Jeremiah has asked a wonderful questions on his blog: “What is the future of corporate websites in 5 years?” He asked this and a few more related questions in connection with a small competition, which is already over, but I would love to also write something about it nevertheless.

To be honest - until now I have never really thought about this question and I would suggest that also a lot of companies and agencies in Germany haven’t really thought in this direction, yet.

Sure, a lot of people are thinking about how to cope with the groundswell. But right now that means, that most people are thinking about solutions like: setting up a blog, being present on social network sites, creating a twitter account and creating virals for Youtube.

They all think about solutions which imply, that they are doing something new, that they are present elsewhere, that they add something to the existing - but very few are already thinking about how to change the existing: the corporate website.

It’s about the people first

Jeremiah’s headline of his second post was: The Future of the Corporate Website involves People - sure, and thinking about how people will use the internet fist, is the key question here. When you look at what has happened the last five years - this whole social media / groundswell thing - it’s incredible difficult to predict, how it will be within the next five years.

But let’s take a look at what is already at the horizon. I see there sill the topic “Semantic Web” - I see there the massive growth of Virtual Worlds and therefore a kind of “Metaverse”, I see a big dynamic in the realm of “Data Portability”, I see people discussing the topic of “Online Identities and Personas”, I see this whole “Behavioral Targeting” thing, I of course still see the “Mobile Device” as a key device of the future and I see - more or less everywhere - a shift to much more real-time conversations and interaction on the web.

Well, that are quite a lot of ingredients to make a prediction on how it will be like on the web of future, in which corporations will have to create a presence. How will these above mentioned developments influence people in their usage and understanding of the internet? And how will this again influence the way I communicate and interact with corporations?

Maybe personas are the key

I tend to a prediction, in which both - individuals and corporations - will have personas on the internet. And that these personas will stay in contact with each other and handle the whole relationship, between i.e. a corporation and a client.

In this context I understand a persona, as a hull, which can be filled with data and even applications, which describes the real identity behind the persona and the level of possible interaction to a certain degree. A human has an identity and even a corporation has its own identity(s). Both can have several personas for different situations.

Let me explain this in detail and give you a few examples to get away from this abstract level.

Portability and Flexibility

In the moment you see one big trend, of which I am convinced that it will changed the way we use the internet within the next five years and therefore it will also change the way how corporations will create their online presence: and that is the whole “portability and flexibility” topic.

Look for example at MobileMe, the upcoming new service of Apple and the rapid development in the whole market for mobile devices. MobileMe is “Exchange for everybody” and this service and the (for sure) upcoming competitors and further stages, will lead to an online behavior, which is much more independent from location, device and context as it is now.

That doesn’t sound like a new finding - but even if we talk about this change already for years, it hasn’t become reality for the mass of online user, yet … but everything indicates, that it will be within the next 5 years.

Same thing with Data Portability - MySpace, Facebook and Google have just recently make first real setps in that direction and I am still sure, that we all can’t really imagine yet, where in the end this development will lead us and what it will mean for our online behavior.

Let us imagine one thing: we will not care anymore about where we are, what device or application we use and where our data is, because it’s simply everywhere we are!

And this change is huge - compare it for example with the introduction of flat fees for using the internet. It has dramatically changed the way we use the internet nowadays, because we don’t have to think anymore about the time we spent online. It had a big impact on anyone of us - the fact that we don’t have to think about device, location and where our data is stored anymore, will also make us less thinking about what we do - we just do it and everything is there, where we need it.

And I am not talking about email and calendar data in the first place, but first of all I am talking about my social network, my thoughts, my publications, my reviews, my conversations, my activities and of course the thoughts, publications, reviews, conversations, activities and everything else of my social network.

When we get to the point, where this is not only technological possible, but also accessible and usable by the average online user, corporations will need to be as “portable” and as “flexible” as everything else to meet the requirements of the average internet user, for whom it will be as a matter of course, to have everything everywhere he needs it.

