Free web presence costs plenty.

Warning***The opinions expressed are solely the opinions of the author, based upon real world experiences. No particular level of expertise beyond that should be assumed or presumed.

"Free" only requires a little of your time and content, your email address, setting up login credentials, simple stuff like that.

Not too much to ask when you are getting something free, right? Before jumping in and signing up for the next new greatest "free" thing, ask a few questions.

--How much time will it take the first time?

--How much time will it consume over time?

--What will it contribute to your web presence over time?

--Is it open source? If it is completely open source, nobody can ever arbitrarily remove functionality you need.

--How long has it been around, and how long will it be around?

--How hard is it to get to your login credentials when you need them?

--Is there an open forum for problems and discussion, and are problems being resolved in a timely fashion?

Web Presence Takes Time

Popular media sensationalism aside, web presence is not an overnight proposition. Google was out there for a few years before taking off. Twitter has been around since early 2007. Web presence is a cumulative effect, built over time. A year or more of efforting before seeing results is the norm. Think about how what you are doing today , fits with where you want to be in a year.

Cheapskate approach

I think I am about as big a cheapskate as anyone, and have been through most of the "free" options for establishing web presence. If I had to rate a single experience as worst of all, it would be trying to navigate a godaddy maze from login to my "free" site. And then figuring out how to make changes when I get there. Then trying to remember all the steps next week when I think I have time to go through it all again. By the time I get there, I am out of time to try to do anything. Maybe I will just give up and pay GoDaddy more and it will all become simple for me! Arghh! Lets make it difficult, so people will pay us more $$ to make it simple for them, instead of making it simple in the first place.

Besides that, there have been sites that just folded up, shuttered with litte or no warning. There have been sites that got bought out and required me to join a different online portal/community to continue to use the services.

Even paid services like a WordPress blog on a domain hosting account can end up costing plenty of addtional time and effort down the road. After weeks or months of effort, your site starts to attract interest and success. Where do you go from there? The more successful your blog, the more you begin to bump into the limitations of software that was designed for blogging. Customizations or third party extensions are required to integrate eCommerce or do just about anything beyond the basics.

Then you start looking in ernest for something more powerful, discover eZ Publish, and realize the scope of the task that is in front of you. Converting all that content there, into content here. Not easy.

Planned Approach, think long term, continuous effort, continuous change over time.

If you want easy and a blog, start off by using just the blog class in eZ. You can even host multiple blogs, with multiple authors without ever getting into any of the other features!

But when the day comes that you need eCommerce, or editorial control, or controlled access to documents, or real time streaming video, or multiple language capabilities, or special design patterns for special devices like the iPhone, or an in-house adserver system, pat yourself on the back for making the correct decision up front.

Twitter, silverlight, Search Engine Optimization, Site Search, Tag Clouds, iPhone. The web landscape changes rapidly, and the pace of change is picking up. The artful design of eZ Publish has proven an ability to adapt to changes, at the pace of the web.

More on starting off simple..