Small business Web Sites in Limbo - Get Off the Sideline!
May 29th, 2008 by Kelly Hair
Having worked at large companies in a previous life, I have come to expect a base level of service and usability for maintaining web sites. In the marketplace, I have been exposed to so far, I have found a different story. Some specific observations:
- Sites are not being updated regularly & not refreshed on any regular basis. It’s not uncommon to see a “Copyright 2004″ on the sites.
- Small companies are forced into “content contracts” that force them to use the developer to update content. If you did not want to pay then someone in your company must know Adobe Dreamweaver or Adobe Contribute.
- Small companies have no idea how their sites are making them money. A website is something they “have” and is seen as cost of doing business.
- Small companies have little or no analytics/metrics of site performance. If they do have some sort of analytics then it’s generally a “check it occasionally” or the opposite - an obsessive compulsive “how much bandwidth am I pulling?”
- Small companies have joined referral networks. These are generally niche but can cost upwards of $500/mo for a handful of contacts. Some have had good results and others have seen this as throwing money down the drain.
That’s what I’ve seen so far. What does it mean? It could mean that companies are not interested in maintaining their own content. Perhaps they want to focus on selling and servicing the customers. I think this is a fair point but it misses a major trend that has built since 2003/2004.
So, what’s happened since 2004? Well, namely, Web 2.0 has come into its own. The democratization of the Internet continues and Web 2.0 has entered the mainstream. It’s a user generated content world now. Content is king and if you don’t publish, or allow the ability for your users/customers to publish, then you’ll risk being left behind.
What does “left behind” mean? Namely, you’ll have to pay for you content to be served and opposed to customers discovering your content. It’s no secret that search engines love blogs. Blogs, or weblogs, are not new - they’ve been around since the late 90s. It’s only been in the last few years that they have entered the mainstream.
Some popular mainstream Web 2.0 sites:
- YouTube’s video sharing
- Flickr’s photo sharing
- Wikipedia - the online encyclopedia
- del.icio.us - Social Bookmarking (I’m more of diigo fan but it’s not as popular)
- last.fm - Social media/music
- LinkedIn, MySpace and facebook - Social Networking
There are countless other sites and the list above is only a taste. You can spend hours reading articles (and news feeds) from sites like Slashdot (/.) or TechCrunch to keep up, or, better yet, focus on your business. The problem with this approach is that lots of sites and tech just don’t pan out.
You may be thinking - that’s nice. I really don’t care about those sites. I think you may want to perk up before it’s really too late. Technology, like business, goes through cycles. A good illustration of technology cycles was documented in Everett Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovation (Amazon.com link) and modified by Geoffrey A. Moore in “Crossing the Chasm” (Amazon.com link). For the sake of this blog, I’ll keep it simple and use Rogers’ bell curve where the technology adoption cycle follows stages including:
- Innovators (2.5% of population)
- Early Adopters (13.5% of population)
- Early Majority (34% of population)
- Late Majority (34% of population)
- Laggards (16% of population)
A graphic representation of this can be found on Wikipedia. Not sure about you, but I’m a bit more visual. Text is nice but pictures are better!
Technology cycles do not follow a prescribed 7 - 10 year cycle. It really depends on the technology, the usability of the technology and the benefits participants gain from consuming the technology. Case in point - computer took multiple decades before they ended up in your house. I’d say it was very uncommon to have a UNIVAC in the garage in the 60’s. Oh, and the Internet - well - it was created in the 70s and 80s by the US government only to be opened to college students in the 90’s for “Research Purposes.” That’s obviously changed a bit…
So for Web 2.0 - I’d guess we are somewhere between the Early Majority and the Late Majority. Blogs are probably a bit further and are in the Late Majority. Blogging has been around since the late 90’s so it’s pretty mature now.
Perhaps some additional proof will help. A respected publication, BusinessWeek, who in my opinion, catering to the Early Majority & the Late Majority has an article about Social Media in the June 2, 2008 edition called Beyond Blogs. This article is an update to a 2005 article on the importance of Blogs. It
So, what’s a small company to do? Wait it out? When have you gone from waiting to being passed by? Wel, according to bell weather, BusinessWeek, it’s
Everyone’s needs are different but I think small businesses should have:
- An easy way to update content
- An easy way to update different types of content (i.e. - blogs, simple articles, forums, etc)
- Receive appropriate contacts
Taking these issues into consideration, I think the best solution is to open up the content creation for small businesses. Considering I’m a big fan of Open Source and like some of the open source Content Management Systems out there, I’m interesting in promoting this directly to businesses in New Jersey.
- Deploy an Open Source Content Management System (CMS.) Jargon aside, a CMS simply is a car that you can drive yourself. You don’t always need to have your expensive chauffeur drive you around.
- The CMS should include some form of blogging or adding articles easily
- The CMS should provide tools to classify (tag) articles as well as categorize them to provide both readers and search engines relevant content.
- The CMS should pro
I am working with my partner to develop solutions based on an Open Source CMS called Joomla! Personally, I’m more of a Drupal snob when it comes to the Joomla! space but I can do more through partnerships than on my own so… Joomla! it is.
Joomla! may be too feature rich for the micro businesses/professionals. Wordpress is probably a better solution in this space and I am considering supporting this personally. I think there is a market that’s been forgotten about in this space. While the main focus is larger companies, I believe some professionals are being left behind. Sure, they can setup their own blog. It’s not that difficult but there’s something to be said about having a human there to help.
If you are a small business located in Central New Jersey and have been sitting on the sideline then reevaluate your position. Wait a second… if you are reading this then it’s likely you are not in this boat. Better yet, if you know someone whose business is sitting on the sideline then have them contact us.
If you work for a large company or want to manage the technology yourself then I’d recommend looking at these solutions:
- Clearspace (from Jive Software)
- SpikeSource’s products including it’s version of Drupal and the SuiteTwo Web 2.0 bundle
- Drupal 5.7
- Wordpress (.org - downloadable version)
- Joomla!
I’m very interested in views - both supporting and outright flames. What do you think?
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