When a corporation will still force me to visit their classical website, which first of all, shows me how great they are and then forces me to search or click around on their site to find what I want - if they then are not capable of processing the parameters I allow them to use - like location, like context, like social network data or like my review history about their products, they will look like fools.

In my eyes corporation will need a solution for how to make their products, services, messages, people,  relationships and everything else intelligently accessible for individual - regardless where they are and what device they use.

Becoming part of the network

Corporations are now already, but even more in the future interested in building strong relationships with their customers. Relationships are the key and in the future this will not be measured by how many email addresses you have collected from you clients or how many friends you have on a particular social network site, but in how many individual networks you have been integrated.

And to make this point clear - people who join a group on Facebook, which is associated with a corporation, is maybe a first step in the right direction, but not what I am talking about, when I say, that corporations need to become part of individual networks.

To get a better imagination of this aspect, you have to stop thinking of social network sites, as we know them today, but you have to think of (social) networking as an essential service of the internet, like email, which might have different providers using a standard technology with different interfaces and services created around the technology.

Connecting people, data and applications will be an integrated part of the future internet (hopefully within the next 5 years) - even if brands like MySpace, Facebook and others maybe remain as networking providers, like Gmail and Hotmail are providers for email services today. This standard technology will be the basis for what I have described in the chapter before - having everything everywhere I need it.

Therefore (Social) Networking seen as a technology means that it can take place everywhere with also everything. And that will mean for corporations and especially corporate website that networking can take place directly on this website. It’s like sending an email. I just click a button and invite the corporation to become part of my network.

Why should I do that? Because i.e. I am already a customer of this company and I want it to be part of my network, so that I can access, communicate and interact with this corporation totally fluently. In the moment where the corporation becomes a part of my network, it will have the chance to become as “portable” and as “flexible” as I have pointed out in the chapter before.

The moment where the corporation get’s invited to join an individuals network, it will be the moment of personas. So that’s the point where we get back to what I have claimed at the beginning.

The relevance of personas

I have defined a persona at the beginning as follows:

In this context I understand a persona, as a hull, which can be filled with data and even applications, which describes the real identity behind the persona and the level of possible interaction to a certain degree.

And I hope that in this “becoming part of a network” scenario this makes more sense for you. It’s nothing else like you do already on social networking sites. In the moment where you accept a friend request of somebody else, you already create a persona.

You select which data will be available to him and in some cases you also already define applications, which the other person can use in connection with you. For example: how he can contact you on the social networking site. 

To define those privacy levels and levels of interaction via applications, will be an integrated part of the above described standard networking technology. And what is the main factor on which you base your decision how your persona will look like? Trust.

So again - building trustworthy relationships to customers will be much more in the focus of corporations as it is now. The reason why is, that your customers will have the total control over their network and data and that they can decide how the persona will look like, with which they will encounter your corporation.

And that also brings us back to Forrester’s Groundswell - because how do you build up trust? Take trust between real-life persons as an example: People who listen to what you are saying - who tell you their own opinion and react to your input - people who are open and transparent in their communication - people who help you and who are able to even inspire you with what they do - that are people who you trust in real-life and that are exactly the factors described in the book.

If corporations already start participating in the groundswell as perfectly described in Forrester’s book, you will create the building blocks for trustworthy relationships.

Personas of corporations

Well - I have said in the beginning that not only individuals have personas, but that also corporations will have personas and that those handle the relationship between both.

Corporate personas can be pretty different and the reason why they exist is, that otherwise corporations couldn’t meet the upcoming requirements of individuals on the internet. But what are those requirements?

For me the biggest issue is a big change from time-shifted to real-time online environments. At the moment a lot of things - especially on corporate websites - are time-shifted. That means I can do things on the website - like writing a review or posting a question on the support forum - but a reaction on this action will be time delayed.

With the growth of virtual worlds - which are 100% real-time environments - with more and more people using real-time services - like for example tools like Twitter or the chat on Facebook - it will be as a matter of course to also communicate and interact with corporations in real-time in the future.

