Planning for Another 100 Million Web Sites - NYTimes.com

More than 20 years after the advent of the World Wide Web, some might argue that it has already yielded a surfeit of Web pages, mobile sites, and the digital equivalent of shiny time wasters.

Ha.

“There are maybe 100 million Web sites out there – that is not many, when you consider that there are billions of people,” said David Rusenko, the chief executive of Weebly, a service that enables relatively easy creation of Web sites.

On Thursday, Weebly is doing its modest best to resolve the deficit with a new site planner and creator that uses the HTML5 programming standard for creation of sites that will work correctly on different Web browsers.

The product will also automatically reformat a site for viewing on mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets, Mr. Rusenko said. It will also be possible to edit a site from a mobile device, and view changes before they are published. Prices for using the service vary, with a free elementary product and a high-end version that runs about $100 a year.

Weebly, which is privately held, says its tools have generated more than 15 million sites since its founding in 2006. These draw 100 million visitors a month, Mr. Rusenko said. It has been a nice business, profitable since 2009, he said, but recently the company wondered if it was really meeting the demand for site creation.

One reason for that is that while making Web sites used to be relatively straightforward, the advent of kinetic elements like video, or the need to build for mobile devices, had made things much tougher. “We did a survey, and found that while 60 percent of people didn’t trust a business without a Web site, 75 percent of people didn’t know it was possible to create their own site,” Mr. Rusenko said.

HTML5 is supposed to solve the problem of writing for different devices and browsers, but designers have found that the standard has its own complexities. Weebly claims to have overcome these by automating processes and adding tools to help newcomers plan their graphic expression. One tool is copying; on their own people get a kind of designer’s block, so Weebly offers templates to study, and an interactive guide with tutorials on things like organization and layout.

Besides helping ordinary businesses develop a Web presence, Weebly says uncertain employment and increasing number of freelancers in the modern economy means more individuals need to be mongering themselves on the Web. If so, it’s part of a trend that includes services like Elance, ODesk, and Freelancer.com, which try to match short-term jobs in things like design and programing with a global talent base. Similarly, Etsy encourages small business by allowing craftspeople a place to display their work.

Maybe the first 100 million sites were the hardest. If so, get ready for an explosion, from lots of people and places. And, in turn, even more competition for work.