Ya, so one fine day, when I entered the office, I saw Rupesh and Rajiv, staring at Rajiv’s laptop screen. There was a wonderful website that they were admiring. Had it been just Rajiv, to I could have imagined what he was looking at, but here was Rupesh, too. So, it was a website for some car, as far as I can remember. And the good thing about it was, that it was heavily dependent on social media. As in, when you click the “About Us” link, what opens was the Wikipedia page for the product. But not full-fledged in the browser window, but instead, in the same window, layered below the original site. So, the URL does not changes but what to get is actually a Wikipedia page. They have pulled in the complete content from Wikipedia, including the formatting and the design. Similarly, clicking on “Picture Gallery“, opens up a Flicker page with the pictures of the product. Again, layered below some components of the original website.

All three of us was marveling at the beautiful design. Rupesh was trying to figure out how it worked. I was earlier thinking of trying the same, then outsourced it to Rupesh. But the design was actually a very intelligent one.

Browsing through the Internet today, I came across the news of the NGO Nanhi Kali launching its new website http://www.girlsmiles.org . And using Social Media over the regular media. On opening up the website, I was greeted by the same design that I was a few weeks back, when me, Rupesh and Rajiv were admiring that website. The website uses the same concept of design.

The homepage takes us to the Wikipedia page for Nanhi Kali. Clicking on the photos takes you to the Flicker page containing pictures from the NGO. And there was even a link to watch the documentaries, which as I guessed correctly, took me to the NGO’s Youtube video. Share gives you an option to add the website to various social bookmarking services like Digg, Delicious etc. Community lets you join the Facebook community of the NGO which, as of now, has more than 200 members. Again, all of this, in the same browser window without any change in the URL.

The website is quite interesting to glide through and holds your interest for while. Actually, for more than a while.

The website was designed by the US based advertising agency Strawberry Frog.

Sheetal Mehta, executive director, Nanhi Kali, says,

“The Strawberry Frog team has developed the concept and the idea is to integrate the existing information about the project and help people to easily extract information from a single point. Since the site directs the browser to various links on social media sites, which are updated continuously, he or she will get the latest information.”

Mehta further adds,

“We opted for online media because we want to create awareness about the project in a cost-effective manner and we will continue to use web over traditional media.”

Scott Goodson, founder and chief creative officer, Strawberry Frog, says,

“Instead of a complex, expensive website, we spent our time using the technology that already exists on the web and spent our money on developing ‘Shreya’ as a human evolution of the Internet.”

Although the NGO already had a website called www.NanhiKali.org, designed by BCWebwise, the new one is the one that’s going to get a lot of attention.

Nanhi Kali is an initiative by KC Mahindra Education Trust and the Naandi Foundation and focuses on helping underprivileged girls in India complete their primary education

I would request all the WATBlog readers to visit the website. And yes, support the cause. It’s a good one.

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