ST. LOUIS – With 2009 coming to a close, the upcoming year 2010 on the web will continue the evolution for operators and users. Associated Geos continues its series on polling web experts on issues and answer regarding the web. This week, Associated Geos sat down with Sonny Cohen, a Chicago-based internet marketing strategist for Duo Consulting.com, about what to expect for the upcoming year.

Associated Geos: What are the top three technological changes in website presentation that operators need to be aware of for 2010 and beyond?
Sonny Cohen: One – Open source content management systems, which has long-since been reliable are gaining visibility, momentum and greater public respectability. One great example of this is that whitehouse.gov was just re-launched based on the open source Drupal content management system.

Two – Proprietary content management systems are being recognized as high risk and unnecessary. With the greater acceptability of open source content management systems as well as more moderately priced and full-featured commercially supported content management systems such as Hannon Hill's Cascade Server, it is both unnecessary as well as high risk to develop a website based on a proprietary content management system only supported by a handful of developers at one company.

Three – Content distribution networks such as those provided by Akamai, Amazon's CloudFront and other are becoming a more important piece of website presentation. This is happening in part because sites are becoming more complex and often include more imagery and media. The demand on bandwidth is stressing many existing website caching strategies and accelerating the move to more sophisticated ways of serving dynamic content.

AG: In a crowded web marketplace, what really makes a website stand out today?
SC: Content remains king. Developing a good looking website is simply ‘Web Development 101’ – it has to be taken for granted and it not a differentiator. But arriving at a website and being presented with well written (or produced in the case of media) content that is easy to locate remains the biggest challenge. If I had to choose between a great web copywriter or a great designer I'd select the writer.

AG: What government intervention issues do website operators need to be aware of coming up in 2010?
SC: With so much commerce moving to the Internet, the tax man cannot be far behind. The web, of course, has all these jurisdictional issues that have been an effective brake on taxes, but where there is a budget deficit, there will be a new revenue source. The internet is too huge to be overlooked.

AG: How can the net neutrality debate potentially effect operators?
SC: Net neutrality is the elephant in the room. What we don't want to see happen on the internet the disaster that happened to the U.S. cell phone industry – which created a false and wholly unnecessary connection between a device and a network (e.g. iPhone & AT&T). Operators don't want to discover that being on one distribution network is somehow a disadvantage to any other distribution network, for any reason other than price and performance.  Let the market determine the outcome.

AG: In web consulting, what are some of the traits of a web site that you focus on when doing initial assessment for a potential client?
SC: We believe that a website should have a job description.  Like any organization's employee, or maybe a branch office, a website must have objectives and be accountable for achieving those objectives. Therefore, when we talk to clients about their website, we first ask them what they want to achieve. Then we suggest what else they might achieve. Finally, we figure out how to measure that performance.

I would be lying if I didn't say that this catches many site publishers off guard. Many expect us just to pick up our crayons and start drawing pretty pictures of websites. We don't get to design until somewhere in the middle of the project.

AG: In looking at Geo Domain websites, what trends to you think that they should think about in evolving their specific location information and presentation?
SC: While the Internet is a global medium, web publishers must still think in terms of serving a targeted audience. And by targeted, I mean aim for the bulls-eye of the target, not the fringe.  Know your audience and speak to them. In fact, don't speak to ‘them,’ speak to ‘him’ and ‘her.’  It is important to remember that although the web publisher is serving sites to many visitors, the site and its content is consumed on a personal and individual basis.

Additionally, although the mega-sites like CNN or Facebook get a lot of attention, the web is a utility for obtaining local information.  It is amazing to me that the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker still remain hugely oblivious to the opportunities of having a useful and effective local presence online.

AG: How does simplicity work best in website presentation? In this crowded internet environment, is simpler a better way to go?
SC: Simpler is better but not because the internet environment is crowded but because the site visitor's life is crowded. If the site publisher does not make a direct appeal to the specific need of the visitor, they will not optimize their results. We still see websites with home pages that have everything stuck on it like the notes on my refrigerator at home. Publishers must understand that if they think everything is important and deserves prominence, then nothing is truly important.  Setting information priorities is tough but it is essential.

AG: What predictions are the strongest for 2010 or beyond in regard to the next phase of the web, the so-called Web 3.0?
SC: I'm not so good at seeing around corners, but I'm great at knowing I'm approaching a corner. The lesson here is that the web does not stop evolving. There is always a new corner approaching. Therefore every site publisher must have a plan for continual adjustment of their online presence if they wish to remain (or become) relevant. But I won't cop out entirely. Here's what I see happening in a timeframe that should be on every web publisher's development calendar:

One – It's no longer just about the website. A website is just one component of a total online strategy that includes social media. This means that a website presence should both acknowledge and leverage social media through various content subscription (RSS) tactics or other clever implementations.

Two – Get yourself a widget.  Make your web presence portable and installable in places other than your own website. This is kind of like having a link strategy on steroids. You don't just want a link back to your website; you actually want your website represented somewhere else.

Three – Regarding Web 3.0, I would just say, "chill." In my industry, Web 3.0 is generally understood to be the semantic web, which in a sound bite simply means that information you are presented online has more dimension. It will come about as publishers become better at accessing content from multiple online sources and mashing the results together. I believe if operators do a good job of staying on top of their internet presence today, they will be well-positioned to migrate to Web 3.0 whatever it becomes.

AG: What traits or design are you seeing over and over in websites that  get attention or awards?
SC: Although we enter our client work in contests and we win awards, I don't believe awards recognize what makes an effective website.  I have a client who has an unexciting site that gets no particular attention and would never win an award. But annually it creates a million dollars in business. I have another client whose site has won several national awards and I don't think the site contributes much to their business except maybe bragger's rights (for winning awards).  Stay focused on the business objectives and let the awards and attention be incidental.

AG: Finally, what strategies in web consulting, interactive design and technology development does Duo Consulting offer to your typical clients?
SC: Duo Consulting spends the time up front conducting a strategic exercise to develop a solid long term online plan. Duo's advantage is that we have the interaction design resources, the technology skills and the marketing acumen integrated in one company. We can help our client develop their wish list and uncover their dreams. The outcome of this exercise is a blueprint that takes us to site launch with top priority objectives met as inexpensively and rapidly as possible. The rest goes into the parking lot. 

Then through a series of iterative releases we begin to add functionality and make other modifications. This would be analogous to designing a 5 story hotel but only building 2 stories. When you begin to fill the first 2 stories and prove that you're on the right track, you begin adding additional stories. And maybe you go back and change the colors on the first floor based on what you've learned. The great thing about the internet is how malleable your presence can be. Presented with such a great opportunity to learn from what you've built, it's a mistake to blow the entire budget on your first release. Our philosophy is deploy quickly, rinse & repeat.