Forward: this, as opposed to the project below will probably be the one that I will go forward with. In light of the discussion today in class (1/23/2011) I thought this project would be something I could really put myself into and I could take the torch and run with this project.
Proposal: Dynamic Drag and Drop Website Builder
There are many websites that provide the ability for a customer to create their own webpages using templates or even basic drag and drop utilities, but none that are cohesive to the idea of moving away from building a webpage into the idea of building a website. Also, from the research I have done on website creation tools; there aren't any that directly give the user their final product (EG the code that was generated). They allow the user to create a website, but what ends up happening is you don't get to apply that code to your own URL, you need to use something like username.lifeyo.com or another example is that they do let you have your own URL, but you are forced to host with the company that made the website, like webstarts.com or some other such corporation. That is where this project comes in, this program will not only allow you to physically own the website that you create, but it will also focus on the ability to make a coherent website, not just a webpage.
The question that you may now be asking yourself is "what is the difference between making a webpage and a website?" To that I say it is one of many things. First off it is all about cohesion. What that means is that if you go at website creation on a page-by-page basis what you will end up with is something that feels mismatched and disconnected. When you look at professional websites, what you see is that there is a constant theme and flow throughout the site, and you can tell that the developers made the site in such a way that they anticipated the way you would navigate the site and therefore tailored their site to that sort of traversal. The way this will be implemented is by giving infrastructure to this program that allows you to first create a theme that will be carried throughout the website (this will generally contain the navigational menu, background, and footer of the webpage). From there you begin customizing the site and adding content, this is the second step in adding cohesion to the website development process. Here we will give the user the ability to, for example, add a link to the site, that points them from the homepage to the blog page, once that link is placed and pointing to the desired location, the user can click on that link and go directly to that page and begin developing there. This way what happens is that the person making the site has the ability to create the website in a way that the user would navigate the site.
The implementation would be a web based interface and would be written using Perl( possibly also PHP) Javascript, CSS, html5 and possibly a touch of Flash. This tool will be marketed to the individual who is looking for an easy way to create a personal webpage for uploading photos, or blogs, and it will also be marketed toward startup business owners who don’t have the revenue to pay a lot of money for a professional website, but are just trying to get their name out there. For them, this tool will be an invaluable asset to the success of their startup company, and for the individual it will allow for them to express themselves in a way they never thought possible. We will make this environment possible by hiring website consultants that will be available to give suggestions and help to people who are looking for advice on their current designs or are looking to get to know how to use the tools better. This service will be a paid for service, where users will pay a low hourly fee for help designing their website, this help will be conducted either over a chat client or over a “share your screen” environment like gotomeeting or skype. We will also implement Google adsense ads on the website that will bring in revenue, as well as the option to put ads on their personal sites that they would get a portion of the revenue from if their site begins to generate revenue. Our crack development team who, along with the support/advice team, will be paid by the revenue from help sessions and from ads we place on the site.
Would this be as a web-based project, where you build the web site... on a web site?
ReplyDeleteYes, it would be a web-based project. Edit to follow. to answer your question though, the site would be built on a server i have that way live progress could be seen by the whole group.
ReplyDeleteWhy would I use your product over this one?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.lifeyo.com/ref/4ygu5ei
that is fully discussed in my complete project proposal. I have a section dedicated to why places like lifeyo.com, webstarts.com, and moonfruit.com are inferior to my project design Here is an excerpt "...there are many other products out there that offer similar products to what is being proposed here, some of the more well known are: Lifeyo.com, moonfruit.com, and webstarts.com. While all of these services are good, each one of them is lacking in one or more areas that this web application will compensate for in full. Examples of inadequacies in these products are as follows: 1. LifeYo.com charges you $30.00/yr to “connect” an existing URL that you own to lifeyo.com which means that if you previously had a webhosting service with someone else you now have to host with their company; if you wanted to purchase a URL to be used with website you generated with them it is 40.00/yr to register a new domain with them. If you want access to all the services of any of these companies you need to pay their monthly “pro” version fee. Each of these companies will give you some of their features for free, but if you access to everything; you need to pay their fee. These fees can be anywhere between $4.89 per month to as much as $31 a month to get access to their premium features. This project will provide the user with all the functionality we have to offer for free, the only time they will have to pay for a service we offer, is if they want one-on-one support and design help with they website they are working on. Beyond that they will never have to pay for any of our services. This will help us to stand out amongst the crowd of similar products and carve our own path. The final inadequacy that will be discussed here is the fact that these companies aren’t giving the users the physical, tangible access to the code that they have generated. Each one of these websites maintains proprietary ownership of what is created using their software. The fact that we will be giving our clients direct access and ownership over what they have created will set us apart from our competitors. "
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