Typical Features of a Web 2.0 Site
A modern Web site is all about creating a "community" for the site's users. This allows businesses to interact with their customers, a church or non-profit organization to engage their members, and a school to involve their students, families, and supporters in their activities and events.
Perhaps even more importantly, a Web 2.0 site allows the users to interact with each other...
This interaction and networking helps create a solid community for your clients, aids in customer satisfaction, and helps integrate new customers into your universe of users.
Let's take a look at some typical features we like to build into your site, using a couple of sites we've built recently.
Events Calendars
A calendar of events is great to keep your users up-to-date and involved in your activities. Our Content Management System makes it easy to add events and keep dates and times updated. Here is an example of a typical events calendar:
http://www.forkunion.com/calendar
We can also incorporate your existing Google Calendar if your organization uses that platform for scheduling:
http://www.ccawebsite.org/calendar
It is also easy to keep a handy list of upcoming events that updates automatically anytime you make a change. You can see an example of that in the right column of this site's home page, about halfway down...
Blogs
A blog gives you an opportunity to talk with your users, share your thoughts and ideas, and provide useful information for your users. Entries are typically posted by date and users are often allowed to respond with their own comments or questions.
http://www.forkunion.com/node/13465.
Message Boards / Forums
A message board or forum is an outstanding way to provide customer support, and allow your users to network with you and each other. Our system provides a variety of management or moderation options so you can easily administer the forums, approve or delete posts if desired, and stay involved in the conversations.
http://www.forkunion.com/community/index.php
Photo Galleries
You can display photos in a variety of ways, using albums, slideshows, and much more. We can create a custom photo gallery for you, or help integrate your existing Flickr, Smugmug, or other online photo albums into your site.
Podcasts
Podcasts are great ways to deliver useful or entertaining content. A podcast is simply an audio file (usually in an MP3 format) that a user can listen to on your site, or download to an mp3 player or iPod to listen to at his or her convenience. You can deliver sermons, product updates, recordings of events, testimonials, or even your own radio show using podcasts on your site. We can also set up a special iTunes RSS feed so listeners can subscribe to your podcasts from the iTunes store.
http://www.thepassinggame.com/shows/034_Ed_Conroy
Video
We can help you embed videos in your site, whether you use popular video sites like YouTube or Facebook for hosting your video content, or you want a custom player built just for your site.
http://www.thepassinggame.com/film/trailer
Downloadable Content
Do you want to post PDF copies of your newsletter, church bulletin, or other documents for your users? It is easy to make these files available for viewing online or download using our Content Management System.
http://www.forkunion.com/newsletters
Information Request Forms
Do you want your users to be able to request information online, respond to special offers, or sign up for your mailing list? Our sites offer easy-to-create forms to use for these purposes. The information your users enter is saved to a database that you can easily download as an Excel spreadsheet or import into your existing database.
http://ccawebsite.org/request-info
Accept Online Donations / Sell Online
We can help you accept donations online for your organization, or help you sell your products online. You can use a simple credit card processing solution like PayPal, or we can help you set up your own merchant account for processing payments yourself.
http://www.forkunion.com/giving