Good link, Peter.
I have an issue to raise after looking at the article, though. It is not a complaint about the article but rather about the process by which most Web sites are built.
Context is king, not content. There is nothing so deadly on the Internet as a pile of undifferentiated, unorganized content.
Content and community can work together to reinforce each other, but only if they're united in context. So structure and organization is the single most important question you have to face in creating a site. You need look no further than Yahoo to see the power of context.
But context and content ... about what? Why does the site exist? What are the site's goals? What is the business objective, the strategy?
These are not small questions, and in fact they dwarf technology in determining the success or failure of a Web site. If you plunge into technology decisions without an absolutely clear picture of the strategy and mission and a vision of contextual tactics, you're not really building a site; you're just playing with computers.
I've seen this happen over and over again. I've seen major commercial sites where the editorial staff could not construct a lucid explanation of their own goals. Is it any wonder that the technology people wind up building roads to nowhere?
Consulting firms like PWC, iXL, Razorfish, et al, have strict methodologies that they follow when working with a client, and they place as much emphasis on nailing down strategy and purpose as they do on construction. Maybe more.
