It started with a quick glance to see what was new and now it is a full-blown addition of mine! At first glance this site looks like just another way to waste time, but after watching a few of the beautifully composed videos and looking a little deeper, it is not your average time-waster!

The NOWNESS is a collaborative site dedicated to storytelling. Designers, creatives and thinkers contribute their stories every day in a variety of categories such as culture, global lifestyle, music design, travel, gastronomy, photography, art and film.

It is not only the creative content that makes this site so unique, but the tailored user-experience and the interactive ways to explore the content. Once you have viewed a story you can choose to LOVE or DON’T LOVE the content. From your selection suggestions are made on what you may also be interested in. This is all based on what other people LOVED who also LOVED the original content you LOVED. On the other hand if you DON’T LOVE the content they offer “Something Else”.

What I really LOVE about this site is the different ways to search for content. Choose from the menu of Categories and you can search in a traditional blog-like layout. Use the Explorer to browse through content in more interactive ways, such as the Discovery Channel, Where in the World?, and NOWNESS’s Most Loved. The Discovery Channel links stories through an interactive web of tags. Where in the World? allows you to explore content through an interactive map with categories and popularity visually represented by colour. And my personal favorite, NOWNESS’s Most Loved, illustrates the popularity and categories in a large colourful typographic grid.

With all this interactivity the site has won The 15th Annual Webby Awards Best Fashion Website.

Take a little time and explore the NOWNESS, you might just find something you LOVE!

Links: NOWNESS / Webby Awards