The reasons behind the success of websites such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and MySpace are quite simple: the user is put in control of the system and they do the work for the site owners.

Interaction at the heart

The modern internet is all about allowing people to interact - either with your business or with each other. Customers can get quick answers about your products and services, or users can talk to each other about the subjects your site covers. Whole communities of users can be harnessed and brought together on your site directly or indirectly promoting your business.

There's already a [insert site name here].

Yes there's some big hitters around from Facebook to YouTube to Linkedin to Twitter. They do a great job and are fantastically successful. But you don't want to be the next Twitter, you want to be the first [insert your site name here].

YouTube is fine, but we want an exclusive business version. Facebook is great, but we want our users to both interact with each other and participate with our products. we have made many User and Membership sites which both work like the above, but work for you.

we don't have a spare £billion, how can we compete?

To create sites which offer similar functionality to popular interactive sites mentioned does not require infinite budgets. With a combination of agile development, integration of existing open source technology and best practice, websites with similar features but tailored to your requirements are very affordable.

Best practice combined with a little imagination

Any developer can buy a script and upload it to a website - the skill is in taking the requirements that you have for your idea and melding the correct combination of new, old and best to create the sort of site you require. We don't need another Facebook; we can with confidence suggest the best ways forward to realising your ideas for an interactive site which meets your needs.