your website is not a brochure

Kening, host of the podcast Botanical Studies of Internet Magic, argues that websites are often built as brochures, following the status quo, when they could be built as personal worlds or homes. The episode compares the two approaches across ethos, intention, structure, feeling and outcome. A brochure-style site aims to sell, persuade and convert, with a homepage built around social proof and an opt-in, while a website as world aims to exist for its creator and invites visitors to linger and explore. Kening presents the world approach as a path to a fuller creative self, with the claim that a nourishing site will sell itself.