Websites are mostly little islands with their own rules and reality. Every forum, photo album, blog, etc has been written hundreds of times. Enormous amounts of money are spend in building the greatest functionality. Most of the time it’s not used, or users do not understand how it has to be used. Why do we build things that already exist?

In the “real world”, companies have suppliers to supply them the things they need. why should a car manufacturer try to create his own tires? There are specialized companies making them already. This way the manufacturer can focus on the actual building process. On the end it results in a great car with parts from all over the world. Because the tire manufacturer provides tires for many cars, he created standards in tire-size. Now everyone knows how to replace a car-tire.

On the web we have a complete other approach. every website project is reinventing the same thing. This way we loose focus and standards, and the building costs are high. This is a result of “full-service” internet companies and users that demand functionality without looking around what already exists.

It’s time to think different about building websites.

The contribution-theory
An effective website or application is a site that contributes and shares data and/or functionality to the web.

“Differentiate yourself by fully understanding the problem before you attempt to solve it… Don’t just fall in love with a solution and go full-force on making it look great, but really make sure that whatever you design is fitting a need in the world and has a purpose.” – Whitney Hess

How do we start a website or application?

1. What is your contribution to the web?
The best way to start off is to think about your contribution. What do you have what makes you unique. What data and/or functionality can you put IN the web that really is fitting a need?

2. What way you share your contribution
How are you going to distribute your contribution. I really think this is the only way to make a strong and useful product or website. Sharing can be done in many ways. Examples are XML/RPC, API‘s, Feeds, or just a Wikipedia entry..

3. What contributions of other people are you going to use?
To finish you product or website, you can use contributions of others. There is a huge amount of data and functionality that is shared on the web. And by contributing your information to the web you just made it bigger.

4. How are you going to combine it together?
Now create your “mashup”. Take your unique contribution together with the services and functionality you are using and combine it. I’m not talking about the mashups we know from the early web 2.0, but complete programs and sites based on contributed material.

If I have time I’ll try to make a list of contributors. People and organizations that provide us unique content and functionality. Someone that made use of this idea is singer/actor Miles Fisher. He contributes a free EP and videoclip, he uses flickr, twitter, facebook, IMDb, and Blogger.

Be open, share and collaborate.