WordPress is basically a very user friendly blog system but it can be used as a regular site which you can update without any knowledge of html (the same goes for Joomla). You can create pages and posts, and with plugins, you can add a lot of functionality included standard in Joomla, except that all code is web standard. And because WordPress is web standard, Google really loves it. So, from a marketing standpoint, WordPress is hard to resist.

The interface is easy to understand, you won’t need a book for it, although buying a “WordPress for Dummies” – book will save you some time if you have no experience with blog management at all. Adapting the look requires some knowledge of CSS, the style sheet language. Like with Joomla, if you select a template close to what you want, adapting the colors, logo etc.. is not that complicated but if you do not want to get involved with CSS, and you would like to re-arrange navigation elements as well, you might consider hiring a web developer. Since WordPress has a logical structure, it is easy for a developer to change things around, place ad banners etc…Again, give preference to a specialized developer used to work with WordPress.

It is setup very quickly and you can be listed in Google within 2 days. I haven’t seen any other system doing that so far. A normal site takes up to 2 months to get listed in Google, so this is something to take into account. Anybody can learn enough in 2 hours to create content with WordPress right away, including using categories and sub pages.

WordPress can handle tons of visitors. It will not break down easily.

Disadvantages of WordPress:
For instance, adding or removing post dates, need to be changed in design mode and it requires knowledge of WP scripting. The navigational structure is determined by the layout template you chose. Changing that structure again requires knowledge of the WP scripting language and CSS. With Joomla, you do not run into this problem because menus are controlled via the control panel and attributes like dates, author name etc, can be turned on and off per article or for the whole site in one go. In that sense, Joomla is much more a content management system.

Also, changing the order of categories or pages is rather cumbersome in Wordpress. It involves having to go into all of the categories and change the order by hand. The WP developers are working on it to fix it, but when is unpredictable.

In short:
WordPress is simple, you can see it as a blog or as a regular website. It has fixed pages, posts and categories. Through the use of plugins you can extend its functionality and let it grow as big and complicated as you want. However, not every plugin is easy to understand, so it might be a good idea to have a specialized web developer in case of emergencies.

A blog organizes information by time whereas an article based website organizes information by content into information structures (example: categories)

What this means is that although we perceive blogs and article sites to be quite different, the content contained therein in relatively interchangeable. I say relatively because blogs are often much less formal than a comparative article based website. The informal nature of blogs is simply a socially influenced norm.

Blogs were great for informal writing when they began because none of the information needed to be organized logically. All of the content organization was handled based on the date of creation. Once people saw examples of informal, personal blogs, they caught on like wildfire and have resulted in what we recognize as blogs today. But if you look at some of the more “professional” blogs, you’ll find content that’s written in such a manner that it could easily be presented as an article and be part of an article based website.

Similarly, on the other side of the coin, there are websites that appear to be article based, but could easily be converted to a blog format. Any article based website that has ongoing content development and/or articles released on a regular schedule can take on the blog format and still make a lot of sense.

Usually the software provides authoring (and other) tools designed to allow users with little or no knowledge of programming languages or markup languages to create and manage content with relative ease.

Most systems use a database to store content, metadata, and/or artifacts that might be needed by the system. Content is frequently, but not universally, stored as XML, to facilitate reuse and enable flexible presentation options.

A presentation layer displays the content to regular Web-site visitors based on a set of templates. The templates are sometimes XSLT files.

Most systems also use some form of server side caching which enables a boost of performance. This works best when the CMS is not intended to be changed often but visits happen on a regular basis.

Administration is typically done through browser-based interfaces, but some systems require the use of a fat client.

There are many static websites on the Internet, you won’t be able to tell immediately if it is static, but the chances are, if the site looks basic and is for a smaller company, and simply delivers information without any bells and whistles, it could be a static website. Static websites can only really be updated by someone with a knowledge of website development. Static websites are the cheapest to develop and host, and many smaller companies still use these to get a web presence.

Advantages of static websites

• Quick to develop
• Cheap to develop
• Cheap to host

Disadvantages of static websites

• Requires web development expertise to update site
• Site not as useful for the user
• Content can get stagnant

Dynamic sites on the other hand can be more expensive to develop initially, but the advantages are numerous. At a basic level, a dynamic website can give the website owner the ability to simply update and add new content to the site. For example, news and events could be posted to the site through a simple browser interface. Dynamic features of a site are only limited by imagination. Some examples of dynamic website features could be: content management system, e-commerce system, bulletin / discussion boards, intranet or extranet facilities, ability for clients or users to upload documents, ability for administrators or users to create content or add information to a site (dynamic publishing).

Advantages of dynamic websites

• Much more functional website
• Much easier to update
• New content brings people back to the site and helps in the search engines
• Can work as a system to allow staff or users to collaborate

Disadvantages of dynamic websites

• Slower / more expensive to develop
• Hosting costs a little more

Summary

Many sites from the last decade are static, but more and more people are realising the advantages of having a dynamic website. Dynamic websites can make the most of your site and either use it as a tool or create a professional, interesting experience for your visitors.

This article aimed to tackle some of the questions faced by website owners. If you’d like to comment on this article or have any questions, please contact us.

Social networking has encouraged new ways to communicate and share information. Social networking websites are being used regularly by millions of people.

While it could be said that email and websites have most of the essential elements of social network services, proprietary encapsulated services gained popularity in the first decade of the 21st century.

The main types of social networking services are those which contain category divisions (such as former school-year or classmates), means to connect with friends (usually with self-description pages) and a recommendation system linked to trust. Popular methods now combine many of these, with Facebook widely used worldwide; MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn being the most widely used in North America; Nexopia (mostly in Canada); Bebo, Hi5, StudiVZ (mostly in Germany), Decayenne, Tagged, XING;, Badoo and Skyrock in parts of Europe; Orkut and Hi5 in South America and Central America; and Friendster, Mixi, Multiply, Orkut, Wretch, Xiaonei and Cyworld in Asia and the Pacific Islands.

People participating in an Internet forum may cultivate social bonds and interest groups for a topic may form from the discussions.

Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketches (sketchblog), videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), and audio (podcasting). Micro-blogging is another type of blogging, featuring very short posts.