Forum Moderators: phranque
I'm looking into writing a new app for content management, and I'm doing some research into how many websites exist that are purely static html, compared to how many websites are dynamic (ie, .net, php, asp, jsp, etc). I'm sure surveys such as this must have been carried out before, but I'm having a little bit of a problem finding anything relevant!
If anyone could point me in a direction, or even provide some rough figures, it'd be greatly appreciated!
What I'm expecting (hoping) is that there are a substantial number of websites that are still basic html (no programming involved), maybe for the small- to medium-sized businesses. It's the general impression I've got anyway, I just need some facts and figures to back myself up.
Cool - any help welcomed!
B
>> I'm looking into writing a new app for content management
Applications such as these are best written with server-side scripting. There are many content management apps written with various langauges, so I hope you are not reinventing the wheel ;) If anything, you might want to look at some that are out there to get ideas.
Sorry...the research I'm looking for is about the websites themselves, that already exist, that are to be managed. The app is going to be a separate entity to the website - I'm just trying to get an idea as to the make-up of the websites that are currently online. For example, are most websites that exist written in PHP, or .NET, or are they mostly just plain HTML?
B
Have you researched what options are available for businesses and why they have not taken them up yet?
Remember that people buy only when they see a need, trying to convince someone that they need a CMS is not going to be a profitable route. Anyone that finds out by themself that they are struggling to cope with their site and need a CMS is going to be difficult to sell to aswell, more so because every man and their dog are selling CMS solutions from the open source integrators to the Enterprise level specialists.
4 years ago (when I worked for a company that developed their own CMS - which I knew would never sell, and it didn't) there were over 200 CMS systems available in the UK. I know because I had the task of finding them and comparing their features (and hence why I thought the market was saturated then).
I'd seriously look at why people will buy your system (or services if it's free). You can take it as read that:
* Companies who have static sites will usually change to a CMS as part of a re-design, hence they will normally take the CMS that their design agency suggest.
* Design agencies are not a good place to try and sell the benefits of your CMS to. They don't care about the technical stufff, if they have somthing that works (which they probably will by now) then they will stick with it/them.
* companies moving from static to dynamic will need a fair bit of support (can you offer that?)
* Companies will find it difficult finding your new product anyway, there's too much that will seem similar.
>>> How can you make it work?
Why not pick a niche and build a product around that (but still do your research). If you create a system that is aimed specifically at a business type then you can sell the benefits of your system that are going to be helpful to that business. Think about the problems that your system will overcome for the business, just saying they can update their inforation easily is not a selling angle (it just means there's even more work to do).
Sorry to be so harsh (I hope that you have already thought of some of this) but I'd hate to see you spend lots of time on something that will be difficult to sell.
Remember, the most precious thing that a business owner has is time. Find a way to free up more of their time and you can name your price.
What I'm expecting (hoping) is that there are a substantial number of websites that are still basic html
And I'd guess that a large percentage of these are using basic HTML because they CAN'T use anything else (inexpensive/free host that doesn't offer scripting) or because it's just a 1-2 page site that would be silly to implement in a CMS.
Why not start at the development sites for the major CMSs? I'm sure that they are aware of any research, and may link to sites that contain the research or may have done it themselves.
I'd caution you to take any "survey" that was done by automated means by examining websites with a grain of salt. It isn't always possible to determine if a CMS is being used from it's HTML output. Better would be a real survey where a sample of webmasters was contacted and answered survey questions.
I think the basic question you are asking is "is there room for another CMS?"
Authors of 100's of CMSs seem to agree with you. Good luck!
