The desire to be different and stand out can sometimes lead to greatness, and other times disaster. A company's web presence can end up being nothing more than internet filler without the proper idea, content and updates needed to drive traffic to their site as well as keeping that traffic coming back for more. I have come across a few agencies that are taking their sites to new levels of creativity and ideas. I will refrain from expressing my opinions on either site since the purpose of this post is to display the new ideas rather than their effectiveness. Plus I really don't like to go around bad mouthing anyone, and I'd rather not give another agency too much praise on our own blog.

That said, here goes...

Modernista!

From Wikipedia:

In March 2008, Modernista! gained some attention for a redesign of its own website, which now displayed the referring page (such as Google search results) all over again, but this time with a small navigation menu overlaid in the upper left corner. Other than basic information, the menu primarily directed visitors to information from other sites, including on Flickr and YouTube, so the effect could be described as going "siteless". This caused some controversy; Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales contacted the agency and asked them to stop using their Wikipedia entry as a landing page.

They display their work on Flickr and YouTube, they let Google find the latest news about them and their about section consists of Wikipedia listings and their Facebook page. Their blog is the only part of their "site" that is their own. The menu is overlayed over the content.


Boone Oakley

Navigating to BooneOakley.com forwards you to a YouTube video. You can then pretty much move your way throughout the video as you would any traditional site. They have gotten over 300,000 views in two weeks. Extremely original. You decide if it's useable.



Feel free to leave some comments. I found it sort of difficult to describe the site without adding my own opinions, so I apologize for their length. I really wanted people to form their own opinions and describe their experiences with the sites.

Oh, and don't look too closely. We want you to come back here.