Companies are quickly making their online presence more and more transparent. In the past, companies stuck to one way communications: their websites were nothing little more than glorified company brochures, offering visitors no interaction whatsoever. Today, all that has changed. Weblog expert Steve Rubel calls it The Live Web: RSS feeds keep consumers updated on the latest business news, companies open up on public weblogs and so on. No longer do companies wait for the consumer to come to them, instead they'll take it upon themselves to reach potential buyers.
In AdAge Digital, part of online magazine AdAge, Rubel shares his thoughts on how to decentralize a company's online presence. To achieve this, he outlines three possible strategies. The first strategy for online decentralization is to drop the idea of a having a single website representing the company online. Social websites such as Facebook or MySpace let companies' brands infiltrate the consumer's online world. They can experience brands online in a way that much better suits the modern internet.
The second strategy is to connect people. Taking the first strategy a step further, brands can actually use the internet as a meeting point for (potential) clients. Again, social networking sites like Hyves could be used here. The third and final strategy is to offer portable content. For instance, content from the company website can be offered in form of RSS feeds to mobile telephones. Obviously, this would require a critical analysis of the current website: not every company has a website that is already suitable for conversion to portable content.