But how to handle this? Time-shifted environments have the big advantage for corporations, that you only need a few to react on many. With a growing demand of real-time services everything will become much more complicated.

Personas can be a solution for that. Company’s can create personas for different roles and even different relationships. The same way I create my individual persona towards the company - I define the level of privacy and interaction - a company will create personas towards their customers. Depending on many different factors - for example how much data does the customers allows me to see - a company can decide which services and which mixture of artificial and human intelligence will support the customer.

One of the most realistic scenarios in this realm is for me a scenario which is described in the scifi book “Otherland” in which two people visit a store within the metaverse and they first meet an artificial intelligence in this virtual store which is able to handle a basic level of interaction and communication - but which also offers to call a real person to assist with more complicated things.

In virtual worlds projects we are already working on those solutions for corporations and I am sure, that these technologies will also be used on the web or other interfaces.

But don’t only think in this AI direction but also that companies of course still will have employees, which are for example an active part in the groundswell and which of course will also use personas to connect with clients.

Targeting, Personalization and Semantic Web

As closer we get to the initial question and it’s answer we also get closer to targeting and aspects of the semantic web. I am convinced that the people will have much more control over their data in the future and that they decide via their personas, which data and which applications are available to others.

I am also convinced that we will have an changed online behavior and that we don’t care anymore about where we are and what device we use, because we will always have everything in place and that in an intelligent, easy and accessible way, that it will be usable for the mass of people without knowing what is happening.

But that implies that in the background a lot of targeting and personalization based on a bunch of meta data will need to take place. Otherwise it will not be as fluently usable as it needs to be, to be widely accepted. And what does that mean again for corporations?

They need to care about two things. They need to understand how to use this meta data to improve the user experience for their customers - independently form location, device and context - and they need to prepare their own data to be enriched with meta data, otherwise they will not be able to be really be part of individual networks.

So what will be the next big achievement?

When we look back, I would say that the first big achievement of the web (regarding corporations) has been the fact, that in many many branches, the web is the number one source of information for customers and therefore the most important influence factor for the buy-decision-process.

This really is an big achievement and that is also the reason why corporate website look as they look like today. When we now think about how corporate websites will have to change, I first tried to find out, what could change on the side of the users within the next five years and now I am asking myself:

What will be the next big achievement and therefore change we can expect?

And I would say it will be the fact, that we will say in five years: the internet has become the numbers one medium via with we communicate and interact with corporations. And let me highlight at this point again, that I say “internet” and not “web”. For me the web will be one of several different possible interfaces we will use.

Apart from this page based interface (the web), we will also have avatar based interface, interfaces for mobile devices, interfaces in our clothes, furniture, cars, interfaces at public places and many many more - at all of those interfaces we will have access to our network and therefore data and the goal of corporations must be to become part of those individual networks to be present where we are.

My answer to the question from the beginning

Well all these thoughts lead me to the conclusion, that the future corporate website will remain it’s primary role as an information medium, but with totally new characteristics, which will not have a lot in common with simple pages as they are today.

A webpage will not start with the assumption anymore: I don’t know who is coming and therefore try so solve everybody’s needs, but that it will work with a lot of technologies to provide everybody a very personal real-time user experience, to deliver him what he needs. (it’s about much more than greeting somebody with his name and showing him different teasers and advertisements)

User will expect highly individualized content and services based on the personas they use, while visiting the website (and the whole data portability development will change the way we will reveal personal informations about us significantly) - they will expect real-time reactions and they will expect to meet corporate representatives online and not to see just pages anymore.

Shared-browsing, live-chat via text, voice, video or avatar based - it will be a matter of course not to be alone on a page anymore, but together with others, you will get an easy access to related user-created-content and - for me the most important part - we will see the possibility to add the corporation to my own network, which will activate a whole new set of new features and a totally changed user experience.

As soon we add companies or corporate personas to our network we will start interacting and communicating with them at many different locations, on many different devices and will start to establish a much stronger relationship to them, than before.

And all this is based on trust.

EDIT: digg this post if you like it!