Hello All -

I have notice the following trends in Website Design, and wondered what you think?

• Hosting is dieing. Not the service (people still need a place to do their business online) -- the concept. Clients do not care about getting thousands of emails, a huge amount of disk space, etc. They just want an easy way to get up and running online. They just want their website.
• Content Management Systems will replace "old-school" websites soon -- their advantages will make individually built web pages with HTML a thing of the past.
• Say Goodbye to straight HTML -- XHTML (and XML) are taking over.

What say you? Take the poll, and I look forward to the discussion.

Yours,
Scott

Sorry, can't agree with any of them.. I don't even think HTML is going to be replaced by XHTML.

There's been a noticable increase in customers wanting editable sites but not by a huge amount. I'd say about 50% of the sites I work on run on some sort of CMS/shopping cart, the rest are basically static page sites.

No can't agree with any of them either;

It's mainly the over-selling, clueless hosting resellers that waffle on about how much "disk space" you get anyway, and they soon fall by the wayside when clients wise up.

XHTML is NOT a replacement for HTML anyway.

in my humble opinion, html is already being replaced by xhtml. but these are not two different languages. xhtml is just an improved and stricter version of html. so technically speaking html is not being replaced, but it is being upgraded.

using a cms like joomla or drupal etc. is always a better option if you need the use of a server-side scripting language like php, since the framework and all the functionality is already available. you can enable/disable, add, delete a feature as and when needed. and, if the client needs to update anything on the website, he can do so very easily. but if you are going to develop a static info-only website that does not change too often, then it is better to go for hand-coding or softwares like dreamweaver, since this gives you a lot more control over the visual design, than in any cms.

and about hosting. i really did not understand what you were trying to say. obviously, the concept is not dead. or we all wouldnt be on this forum!! about clients asking for a website and nothing else, well what would they do with a website when they dont have a place to host it? these days designers are including hosting in the design packages, so the client who does not know much about all the technology, would not even know anything about it.

I would like to see anyone here build an apartment rental site, for example, on top of drupal. Custom coding is here and will be here for a while. Drupal can do simple things, but when it comes to custom data management it fails miserably.

Hello All -

Hey... very interesting discussion.

• The CMS, WordPress, now has close to 2 million people using the hosted version (at WordPress.com), and at least 1 million more installed on private hosting servers (from WordPress.org). Not to mention JOOMLA, Drupal, and other excellent CMS applications. So, unless someone can show that these numbers are somehow being exceeded by "old-school" websites, then I remain convinced that CMS websites are replacing old-school sites, at a rapid pace.
• Good point about XHTML not "replacing", but upgrading HTML. Maybe that's what those who said HTML was not dying meant. Bottom line... if you want to get your pages/sites validated -- you'll be using a flavor of XHTML before too long.
• Regarding Hosting (the traditional concept) dying, as well, I submit point number one above, again. Huh? Here's my logic:
  1. Millions of people now host blogs... and full blown websites at WordPress.com, a hosted service.
  2. THey don't have to think about, or buy into the traditional "Hosting" specs or features
  3. But... they are still "hosted" by Automattic.com (the company behind WordPress).
  BINGO. People get what they want (an easy to use website), without their eyes glossing over about "hosting".

I look forward to your replies.

Yours, Scott

I'm finding more of my clients are asking for CMS sites but they don't necessarily want something full blown such as Joomla. Some of them just want editable regions within their pages.

The other trend I've noticed is for companies to want a blog to run alongside their standard site. I've done 6 in the last 4 months.

I agree on the CMS point but not the hosting... Customers who want a CMS will need a hosting account... well unless you give them a package deal like we do with some customers. We offer a hosting account with Joomla installed and charge $20/month. This is more expensive than our basic hosting accounts, but we provide extended support for the basic functions of Joomla. Our customers appreciated the support we provide them for basic questions and help related to Joomla.

But yes I do agree more and more customers are requiring a CMS based solution since many of them have problems getting help from their initial designer of their site. Many designers design the initial site and are no where to be found when the customer needs updates made. This has been the main reason customers have asked for a CMS based solution... so they don't have to rely on a single web designer for updates.

1) Hosting isn't dead or dying, because a website needs a stable, reliable web host. It never will die for this reason. You can't have a website in a vacuum.

2) The list of "excellent" CMS applications that you have provided are poorly coded, rigid, "one-size-fits-all" applications that serve a small percentage of websites. Anyone who has ever tried to hack WordPress and do something that hasn't yet been done (e.g. customized category feeds, something I did just last Thursday on a client's private blog) will tell you that the thing is limited.

