Movie marketing blogger Chris Thilk explains why official movie sites don't really need to offer swag, video -- or even film information -- to connect with viewers.

Since I spend nearly my entire day online, either reading, working or just watching a guy dive through a urinal trough at a ballpark, websites interest me. Some are good, some are bad, some are just boring. But it seems like a lot of site creators aren't asking themselves a couple of simple but very key questions, like, "What is the goal of the website, and how will customers interact with it?" This is especially important when you have as engaged and passionate a fanbase as the movie industry does.

First let's look at some standard sections of a movie website and what kind of information can be found in each one. Keep in mind that this hasn't changed much at all in the two years I've been reviewing them. There are some deviations, but they're few and far between.

1. Film information (Synopsis of the story, production notes, cast and crew bios and filmographies)
2. Downloadable e-swag (IM buddy icons, screensavers, wallpapers)
3. Video (trailers, TV spots, movie clips)

Now, let me tell you why none of that stuff needs to be on the official movie website.

1. Film information: anything here not already covered on sites like the Internet Movie Database, Yahoo Movies or countless others? Didn't think so.
2. Downloadable e-swag: This one actually can survive the purge, but we need to move beyond the Holy Trinity of offerings mentioned above (or else, I might hurt someone). Think free ringtones, templates, downloads for my blog or other official assets that I can't get elsewhere, or just create myself. 
3. Video: Again, anything here not also available elsewhere?

So I've pared down the existing standard features to just downloads. The reason the other two got pitched is because people are finding them elsewhere, in places they already visit on a regular basis, as opposed to someplace they have to find and go to. That's an important point since the features you create -- whether it's for a movie website or a lawnmower -- are only as useful to your customers as their ability to be found. If I were an inventor, I'd be wasting money by insisting selling my product myself, incurring shipping and storage costs. Better to get my product into the hands of other retailers and let them do the heavy lifting, while I sit back and enjoy the increased word of mouth, as well as sales.

But studios are still falling into the DIY trap. They insist on putting all that stuff on a clunky website, instead of realizing they don't have to do all the work. Let Apple, Yahoo, YouTube and Google host your videos. That's where people already are, and that makes the odds of your video being seen go up. Likewise, provide IMDb, Yahoo and other sites with all those official pieces of information about the movie. This way, when someone looks up a movie on IMDb, they can find everything they want.

So that's the "purpose" end of the question, but what about engagement? I honestly think the studios' time would be better spent by transforming their sites to serve two unique and important functions:

1. Alert viewers when new information is available. Basically turn the site into a blog and link to Apple, Yahoo or wherever new content is being debuted. This has the added benefits of A) being RSS enabled, so stakeholders can subscribe and B) making permalinks available so people can include them on their own blog. Some sites have started doing this. Warner Bros.' site for Superman Returns had a page readily available where you could grab banners, posters and other digital material for use by bloggers and other websmasters. Especially great is the blog they set up for the movie. They used the blog to alert people of new assets such as trailers and other promotions. Being able to link right back to the blog post was easy and useful for not only bloggers but readers, who could go right to the official source of information.
2. Provide links to the conversation other people are having about the movie. Paramount is doing a great job of this, thanks to a partnership with blog monitoring service Technorati. The official site for Al Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, has links to blog posts about the movie. This is not something that's studio-censored or filtered-- it's a raw look at what the community is saying about the movie. It lets people feel like they're not just talking to themselves, but that they might be influencing a wider audience.

So let's run these suggestions through the initial question of "what is the goal of the website and how will customers interact with it." The goal is to provide information about the movie to those most interested in it while not getting in the way of other efforts, such as dedicated trailer sites and other information sources (many of which the studios already have partnership deals with. Customers will interact with films by seeing their posts displayed on a one-stop aggregation site that adds their voices to the conversation, and exposes them to other voices. Add those components to some actual interesting downloads that let me spread the word on the movie in ways that I'm already using and you've recreated the official movie website for the new media century.

Chris Thilk has been writing about movie marketing since May 2004. He lives and works in the Chicago area. Read full bio.