A recent post by Eric Kintz, Vice President of Global Marketing Strategy and Excellence for HP, raised an interesting point. The title: Home Page, Landing Pages and HP Blogs: Are We Hiding in Plain Sight? He mentioned that there are some excellent blogs in HP and yet this is not apparent from the HP Home Page.
He had raised this with Nandini Nayak, Director, HP.com Site Design & Research, their resident expert on web experience and usability. He asked, “Do you believe that a homepage link would be critical to our blogs’ success?” The answer was very appropriate, “No. In the relative scheme of things, the Home Page is but one entry page as users increasingly find us through search engines and enter our site through side doors. The importance given to the Home Page is over rated.”
The answer points to the expanding universe that is represented by all the information on the Internet. To stay on top of the news it is no longer sufficient to check out only CNN or the BBC. The existing news media are now complemented by the growing content of the blogosphere. Search certainly is one way one can attempt to keep aware of the latest developments.
However the vast majority of these sources of information now have news feeds. By subscribing to such news feeds, a news aggregator such as the Google Reader or Bloglines can be scanning these for any signs of new items. That is the way that most people will increasingly become aware of what is going on. The Home Page becomes less and less relevant all the time.
