GoingToRain.com is my hero. It puts sites like Weather.com to shame. Love it.
Why? Because it does exactly what it has claimed to do: answer the question of whether it’ll rain or not in your area.
There’s little question, little required thinking by the audience, and pretty much no work involved. Set this bad boy as your homepage setting in your browser of choice and it’s one click away from maximum daily effectiveness.
Does your blog do that?
Does your blog and/or ministry website scream things like “simple,” “effective,” “bookmarkeable,” or “browser-homepage-worthy”?
Ask yourself another question if you’ve already finished the first: “Is everything that you have on that site necessary?” I’m itching to ask a third, but that’s enough digital self-flagellation for one sunday, right?
So do yourself and your viewers a favor and do some thinking this week about your website and blog. Are you losing people because you have too much for them to do at your site?
Ouch. That hurt me too.
Google and Wikipedia are prime examples of the KISS principle. I wonder though who might be the Christian example, with similar global appeal?
a christian google? wah… …
Seriously though we have,
http://www.crosswalk.com,
http://www.biblegateway.com,
http://www.youversion.com,
http://www.mychurch.org,
http://www.christianpost.com,
among others, all expressing some component of the Christian community. None of them are interconnected, much less attempt to encourage a larger vision of Christian community beyond their site. With the possible exception of http://www.youversion.com and http://www.lifechurch.tv none of them come close to Google or the isit -xxx genre of websites in usability.
u named the big ones.
Something similar I've considered for ministry leaders is to read the free eBook "Getting Real" by 37signals
http://gettingreal.37signals.com/toc.php
Just replace "web app" with ministry or organization.
peace|dewde
Dewde, I love this eBook. I read it a couple of times and have used principles from it in software teams I've lead as well as in non-software endeavors. Agree that it could just as easily be applied to ministry. Thanks for the reminder.
yeah, this thing rocks. thanks for pointing that out to the readers.
Of course it doesn't get any simpler than "Is it Christmas?" at http://www.isitchristmas.com/
hahaha
The whole idea of shutting down programs or not starting them in the first place, to further the ministry of a congregation was a concept only touched on briefly for me at Bible College. The scary part is my minor was Church Development!
whoa. yeah.
My church went through a pearing process about four or five years ago. Our pastor likened churches to two things:
1. A NY deli – you have a huge menu and a huge number of choices. Everything is okay, but nothing is particularly good. Plus it might give you indigestion.
2. Tavern On the Green (NY) – You only have three to five selections, but those selections are incredible, memborable and leave a lasting effect.
What are we? Are we the deli or are we the Tavern On the Green? (Thanks David Chadwick, our pastor!!!)
interesting process. makes sense for the NY… haha.
I think this is a challenge for our website for sure. I have been doing a lot of introspection towards this specific issue. That and the excessive gobbeldygook that I have. Most people do not care about "web 2.0"-style marketing, but we just had to include it.
As I make the time, our site is going to prune out some things to help truly define what we do for our readers/clients. Great reminder.
The neat thing about blogs and feed readers is that the interweb is better equipped to allow for "long tail" sites. Sticking with KISS, before I would have to go to 20 different sites to get the information I needed (isitgoingtorain, howhotisit, willtherebeclouds, ifeellikeawalkhowwindyisitgoingtobe.com, etc.). Now I can subscribe to everyone's updates via my gooreader and efficiently stay up-to-date with everyone. I think that is where the real advantage is. (p.s., how did you like my site choices??)
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