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Perfect Storm Brews with Do-it Yourself Web

Do-it yourself Web allows non-programmers to make sites that are a simple collection of static web pages. In the process, individuals will gain better tools to collaborate and communicate online, particularly when these services are brought to the office, say experts. Marcelo Calbucci hit upon a business idea to start building software that will let people create web sites themselves without digging through the dirty details of HTML.

A growing number of start-ups, like Calbucci's Sampa, are trying to bring web application creation to the masses, letting mere mortals share spreadsheets online or 'mash up' information from different web sites.

Entrepreneurs and experts contend that emerging tools are paving the way for untrained people to create web sites, typically an outgrowth of blogs, wikis and bookmark-sharing sites like Delicious. "It's really easy to do collaborative content sharing through blogs and wikis, but I have other tools on my desktop like a spreadsheet and a database," said Peter O'Kelly, an analyst at the Burton Group. "It'd be really nice to take those familiar tools and bring them to the Web – and that's exactly what's happening."

Approaches to the do-it-yourself idea vary widely. Start-ups, including SocialText and JotSpot are trying to make it easier to create jointly authored Web pages, or wikis. Companies like Ning and Coghead promise more general hosted application development services. Meanwhile, several companies offer hosted versions of desktop applications, such as DabbleDB and Zoho Creator, which promote collaboration among small groups. And there a huge number of publishing tools, such as SiteKreator, and consumer-oriented services to create blogs or personalized home pages.

"Bringing do-it-yourself (web sites) to the office may be the beginning of a new movement to free up creativity at the individual office worker level," said John Seely Brown, a consultant and former chief scientist at Xerox. "I think we have the perfect storm for some major changes."


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