This isn’t a brawl to find out which is better. This article is a result of a conversation the other day about the obvious shift in trends over the past decade or so in web design and development. Our company is in the business of helping people create, enhance and profit from their online presence so we are very interested in the difference between the two phrases, “web site” and “web application.”
A lot of people now have access to a powerful content management system, or some kind of easy to use interface that will let them update content or store important information on their site. Compare this to traditional “static” 5 page websites that would have never been able to do that before. When clients ask for a “web site” more often than not they are actually requesting a custom web application that also has a few pages for information about the company / organization. People are developing social communities on their site, they are setting up forums, download repositories and client areas of the site that can have “user-specific” content. It has only been in the past few years that these things have become so readily accessible to businesses thus causing the shift in what we think a “web site” is.
The functionality available now is so must more widespread and powerful that these solutions are more available than ever for people who need to take their business onto the web or need to make the most of what the internet has to offer their business.
Open source technology has really taken off and caused advancements and new functionally to rapidly grow and I don’t see it stopping any time soon..