New website - Microsoft or not

[Doug Theis]

An old friend is getting ready to revise his company’s website and has asked me for advice. I'm no developer so I'm looking to SI for some help. His goals are:

-A more professional, leaner, meaner look and feel.
-Some flash animation and sound on the main page.
-A blog on the main page along with industry-specific RSS feeds
-An open structure so he can add documents, sales lit, video and audio files as needed to make them available for clients.

He’s looking to hire out the work, but he wants to stick with .NET or ASP architecture, because he has expertise in maintaining Windows servers, and has some background in ASP coding. His belief is that he won’t need to depend on anyone else if he sticks with an architecture he knows.

I’m seeking opinions and advice on his behalf from the SI community on whether his choices of architecture have any impacts, positive or negative, on his chances for meeting his goals.

[Patric Welch]

My personal feeling is that his decision should not be based on his expertise in maintaining Windows servers or his background in ASP coding. ASP is vastly different from ASP.NET in my humble opinion. In ASP you didn't have code-behinds as well as access to the hundreds of server-side objects, properties and methods available with ASP.NET.

As for the platform, does this person want to maintain his web site or his server? If he wants to concentrate on the content on his web site then what difference does it make if the server is Windows-based or Unix-based? Again, just my opinion.

It sounds like he could benefit from one of the dozens of web developers on Smaller Indiana. He could also try the open source route and go with something like Joomla, Xoops and the likes but they usually have a high learning curve.

Why not start with a WordPress site and build up to something more custom when the need arises?

[Doug Theis]

Thanks for the reply, Patric. His motivation for self-maintaining the server and site is saving money over time.

[Ben Fulton]

I don't think the choice of platforms is hugely relevant, but I would probably recommend against having someone else put something together for him to try to maintain. He'll almost definitely be more comfortable trying to modify the site if he's put it together himself, or at least works closely with a consultant to put it together. IMO the most appropriate person to maintain a site is going to be the person who creates that site, so I would say either hire out the whole thing, or do the whole thing in-house.

[PJ Christie]

I would advocate open source instead of a Microsoft framework and hosting through a professional webhosting company. Small Box has built plenty of custom Content Management Systems in PHP/MySQL for under $5,000 that do just what he is asking for. My understanding, and someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but .net and asp have higher development and hosting costs than open source.

btw, I am not trying to push Small Box as a provider, just giving an overview of our service and cost if he wants a point of comparison.

[Stephen James]

I agree with the comments above. The larger and more customizable a site is, the more complicated it is. From your post, I'm sure he doesn't want to pay ten of thousands of dollars for a custom CMS. I'm no ASP expert, but I don't think there's a large Microsoft open source software base. You can run PHP software on a Microsoft server, but it might require some hacking with limited features.

[Jonathan Arnold]

"Some flash animation and sound on the main page."....I wince a bit when a potential client says this to us.

And by a bit, I mean a lot.

Don't get me wrong, we like Flash. But Flash should be used to solve a predetermined objective for which Flash happens to be the best solution, not contriving a purpose just to get Flash in there. People tend to assume that they need Flash so they can feel good about their “cool” website rather than focusing on what will be most meaningful and useful to the visitor. I’m not suggesting that any of this is the case with your friend, I’m just relaying what we see all the time, and what makes my alarms go off. (“Warning!...Warning!...Danger!...Danger!...”)

As for the sound, that one is more straightforward: don’t do it. For the love of God please do not let your friend play sound or music on his site unless it somehow provides meaning and value to the visitor, AND (and this is the important part) they have given explicit permission to play the sound on their terms when they are ready to hear it (like a “click for sound” option if, say, a muted video is playing).

As far as maintenance, I agree with Patric and Ben that with a good content management system, the actual platform becomes largely irrelevant.

[Brett Davis]

Doug,

There are two .Net open source platforms your friend should take a look at:

DotNetNuke - http://asp.net/downloads/starter-kits/dotnetnuke/
Club Site Starter Kit - http://asp.net/downloads/starter-kits/club/

He can go out and get the .net framework and visual studio express for free. Here is the link: http://asp.net/downloads/essential/

It might take him some time to learn .net and either one of projects that I mentioned.

I've used DotNetNuke and it isn't too hard to use. It is pretty easy to create the look and feel for the site. After it is set up, he would be able to log in and upload files and edit pages.

Hosting costs aren't that expensive for .net. I use gearhost and it would only cost him about $20 a month.

[Doug Theis]

Thanks for all the great feedback. A couple of questions:

Why the bend towards open source? Low cost of entry, Wordpress is the best blog, a hate of Microsoft?

Is there anything close to Wordpress in the .NET or DotNetNuke world?

[Brett Davis]

Doug,

This link lists some of the open source projects for asp.net:
http://asp.net/community/projects/

There are 2 blog applications on there that looked pretty good.

[Kim Coles]

The user experience is primarily made up of four factors: branding, usability, functionality and content. Independently, none of these factors make for a positive user experience on a site; however, together, these factors are the main ingredients for the website’s success. There are four basic questions that the website must answer quickly on every page when the visitor is scanning the text: “What am I doing here,” “How do I do it,” “What’s in it for me,” and “Where can I go next?”

Instead of thinking about sticking with an architecture he knows first, he should understand that his website has the opportunity to provide a great user experience by:
• Effectively communicating the brand
• Strengthening two-way customer relationships
• Extending his market reach
• Providing functionality that makes sense and adds value (regardless of the platform or architecture)
• Turning your site visitors into customers (or loyalists)

As for Flash, use it if you don't care about SEO. But, if he wants people to find him, I would nix it unless it is a small module that doesn't interfere with any of the content being in the correct place on the home page (ie. above the fold and where the search engines can find it).

[Christopher Dellen]

Well said Kim!

[Lorraine Ball]

I always tell clients to pick the features and let the developer reccomend the platform. Shop sites that do what he wants his to do, then find someone to do it.

Re blogs.. having migrrated from Blogger to Wordpess, I am one happy camper. I am not a techie, and i love how easy it is to update, change, manage..