If you missed yesterday’s post, “The Best of the Old Web,” take a sec and peruse it. As I thought about all those once-mighty web services, I couldn’t believe how enormous and temporary their success had been. AltaVista got more than 80 million hits a day at one point in 1997? WHAT? And now? It’s a figment. A Wikipedia entry. A case study in grabbing the world by the tail and letting it slip away.
All of that said, I think it’s important that we take note of a few things. In fact, the underriding theme here is that things change. There are very few things in existence to which we can accurately ascribe permanence (death and taxes, some would say) and technology isn’t one of them. The way people access and interact with the Internet has changed. The reasons people access and interact with the Internet has changed. The values, norms, and technologies that facilitate Internet usage have changed. And all these things will continue to change. Furthermore, popularity is always temporary. Popular people, popular music, popular views, popular fashion, popular art, popular methods–they are in an almost constant state of flux. Just ask Ricky Martin. Or Yahoo.
As we resolve to reach people and communicate with them–online or offline–it’s helpful to remember what I’ll call the AltaVista Principle: traffic yesterday does not equal traffic tomorrow. That’s because things change, and in many areas, so should your church. Obviously, I’m not asking to change things that we all agree should have permanence (orthodox theology, etc.). We do plenty of things that in reality are just temporary solutions, even if we’d prefer not to think of them that way. Off the top of my head, I’d put direct mail, free donuts, and Sunday School in that category, and plenty of other things could go there, too. If those things don’t draw 80 million hits a day anymore, that’s OK. Perahps enough time has passed that things have changed, either within your church, your community as a whole, or in the individuals you’re trying to reach.
Once you realize that something you’re doing–one of your efforts or programs–is bumping up against the AltaVista principle, don’t fret. View it as an opportunity to try something new, to experiment, to innovate. To create Google. The list of the best products and services of the old Web doesn’t have many names in common with the list of the best products and services of the new Web, and the same might be true for your church. The good news is that it’s up to you to respond.