Your statistics also lie, since they don't cover the successful, major sites. Take a look at Amazon; Google; any major professional sports site; any major news site; any major site period, for that matter. Do you see any of <em>them</em> running off of WordPress or Dumbla or (insert BSCMS here)? No, you don't, and there's a very good reason for that; the CMSes don't fit major site needs, and take a large amount of work just to get something that would even fit a minor site's needs.

This isn't to say that something like a WordPress doesn't have its place. If you're running a small site that the script is meant for (e.g. a blog), then yeah, go for it. No serious designer/developer would ever use it to run a commercial website that (s)he intends to grow, however.

DIY = the only way to fly for anything serious.

3) Validation has nothing to do with XHTML vs. HTML. Pages can still validate to HTML standards. And conventional HTML won't ever die, because as Hirst pointed out very few people have even started messing around with XML and other things. I think XHTML is making inroads, but it never will fully replace HTML and may not even reach the same level of designer acceptance. I voted for this one, because it is technically "replacing" HTML, but never will fully "replace" it.

Hello Adam (& all) -

I'll address your points (thanks for the discussion... I believe a good debate -- in the best educational sense - is very helpful for us all), one at a time:

1. Hosting isn't dead because people still need it. Agreed! Surprised? Look at what I said, "Hosting THE CONCEPT is dead". I mean that for new clients, the technical specs about the server they are on (most don't know what a server is), is becoming unimportant (dying), and the idea of what you can do for your business online (CMS, etc.) is rising in the marketplace.
2. You state that CMS applications are limited and "poorly coded", then single out WordPress, for being unable to custom code RSS feeds. Huh? Limited? Tell that to over 1,000 plugin programmer who have extended its capabilities and continue to do so. Tell that to thousands of businesses ably meeting their business mission online using WordPress (and Drupal, JOOMLA, etc.). These are evolving systems. Your comments seem to overlook the fact that new code gets written, revised and updated. Your argument would be analogous to looking at the Mac OS in 1994 and saying it is limited and can never (never?) change, develop and grow. As to major sites, without naming a long list -- how about Ford Motors? It's Auto Show website is entirely run on WordPress. See: http://autoshows.ford.com/
3. Validation has everything to do with XHTML versus HTML IF... XHTML becomes the new standard and HTML is deprecated. What it looks like to me is.... we're both right. The W3C.org has now accepted the work on HTML 5, and continues with XHTML 2. PREDICTION: the two will converge, and the new, updated upgraded HTML will include elements of XML. The future of the web depends on it.

Bottom line: Programs like WordPress, and (X)HTML are not limited because they can be upgraded, revised, and rewritten. Concepts, like "Hosting", are limited in a marketing sense and bound to phase out and die away.

Yours -
Scott

1) What you can do for a business still depends on technical specs. A good designer/developer will always look at and want the technical specs of a server. They'll want to know things like how many email addresses, how much storage space, etc. and so on. Things that a CMS can't cover, even if it was good.

2) I will tell that to the over 1,000 programmers who build extensions for it, as you put it. I'll tell it to anyone using it. I'll tell it to anyone, because it happens to be true. It can grow...to a point. This is almost exactly what people said about things like DMOZ and what they're saying about social media sites as well. They all have the same flaw: they're open to everyone, including those with evil intentions. Sooner or later, like all volunteer projects, self-interests, conflicts and developmental slowdowns take over. It happens offline all the time, and it will happen online.

The reason that I mentioned the customization of RSS feeds is because it was the thing that led to me discovering the outer limit of WordPress. I couldn't do what I wanted to do, and there was no plugin or extension for my specific application. My client was the one who made the observation that "Adam, you could probably build this quicker and better if you weren't hamstrung by WordPress." This was the same client that led me to start even using WordPress in the first place (to see what we could do with it).

To take this in a slightly different direction, consider offshore outsourcing. Most people jumped on that bandwagon (and a lot still haven't gotten off yet), because the labor is relatively dirt-cheap. Now people are slowly starting to realize what some of us already knew the whole time: the labor's cheap for a **** good reason. You get what you pay for, magnified by a factor of 10. If that happens with cheap labor, what do we reasonably have the right to expect from free labor?

There seems to be this prevailing thought that Open Source will lead to these awesome libraries of code to draw from and that webmasters will be able to pick and choose from all these perfectly coded extensions and plugins and CMSes to build their sites with. Not gonna happen, people. Sooner or later, these things will grow too large, require maintenance that they'll never get, and grind to a halt. It happened with DMOZ, and it will happen here. Most people will never see it coming, though.

