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April 2, 2008

When Web 2.0 Attacks: Modernista!'s Nifty Non-Site Backfires

Everyone loves Modernista's distributed Web presence. The forward thinking site has drawn accolades from all manner of creative types for sending visitors elsewhere in their quest for agency info and client samples. See for yourself. Clicking through ought to keep you here but with the addition a red navigation widget in the upper left corner. The menu taxonomy consists of links to a Wikipedia entry on the firm, client creative hosted on Flickr and Yahoo, social bookmarking links and a Facebook presence. Very 2.0. Here's an agency that gets it, is the general view.

Except there's one little snag. Electric Artists CEO Marc Schiller twittered yesterday about a new note on the agency's Wikipedia entry citing the reference site's displeasure with being used as a vehicle for marketing. Here's the huffy objection:

The website for this company obscures our logo with their own, and may lead the viewer to believe that Wikipedia serves as their homepage provider. This is not correct. Wikipedia has no affiliation with Modernista and has requested that Modernista cease this use of our website.

Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia written from a neutral point of view and does not endorse nor condemn Modernista, but is opposed to being used as a promotional mechanism in this manner for any third party.

Not a huge catastrophe for Modernista, but fascinating nevertheless. Just goes to show: even though the ethics of Web 2.0 clearly favor open communication, including linking, the interests of individual players within that ecosystem may still collide violently.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at April 2, 2008 10:21 AM

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