A clone website project is a family of websites designed for a family of organizations. The subscriber of each clone site is one that requires it's own web presence, but to a large degree shares a common purpose, function, and/or identity with the other subscribers. The clone site service is one that gives each of these the means to assemble and maintain their own website without professional help. The dominant qualities of a clone website are high presentation quality, a full array of application functions specific to the subscriber's needs, a distinct style for each website, and a very low subscription fee.
Traditional design methods have been unable to make a significant separation between cost and quality. Some developers have had minor success but not without a complete sacrifice of originality in the resulting web site. In fact, in the target price range of the clone sites, very few service providers have had even marginal success. Mindstream Media has developed and fully tested techniques that result in professional quality, high function, original branded presentation, and a subscription fee low enough to meet the most minimal budgets.
The approach is the result of combining custom design techniques with the benefits of template based websites. We begin by designing a website specifically for a distinct organization or organization type. It accounts for style, page layout, visitor demographic, and all the functional requirements unique to the target organization. We then separate the underlying site structure and function from the style and page layouts. Finally a collection of style and page layout templates are created that specifically suit the original design. A selection of site templates are also created specific to the design. These act as a map or ready-made plan of what pages will make up the site. What remains is a simple process where the subscriber pastes content into templates and chooses the styles they like.
The key to quality is that every template combination and every style element combination results in a web site that meets the original design quality standard. No combination will lead to a bad result. The key to a unique website is the number of available layout combinations, style combinations, and ultimately the unique content.
It's important to note that none of this would be possible without the focus on distinct families of subscriber groups. The common qualities of the groups are translated into common qualities of their websites. Even though most common traits are beneath the surface, they still account for the bulk of development cost, so isolating and automating them brings down fees dramatically.
A remarkable side effect of the clone site structure is that content sharing becomes possible in ways that simply do not exist in a traditional website. Many publications made by an organization are on topics relating to their purpose, and not their identity. These are publications worthy of sharing with the family of organizations in the family of clone sites. The administrator of one clone site can mark a page of content as shared. This puts the page into a list accessible to other clone site subscribers in the same family. One of these other groups can simply choose to subscribe to the page and it will be incorporated into the subscriber's own clone site. This is not a link from one site to another, but the embedding of content from one into another. It is also not a copy of the original page, but live content. If the original page changes, then the embedded, subscription page changes.
Content sharing is excellent for membership lists, industry news, blog pages etc. It has the benefit of elevating the site’s public image by improving the content depth while at the same time, elevating the image of the original writer.
In order to visualize this, consider that every web page possesses two layers. One layer shows things about the site owner and the site itself - like a menu, logo, color scheme, domain name, copy-write notice etc. The other layer contains the subject matter, layout and style of that page. It is the first layer of the owner’s website that is merged with the second layer of the writer’s shared page. Because the style and layout collections were all made to coordinate, the result is a seamless integration of content. Sharing becomes something of great benefit to the writer, the website owner and the community of clone site owners, all at no cost and very little effort. This works for one reason only - when a group stands together, they are stronger than the sum of their parts.