Anyone who knows me knows how I make a big deal about microsites. The reason? Web sites are boooring, and way too static to engage me. (I really shouldn’t be saying this because I have a very static elder-statesman web site that I am too lazy to redesign.)

But I am talking of business web sites that are so full of the About-us stuff. Microsites, however break all the old rule of ‘stickiness’ and the default mode of information overload. But it’s about time to rejigger them because of the way our reading, search and navigation habits are going.

I am working with a crack team of designers on several microsites for some completed projects. My point is that I don’t want to simply knit up a project with a microsite, but create a structure for it to be a work in progress, a knowledge hub that is (a) never static like the parent site and (b) malleable and confident enough to have as many external links that are necessary, if it means rewarding visitors with content they may not have come across before in one place.

David Armano makes a few great suggestions on how to do this. His observation of the Lenovo (micro)site, which has been featured here many times, is spot on –that it doesn’t even scream microsite! His basic premise: build microsites that are more bloglike.

Why stop there? Why not bag traditional web site architecture and make web sites more bloglike?