I had stepped into this place sooner, to tell the chef that a change in business, from an online perspective, is not a loss, but an opportunity.
Having someone in the content publishing process or workflow familiar with the content itself is more important than many realize.
Content creation: roles to fill
Lots of roles need to be filled to create useful, usable content. Business and customer needs must be assessed. An audit of current content should be completed to avoid unnecessary duplication. Capacities and resources need to be gauged. Firm decisions are required on questions like:
Do we need to outsource its creation?
Who will review it?
Who will format and publish it?
Who will look after it once it has been published?
This list is far from comprehensive. But, a gap in any one of these can have catastrophic effects. Redundancies. Overstretched budgets and staff. Ultimately, poor quality content.
One question in the process often gets overlooked: Are there people that know the content filling roles in the content creation workflow? Or are are they merely capable of completing the physical tasks of publishing?
This became abundantly clear to me just the other day.
Drumroll please: an example
I recently purchased a CD [yes, I am still buying CDs] by the jazz tenor sax titan Sonny Rollins, titled “The Freedom Suite.”
This is an important, landmark album.
In the late 00s, the company that owns the rights to “The Freedom Suite” changed hands again. As is often the case, new ownership brings new strategy. The new company decided to re-master and re-release the 1958 masterpiece.
Some new packaging was created, and it was unleashed onto the marketplace. I bought it. For full retail price. In 2010.
I was excited, until I saw this:
WHAT? Max Roach on TRUMPET? OH NO YOU DIDN’T.
I don’t wish bore you with hyperbole, but Max Roach was only one of the most important drummers of the 20th century.
The company with the business rights to sell the recording did not put a person familiar with the content in their content workflow.
The aftermath
A misspelling of Max Roach’s name might be a more pardonable crime. But playing the trumpet? The product has become the laughing stock of the community that purchases the product. And, the company has lost credibility and consumer confidence as a result.
Oversights with online content are just as easy, if not easier to make. Your content is important. Treat it with care. Give it priority. At the very least, doing so will help you avoid turning into the laughing stock of the community you serve.
Oh, and here is a clip of Max Roach TOTALLY NOT PLAYING THE TRUMPET:
I’m all for enhancing the user experience with non-text content, but only if it makes strategic sense. And only if there’s a solid maintenance plan in place. Because publishing non-text content comes with a set of unique challenges.
Be proactive about non-text content maintenance
In an ideal world, all website maintenance decisions happen as a result of your own company’s preferences, and on a reasonable timeline. But even if you’re not living in that ideal world you can still protect yourself. Here’s how:
Retain source and working files from content partners
Consider hosting options carefully, and make a contingency plan
Build a third-party content revision path into your content workflows
Retain source and working files from content partners
Anyone with a computer can edit a text file, regardless of its source. By contrast, editing audio, video, and Flash-based elements requires access to the original files and the sophisticated software used to create them.
It’s harder to guarantee that access if you’ve outsourced the content. Unless you make sure to get a complete hand-off of all original source files you can get stuck editing these elements in other programs, to the detriment of file quality. (For example, video and graphics are best edited at the highest resolution, then rendered/exported/converted to the resolution at which people will ultimately use it.)
Consider hosting options carefully and make a contingency plan
To complicate matters, content producers often choose to host their content on third-party platforms. Third-party video hosting services (e.g., YouTube) attract content producers by offering APIs, advanced embedding features, HD quality, and free bandwidth.
Using such providers may streamline your process initially, but also requires handing over a certain amount of control. (Companies get acquired, business plans evolve, etc.) If a change is made to the initial agreement, the API, or even the display/delivery of your content, you may be forced to take your content elsewhere.
Disruptions resulting from external partners take time and resources away from your day-to-day business functions. They also affect the user experience. (Think of a video-centric page missing its videos. Yikes!)
Concerns about hosting problems can be easily mitigated by retaining those high-resolution versions and their attendant metadata. With those in hand, upload to other suitable hosting services will be a snap.
Build a third-party content revision path into your content workflows
Content workflows need to take into account the complexities of editing non-text content. This flowchart illustrates the steps involved in successfully making both pre- and post-publishing changes to non-text content:
Incorporating these guidelines into your site maintenance plan will help ensure your non-text content is working as hard as it can to keep users engaged and coming back for more.
Last week, the Artist Formerly Known as The Artist Formerly Known as Prince made some provocative and telling statements in an interview with “The Mirror” in the UK.
“The internet’s completely over. I don’t see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won’t pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can’t get it.
“The internet’s like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good.
“They just fill your head with numbers and that can’t be good for you.”
Much has changed in the past few years in the music industry. New avenues of digital distribution have popped up, physical music sales overall have fallen to dismal levels, and an entire generation is living music-filled lives without buying a single CD, cassette, or LP.
Prince still wants people to hear his music. He is simply unwilling to give it to them in the way that they devour it. That is Prince’s strategy. He is an artist, and he can do as he pleases, however ill-advised it may be.