As far as what Ford's doing...so what? You've got a company shutting down North American plants and getting their asses handed to them by Asian car manufacturers. Let them do what they want, but there's no way I'm taking my medicine from them.

The problem with your argument of "businesses are meeting their business missions online" using these things is that it can neither be proven nor disproven. You don't have access to the financial/business figures associated with the businesses running Joomla/Drupal/etc., and neither do I. I'd almost bet that most of these sites aren't doing what they think they are, since most business owners (and webmasters for that matter) haven't got the slightest idea how to analyze the financial results of their sites.

Sooner or later, people will eventually start to realize this too. I just don't think it'll happen for a few years, but it will happen. It's not bad software, but people who start putting too much commercial stake in it are in for a very rude awakening.

Hello Adam & All -

You are making a great case for a measure of due caution as a company builds a major online presence using an Open Source platform. I think we're agreed there -- and learning what other webmasters think would make a great survey/thread. But where you focus on potential weaknesses,there are also potential, and documented strengths. Plus, there are strong programming communities and in some cases commercial companies backing up and providing support for programs such as WordPress (Automattic.com).

Regarding company performance results for those using an Open Source CMS solution -- public companies report stock results. The stock price for Ford, for example, has ranges from a high of 16 to a low of about 7 in the last five years. Of course, this is not the metric to gauge the success of a website, but it does NOT show that Ford is failing.

Point by point:

• Technical specs of servers: they're all pretty much the same. Technical support is much more important.
• CMS's can grow "to a point". To a point? What point? Where, precisely, is the limitation? What about a complete overhaul as Apple did when it moved the Mac OS to unix? Can't that be done at any time?
• Open Source CMS' are "open to everyone" (to hack, I believe you meant). Well, so too are proprietary systems hackable... makes for a great Virus protection industry. Some CMS companies spend a lot of time and resources on security. Can you name some major hacks to support your point? I'll just use one proprietary software company's name that has been continually hacked: Microsoft (how many times has this large, well funded company failed to prevent incursions?).
• Outsourcing doesn't work? There are both horror stories, and success stories. We don't need to generate lists of each, but again you seem to look only at the negative.
• Most business owners/webmasters "haven't got the slightest idea how to analyze the financial results of their sites." How many cannot provide good metrics? Again, some do not, some do.

Finally, you end with a note that people building on Open Source CMS solutions are in for a rude awakening? Why? What about those relying on a programmer who dies? What about those relying on a proprietary software for a company that goes out of business? Sure, you can look at all the risks, but business is about taking risks, and preparing diligently to cover any contingencies.

Bottom Line: If you go into a CMS website solution with your eyes open, and do your due diligence with a good contingency plan, and subcontract reliable programmers who know your system -- you are at least on as solid a footing as relying on proprietary software. And, you'll save a lot of money too.

Yours -
Scott

On the CMS discussion

I see lots of great open source CMS's that offer a wide variety of solutions to a great list of requirements. I don't think one person or a team of people starting now from scratch can get up to speed with the solutions some of these open source programmers have come up with. Numerous hours of testing and bug fixing has been devoted to build them. And I want to believe security holes are closing fast since lots of people test those solutions.

I am not saying that those CMSs are Everything to Everyone. I see them as TOOLKITS that CAN get the job done. An experienced developer that has worked with them long enough should know their limitations and use them wisely and use a different TOOLKIT if one does not fit the requirements.

Big corporations can actually afford to have a whole team of experts build a custom made solution just for them. Smaller clients can't afford that and for the money they are willing to pay CMS twicking and customizing is probably the best solution.

While it may look like hosting "the concept" is dying, I really don't think that is true. What is really happening instead, is that the web is becoming more and more accessible to non-programmers and non-geeks. Anyone can set up a blog, post videos, show photos, etc.-- and that's why services such as wordpress.com, YouTube, and Flickr have exploded in the past few years. There are still plenty of programmers and web designers (and aspiring coders and designers) who have their own website, and pay attention to what hosting they are paying for. I don't think there is any evidence that the number of clients are declining, either.

CMS's and similar solutions have their place and use, but often times they are misused like wearing gloves on feet. If someone wants to simply create a daily blog, the first word out of my mouth is going to be Wordpress. If they want a site that's more than just a blog, and they plan for the future, hope to grow, want to be able to scale, dislike the insecurity of plugins coded by random de