The o2 Website
The o2, the old millennium dome, is quite near where I live so I try and keep an eye on what’s there. I have a look at their website - www.theo2.co.uk and I even subscribe to their email newsletter. The venue’s great, the staff are friendly and as well as concert stuff there’s food and a cinema. They also have one-off special events to provide other reasons to get people to visit. Generally, they’ve done a really good job. But why is their website really poor?
It looks okay and the navigation’s alright, but it just comes across like a corporate website. The information’s all there, but there’s nothing that brings me closer to the venue and they certainly don’t reflect the atmosphere when you go there. Above all it’s an entertainment venue and these values should be obvious online.
For example, I heard that they’ve put a beach in there and I wanted to find out more about it. They have a page about it but it’s all text and terms and conditions. Plus it doesn’t have the one thing that I want to see - pictures! Have they just dumped a bit of sand, or is there something more? I had to search on flickr to find out what it looks like. And it looks great.
The whole site really lacks dynamic imagery. The whole point of the place is liveliness and events which I think means there’s a great opportunity to use social media sites to enhance the brochure-like look of the site. Many of the events run for multiple dates so why not link to visitor’s own media, all you need to do is search flickr or youtube for the Rolling Stones and there’s some great material that could really excite about people into buying some tickets are going to the venue.