Hopefully with the arrival of Neotel and the new Seacom line this should help to drive down the price of bulk data and in turn bring more people online.

In my line of business, SEO and PPC, we’ve never been busier - people are starting to understand that a website should be part of generating new business and not just a pretty brochure.

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We have an estimated 5,1 million internet users in SA. With the current economical state I don’t see that number rising as broadband isn’t getting cheaper. This makes having the internet a luxury for the general population.

So your budget might grow when it comes to online marketing but your exposure remains the same.

I predict growth to be in the mobile domain and believe that marketers will move towards this medium soon.

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I absolutely agree because I see some very interesting developments coming…

I’ve been playing with the “web page on a chip” technology. This is gaining popularity among electronic geeks and the web pages can be quite complex (depending on the flash or EEprom you have soldered onto your development board). All you need is a TCP/IP connection to the internet and good microchip programming skills, no PC, no paraphernalia. This is a full web site and you could configure it to operate say a Coke vending machine or your domestic stove. It would be capable of running a simple trading site (provided you incorporated some sort of Man Machine Interface - keyboard and screen). The chip I use is built into the standard 10/100 network plug so all you need to do is program your microcontroller. The current generation has everything except the 10/100 plug and the isolation coils. This is all built right into the microchip (yes, just 1 chip 5mm X 5mm !!!), One chip manufacturer has announced that in their next generation chip, the will even include the (quite large) coils!!!

So some websites are plunging into smaller and smaller devices…

And I’ve been watching with fascination the growth of the amazing technology used in monitoring national and international financial transactions. Most of this is behind VPNs (Virtual Private Network) so we can’t see it but it too is part of the web. These too are commercial websites…

So some websites are becoming amazingly complex, intelligent and pervasive.

And then, the Baumann/Bagley/Bright/Bond/Levisor/ family has stored their history on a very simple website that has remained unchanged since 2001, except for the huge increase in content of archived material. It now has well over five hundred users and over 20 000 files. It contains for example, photographs of Gaustaf Baumann laying the Orange Freestate Artillery guns (Boer) at Bloemfontein in 1900. It also has his diamond prospector’s license and the survey coordinates of his grave (after the Anglo-Boer war, the British frowned on Afrikaaners erecting monuments so the Boers found other ways). There is a letter to his father from President Stein and dozens of other documents. He is just one of several hundred people who’s life has been documented A more complex site would detract from the richness of this content.

And sometimes, simpler, more old fashioned is better…

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I agree with you but feel the website (http://www.answers.com/topic/website) is dead. I was pointing out that we need more than just “websites” which provide you with information and the ability to transact; we need “websites” which provide an experience. Modern customers expect more so we must give them more - more information, more contact, more options, more influence in product and service design, …

If we can’t give it to them, our competitors will.

PS: I sometimes speak in META – occupational flaw

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I am not sure I understand your answer. Compare websites to say printed news media, there are as many models as there are newspapers, some work better than others do but a one-size-fits-all approach is clearly unwise. For example I subscribe to a technical newspaper published in the US and if I waited the 6 weeks for it to be delivered by post, some of the news would be very stale. They also distribute their newspaper as a PDF so I often find that I have the latest electronic news before my friends in the US. In addition, there is vastly greater scope for variety and differentiation in website design than there is in the print media.

Some websites are nothing more than a business brochure and business card while others are complex trading organs, linking to multiple different databases from different service providers and suppliers. Some websites work from one server while others are spread round the globe, linked by VPNs and are mirrored on numerous proxy servers. Maybe the term website is too wide, it covers too large a range of VERY different products.

For me the answer to my question “what is a website” is complex and it depends on your business strategy.

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I am not sure I understand your answer. Compare websites to say printed news media, there are as many models as there are newspapers, some work better than others do but a one-size-fits-all approach is clearly unwise. For example I subscribe to a technical newspaper published in the US and if I waited the 6 weeks for it to be delivered by post, some of the news would be very stale. They also distribute their newspaper as a PDF so I often find that I have the latest electronic news before my friends in the US. In addition, there is vastly greater scope for variety and differentiation in website design than there is in the print media.

Some websites are nothing more than a business brochure and business card while others are complex trading organs, linking to multiple different databases from different service providers and suppliers. Some websites work from one server while others are spread round the globe, linked by VPNs and are mirrored on numerous proxy servers. Maybe the term website is too wide, it covers too large a range of VERY different products.

For me the answer to my question “what is a website” is complex and it depends on your business strategy.

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Personally, I think 2009 is going to be a big year, although many say it’s over-rated, I agree somewhat, but not totally.

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I believe the answer lies in effectively leveraging the resources in your possession to realise your business strategy. I see many companies altering their short term strategies in order to carry them through the storm we are experiencing at the moment.

So depending on their target market, strategy and arsenal it could go either way. Some will curb spending on new sites and invest in tactics to drive a higher conversion rate utilising their current assets.

Others will see this as an opportunity and devise clever ways and invest in new ventures, grab a place in the market and fly high once the curve move upwards again – I’m one of those who will use the opportunity 

@007 – I walk on the dark side, a techno nerd with a MBA

To your question what is a website I say exactly. We need to embrace a new concept … an instance and implementation of your brand which delivers an experience which resonates with a client in such a manner that they keep returning allowing you to constantly engage with them in a meaningful manner

Let me decrypt that – make it sticky, get to know them, give them what they want, let them own it, let them own the brand, make money - Sorry – I’m a capitalist bastard

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http://www.miga.org/documents/jamesbio.pdf

The photo doesn’t do this James Bond justice, he’s short, quite portly, wears glasses and is French. He has a great sense of humour though. He tells the story of meeting Gordon Brown when Brown was the UK Minister of Finance. Brown introduced himself in typical British style – “Gordon Brown!!!”, James decided to take the mickey out of him by using the traditional line with a (put on) thick French accent “Zee name is Bond… James Bond”. Later in the conference, Gordon Brown asked one of James’ associates “What is that guy’s real name…”.

Your topic was good, I was just winding it back a bit to business strategy. I find it difficult to decide what’s best without having a clear idea about the value proposition for the business, what will the business deliver to its stakeholders and what will it get in return.

Us TechnoNerds understand tactical issues extremely well, especially when related to IT but it is occasionally useful for us to step back a bit and look at the strategic picture. Our blindness to business strategy is why Nerds with IQs of 200 are managed by those pretty boys (and girls) in Armani suites, with MBA’s and much lower IQs. (we also don’t use stupid words like leverage, gearing, value-proposition and synergy)

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