Could one person pull of a major website?

Post Reply New Topic

Or will you need other resources. Can one person handle say PHP development, graphic design, marketing, etc?

You mean one person responsible for the website for a, say, Logitech or AT&T or Nike or Alaskan Airways? Seems unlikely.

It depends on your abilities and free time. If you thing of creating some new server, which you'd like to start and manage, then it highly depends on very good planning all related activities and your plans MUST reflect objective reality, not your imaginations and guesses. First choose a CMS system - if you use the right one for your purpose, it will spare a lot of work (strike off PHP etc). Then write yourself a project description: purpose, types of contents, who will use it (typology), sources of contents (very important!), how it will profit (if any), how you will promote it ... Then start to make graphic design (if you know it), installation, configuration, etc etc, just follow CORRECTLY written the project schedules ...

Would recommend a content-management system (CMS) like Drupal, Joomla, etc. Or even WordPress. Doing a site from scratch by hand-coding everything would be difficult.

Ive been building a website for a week or so and its coming along well. It is a basic one for a fictitious company that I built a database and app for. It was more to help fill my head with development work. But I have a few pages that look good and display product data nicely.

I aim to complete it and post it online as an example of my skills in order to get a job or maybe do my own business. I used MS express products to do it all and found it enjoyable.

You have to think like a business marketing person: what is the website for? Who will use it? How will they want to use it? How should it be administered? etc.

I worked in the industry for years so have experience. If you are in the process of building one then just keep doing it and learning stuff. But you do need the business angle on it. It is not just a techie thing.

Speaking as a webdeveloper (3 years experience) and having tried launching my own projects, the hardest thing to do is getting people to go to your new site. From begin to end you need to think about how a site if going to spread and stick with people. This is very difficult and potentially costly. This basically a marketing challenge but if read up on the theory ("The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell is a good start) and design it with these mechanisms in mind and a good idea of how you're going to get your message out then yeah, it should work.

Another thing: stay away from PHP! It's an antiquated platform and a waste of time. Personally I love Django (Python) but there are other great alternatives out there (like Ruby on Rails).

If you're dedicated to learning the skills nessicerry then yeah I dont see why not but you will have to buy Photoshop and be willing to do all the coding you're self. Really it depends on the idea.If you have a good idea, then your're in luck!