You’ve designed a web site before, haven’t you? I don’t mean “built” one (though maybe you have”. I’m talking about thinking through the structure, crafting up the content, arranging and re-arranging the layout, and generally going around and around with the entire thing until both you and your web designer are dizzy and more than a little bit put out.
Even so, you finally come to a conclusion, thinking that this is the real and final solution, only to find that it doesn’t fit your needs quite as perfectly as it could, and if you could just change a few things, it really would be perfect. But NO! After a brief though along those lines, you choose to just lie to yourself and accept almost perfect instead of going all the way.
Then, as the months go by, you realize that the site isn’t doing all that it could be. You think to yourself that it could use some more functionality. Taking a big breath, and squaring you shoulders, you pick up the phone and call your web designer. He is happy to hear from you as dollar signs twinkle in his eyes.
Your thoughts are that some of the text and images need to change, the format is a little off here and there, but most importantly, you need some database interface. Maybe you need a lead generation form, or you need to manage some video that frequently changes. The web designer then tells you that he is not a database programmer and that you’ll either have to get one of those who he can work with (because programmers are not usually into design) or you can get something off the shelf somewhere and he can muddle it onto your site to do half of what you need, half as well as you need to do it.
None of that sounds too good to you, but you are not an expert, so you dig into your jeans, pull out some crisp big ones, and bite the proverbial bullet, knowing with a sinking feeling, that you’ll be doing this again in before long because it will not be just what you need.
Many of us have that story, and if you have not, you’re either one of the very lucky ones who found an all purpose programming guru, or you just haven’t had much occasion to develop an online presence. Either way, we are beginning to see the first twinges of better days. Why, you ask? Because editable web pages are coming out of the closet.
Imagine going online, typing in a user name a password, and opening up an administration interface where you can select a layout from fifty or more page types. Then you select your theme. Then you upload your header (sorry but you still need a graphic artist), and then you name and point your links. After that, you just type into your fields the text, select, center, size and color you font, upload images into the auto-wrapping text, and then hit an “update” button at the bottom of the page.
Now you simply go online, type in the URL, and view your handy work, all ready for prime time. Wait a minute though. It’s not exactly what you thought it would be, so you go back into your admin page, log back into your editor, and make the changes right there and then in real time.
Does the above sound familiar to you? Does it sound like MySpace, or Facebook, or any number of other interfaces, including blogs? These carefully controlled editing interfaces an be set free. They could be modified slightly and let into your hands to do as we have been describing so laboriously above.
We do not want to be cynical in our imaginations as to why this utility is still mostly only available under the strict control of huge mega giant e-masters. Let’s not go there right now and simply point to the fact that it is only a matter of time before some renegade team of benevolent free radicals goes ahead and lets you and I into a system that allows us to generate page after page just for ourselves, and allows us to link those pages together, host them on our own, and be autonomous and free from the control of all the designers, and programmers, and web masters (good name), and other choke spinsters that currently hold hostage the freedom of the peon to rise up.
There are already some of these radical services around, and they are so liberating. It’s like Wilber and Orville flying for the first time. It’s like being a 1964 flower child and never wearing underwear again. Look for these services to proliferate and to empower you and I to become web masters of our own little, but bigger worlds.
Jeff Rogers is the President and Founder of
www.dragnetmarketing. He is is an internet marketing strategist who focuses on the online viral phenomenon. He has created free Viral Video pages that amass ad real estate downline as more people and companies use them for presentational and networking purposes.
. See Jeff's Blog at
viralvideopage.blogspot.com
