Modernista! Gets Some New Digital Digs

Gareth put up a post to announce that Modernista! has "finally" put up their new site.

I have to say, I like it. I think it makes a strong statement (more on this to come in a second.)

In my brief chats with people around the office who have seen it and with friends over IM, most are liking it as well, but some are thinking it's just like Zeus Jones' site. I say it's not. It's different.

Zeus Jones' approach uses various social and web 2.0 sites to say, here's who we are. The key being that they own the content to most of those pages. They control the message of who they are.

This isn't to say I don't think Zeus Jones' site is good. I actually like it a lot. When they launched it, I thought it was one of the most interesting ideas I'd seen by an agency for how to present themselves online. I still do. It says, "Here's how people are presenting themselves online and connecting with others, so that's how we're doing it because we want to connect with people too." (My words, not theirs.)

But here's where I think Modernista! has approached it differently.

Wikipedia is a site for people, by people. It's not controlled by Modernista! It is controlled by subject matter experts and people who are passionate about the independent subjects within Wikipedia's pages. In setting the Wikipedia page as their main page, Modernista! says, "People define what brands are, so we want people to have a say in defining who we are - you tell us who we are."

It may not be what they are intending to communicate, but that is my interpretation of it. To me, it reflects their view of how products and services become brands. It's not about the company that creates those products or services controlling the message. It's about them putting their products and/or services out there and inviting others to take part in shaping what the brand is through their shared experiences with them.

Yep. I like it. Looks like plenty of others agree.

My favorite quotes from those posts:

"Not brilliant because it's based on an amazing piece of technology, design, etc. Brilliant because they had the balls to do it." - Mitch Caplan's What's Next In Marketing

"The Web2.0 as your Agency web site. F@#$@ this is good. Just can’t believe it yet." - 6ixpassions.com

Nice work Modernista!

Comments

[Clay Parker Jones]

I agree.

It's something special, and is one of those rare moments today when you're really wondering, "How the f*ck did they do that?". Maybe you know. But most of my friends, some of whom are developers, can't yet figure it out. One problem: http://www.modernista.com/7/#print_nonprofit

What's the deal with that? I guess that's the risk you run with things like this.

[paul isakson]

Nice! It's impressed a lot of people from what I can tell.

Talked to a few more of our creatives about it today as we're always looking at what others are doing.

I clicked through on the non-profit page and it seemed to work o.k. What was it doing for you?

[JiPé]

Thanks for the trackback Paul,

My hands just fall down when I saw the agency web site last week. We are actually in the making of our new corporate site at CloudRaker and just seeing how mutch effort and time we need to put into it make us wonder how the hell we didn't think about something so simple, but clever as Modernista. I'm sure our new corporate identy will kick ass, but I must give the krown to Modernista.

Regarding the technical side of it, this is a simple html/css overlaying a iframe.

[Lance Jensen]

Hey all: First, thanks for digging the new site, and for helping us to make it better. There will be kinks, but WTF right? It was too cool not to do. We had to do it. We shall see what happens....

M!