The reality of Prince’s strategy
Based on his statements, here is a rough distillation of Prince’s strategy:
Who: Prince What: Releasing music When: Whenever he wishes Where: Where he deems suitable, rather than where people already are How: Not on the internet, as it is “completely over” Why: The internet and digital gadgets are no good
And, in direct conflict, the reality of the situation:
Who: Prince fans What: They want to buy the latest album When: ASAP Where: From the comforts of their keyboards How: Digitally, in a space they trust, like iTunes Why: This is how they buy and listen to all of their music
What is wrong with this picture? Looks more like a contrary strategy than a content strategy.
Success, reality, and a content strategy
Prince has always been a bit of a populist, looking to get his music in the hands of as many folks as possible. Hi newest album, “20TEN”, was available for free with the purchase of a newspaper, “The Mirror,” in the UK. When I saw him in concert a few years ago, he handed out free CDs of his most recent album to each ticket holder. It is clear that he wants people to hear his music.
Prince is an established artist, and his past successes grant him the freedom to engage in contrary behavior. What if that attitude were not from Prince but from an incorporated business? What would stakeholders say if they were to examine a similar content strategy:
Don’t sell our product where millions and millions of products have been sold (iTunes)
Avoid the largest communication phenomenon of the last 25 years (the internet)
Give the product away with another, masking any true measure of performance
Proclaim that the newest product will be in a format on the decline stuffed in another format in decline (CDs in newspapers)
Content strategy has been described as “the planning, creation, delivery and governance of useful, usable content” by Kristina Halvorson. That is quite the opposite of the above strategy on nearly every point.
Prince has his Prince-osity to get him by. Businesses do not. Focus on what sets you apart, craft it sustainably with realistic goals, and measure to gauge success. Do that, and you shan’t have a need for Purple Superpowers.
For more on Prince’s technological wackiness, watch for his phrase at 4:48 into the “Batdance” video:
Hey Duckie Let’s Stick the 7″ in the computer Ha ha ha ha ha ha
(The 7″ refers to the old 45rpm record singles, of course. You can’t put those into computers. Silly Prince!)
When did you last check it? It won’t turn green and fuzzy or smell funky. But it can still “go bad.”
The New York Times recently featured a story about Emory University’s efforts to preserve for posterity the works of noted author Salman Rushdie. While content like Rushdie’s notes have a long lifespan, a great deal of content on the web has a much more limited life cycle. Neither the creators nor the consumers wish to have certain content live past its expiration date.
When Good Content Goes Bad
The acronym used to describe content’s Redundancy, Outdated-ness, or Triviality is ROT. Cheeky!
ROT happens without anyone even realizing it. There is no content on your website that is completely immune to ROT. Certain kinds of content are more prone to it than others:
News items
Political items
Events
Press releases
Product descriptions
We’ve all witnessed particularly egregious examples of it in the past. Maybe it was a press release from two years ago on the homepage. Or an invitation to an “upcoming event” that took place two weeks ago. Or a banner for a new product from two updates ago. They are often painfully clear and a pain to deal with from a user perspective.
Outside factors can also have a major impact on the currency of your content. You can plan for internal changes, but some things will force your content into a world of ROT:
Product recalls
News stories / current events
Competitor’s activities and advances
What is the worst than can happen?
So what if the content is a little moldy?
People visit website to accomplish tasks. Do things. Buy stuff. With content that is redundant, outdated, or trivial, your site will become hard-to-use. Tedious. Visitors will have to decide on their own what may or may not be accurate. Or, even worse, the content becomes an active liability. Lawsuits! Unmet business obligations! Other concerns:
Negatively impacts brand
Bad experience overall for the user
Causes doubts about your content’s veracity
Endangers relationships with partners and third parties involved
Legal liability
It just looks bad
Customers can be misinformed. They can realize that your website, and by extension, the experience and information you are providing for them is not a priority. Worse yet, they can go elsewhere.
Content Strategy Can Help
A solid content strategy has a clearly defined governance plan. Once content is created, it cannot be neglected.
The content creation workflows in a content strategy will take into account the life cycle of the material created. That life expectancy can be incorporated into the metadata to facilitate a certain degree of automation. Even a modest CMS can lend a hand with managing content with a set expiration date.
Since outside factors are not on a set timetable, another approach may help. Properly tagging content with keywords will grant you the option to search. As current events warrant, these keyword searches may prove very valuable. [Think “oil” or “spill,” for example.]
Regular, scheduled reviews of tagged content will ensure that the end result is content that is non-duplicative, up-to-date, and relevant.
Gross, dude
You wouldn’t intentionally serve your dinner guests rotten food as pictured above, right? Neither should you serve content suffering from ROT to the lovely folks coming to your website. Fresh content, like fresh food, will delight those that get to enjoy it.
[“rotten apples” image via Flickr upload from maceolepage (cc: by-nc)]
