I've been sketching out some ideas lately aimed at redefining what it means to maintain your own presence on the World Wide Web. Until a few years ago a web presence for many consisted of a series of web pages that were built primarily offline and then uploaded to an empty space on a web server that you purchased from a web hosting company. Over the last few years there have been some great technological advancements with the development of database driven content management systems and the introduction of services that offer access via application programming interfaces or APIs. Expectations have changed with respect to the delivery of rich media such as audio, video and high resolution photos. Websites that offered up rich media were the exception since costs for hosting and delivery of such media were prohibitive to the average website owner. That's not the case today. If you want to offer up the best web experience to your visitors then you must offer a rich, vibrant experience that goes beyond links to download media.

I get messages from a lot of people telling me that they're launching a site and asking for advice. My perception is that many times people decide that they want a web presence, choose a platform, start building, then decide on their features in that order. Given the array of tools and options available today I think that's the wrong order. Here's what I think the order for developing a website should be.

1. Decide on the ultimate goal of the site
2. Decide on the feature list that you would like to have at launch
3. Review currently available tools and platforms and match them up with your feature list
4. Choose a base platform and associated services
5. Start building

This is the process that results in the development of a web-system instead of merely a website. I've made some notes that provide more detail on what I think are the basic components of an effective web system and shared them below. I hope to be able to find some time to develop a matrix that outlines the different platforms and services available to meet these needs. The upshot is that these requirements really turn the service traditionally offered as web hosting on its head because you need to start out with a lot more than an empty space in order to make this happen in a reasonable time frame. I think that we'll continue to see a trend towards hosted services such as Ning, WordPress.com and SquareSpace because they offer a more integrated solution that allows the web-system owner to focus on content and community growth rather than technology.

Key Components of the Web-System

Mobile device support - When a user visits on a mobile device the site recognizes a mobile device and formats the page appropriately. Also allows people to conveniently publish via mobile devices.

Community Building - Allows people to sign up for user accounts and set up profiles that establish identity and interests.

Community integration - Integrates with the site's community whether the community is based on the site or based on another site like Facebook, Twitter, Google or other sites that allow users to manage profiles and offer APIs to access those profiles.

Aggregation - Captures and displays related information published on other sites, including discussions that occur about you on other sites.

Content publishing - Publishes and delivers text, images, audio and video.

Content syndication - Automatically distributes content in commonly used formats (e.g. RSS, iTunes RSS, Email, Widgets) to allow for the widest distribution possible.

Content sharing - Offers tools that make it very simple for visitors to save and/or share content on other sites or with other people.

Reliable Performance - Is highly available and adapts to the level of demand on the system to ensure consistently good performance for visitors.

Commerce Support - Allows the system owners to sell digital content like subscriptions or media downloads for immediate delivery to the customer.

Feedback - Allows users to submit feedback on content via comment fields and contact forms.

Analytics - Provides administrator with analytics on site traffic and activity such as visitors, content views, content downloads and number of site members.