The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite communication protocols, e.g. TCP/IP, to link several billion devices worldwide. It is essentially a network of networks that consists of millions of private, public, academic, business, and government networks, of local to global scope, that are linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries an extensive range of information resources and services, such as the inter-linked hypertext documents and applications of the World Wide Web (WWW), the infrastructure to support email, and peer-to-peer networks for file sharing and telephony.
Though the Internet has been widely used by academia since the 1980s, the commercialization of what was by the 1990s an international network resulted in its popularization and incorporation into virtually every aspect of modern human life. As of April 2014, approximately 3 billion people, nearly 40% of the world's human population have an Internet connection. Over the past thirty years most traditional communications media including telephone, music, film, and television are being reshaped or redefined by the Internet, giving birth to new services such as voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and Internet Protocol television (IPTV). Newspaper, book, and other print publishing are adapting to website technology, or are reshaped into blogging and web feeds. The Internet has enabled and accelerated new forms of human interactions through instant messaging, Internet forums, and social networking. Online shopping has boomed both for major retail outlets and small artisans and traders. Business-to-business and financial services on the Internet affect supply chains across entire industries.
The vast majority of user engagement with the Internet, especially for the average individual, is through webpages and websites. A website, is a set of related webpages served from a single web domain, and is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet address known as a Uniform Resource Locator (URL). All publicly accessible websites collectively constitute the World Wide Web. Each webpage is a document, typically written in plain text interspersed with formatting instructions in a language, e.g. Hypertext Markup Language (HTML, XHTML). Webpages may incorporate elements from other websites with suitable markup anchors as well as links to other webpages on the same website or other websites, the latter being typically accessed via hypertext links.
In order to view information a user launches an application, often referred to as a web browser, and navigates to a webpage through a search or a stored link, its web address. The web browser rendering the page content according to its HTML markup instructions onto a display terminal wherein the content and HTML markup instructions have been transported with the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which may optionally employ encryption (HTTP Secure, HTTPS) to provide security and privacy for the user of the webpage content. The URLs of the pages organize them into a hierarchy, although hyperlinking between them conveys the reader's perceived site structure and guides the reader's navigation of the site which generally includes a home page with most of the links to the site's web content, and a supplementary about, contact and link page.
Some websites require a subscription to access some or all of their content. Examples of subscription websites include many business sites, parts of news websites, academic journal websites, gaming websites, file-sharing websites, message boards, web-based email, social networking websites, websites providing real-time stock market data, and websites providing various other services (e.g., websites offering storing and/or sharing of images, files and so forth).
However, irrespective of the content, the structure, the website, etc. every single webpage on every single website has had to be generated. Whilst, some webpages may display results from searches these search results are webpages or portions of webpages. With an estimated 100 billion plus webpages on over 100 million websites that is a vast amount of human resources applied to the design, layout, configuration of those webpages. At present creating a website generally involves two primary jobs, the web designer and web developer, who often work closely together on a website. The web designers are responsible for the visual aspect, which includes the layout, coloring and typography of a webpage and will typically have a working knowledge of using a variety of languages such as HTML, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), JavaScript, PHP (a server-side scripting language) and Flash to create a site, although the extent of their knowledge will differ from one web designer to another. Particularly in smaller organizations one person will need the necessary skills for designing and programming the full webpage, while larger organizations may have a web designer responsible for the visual aspect alone. In other particular circumstances, other individuals may become involved during the creation of a website including, for example, graphic designers (to create visuals for the site such as logos, layouts and buttons), Internet marketing specialists (who help maintain web presence through strategic solutions targeting viewers), search engine optimizers (SEOs, who research/recommend website language to increase website visibility on search engines), Internet copywriters (to create the written content), and user experience (UX) designers (who address end-user design considerations).
As a result establishing a website whilst being a major, often vital, element of an enterprise's or organization's strategy can be an expensive proposition which is not helped by the need to support both desktop and mobile users as well as potentially supporting multiple languages to address user's in different geographical regions. Due to the lower bandwidth, reduced display capabilities, and typically lower processor capabilities a mobile webpage/website is generally less complex and less graphically intensive than a desktop webpage/website.
Accordingly, over the past decade whilst professional design tools for webpages/websites have improved a parallel development has occurred geared to the individual, the smaller enterprise, etc. wherein they can design and implement a website and its webpages through the use of templates that are pre-configured and remove the requirements of the user to understand web design and development tools. In many instances these are discrete third party services but increasingly these are bundled as part of an overall package from enterprises such as GoDaddy™, Wix™, and WordPress.com wherein the user can register an Internet domain, generate their website and have it hosted so that they do not need to worry about servers, scalability etc.
However, this leaves the user with essentially two options, the first with full creative control and flexibility is to exploit web developers and website development enterprises to generate exactly what they want. The second is to select a template from those available and work within its constraints. The former is typically suited to established enterprises that can justify the marketing budget and quantify the return on investment whilst the latter is typically employed by small and new enterprises, individuals, etc. to establish a web presence without incurring significant costs for unknown return on investment.
Accordingly, it would be beneficial to provide users with the ability to establish a webpage and/or website with a design that they want within a generation tool that they find easy and intuitive to use. The former, i.e. the generation tool, beneficially is the very same web browser that their users will view the webpage/website with whilst the latter, the intuitive and easy use, is the same features that they will be familiar with from word processing, graphics editors, etc.
It would be further beneficial for a user, when generating their webpage(s) and/or website(s) to be able to rapidly duplicate an existing webpage/website and then edit it to reflect the changes that they want. For example, a florist offering twenty floral arrangements may wish to have twenty webpages each essentially identical in theme and content with the variations for each particular arrangement's image, cost, and options. Similarly, a small local chain of restaurants may wish to establish a website for each location so that it reflects the neighbourhood it is within but have similar structure and many common elements. Accordingly, being able to easily copy a webpage, edit it, and save it would be beneficial.
It would be further beneficial for the user's edits, amendments, etc. to their webpage(s)/website(s) to be automatically and rapidly available online once they have completed them rather than awaiting their service provider's upload of modified content. It would be further beneficial for the user to be able to rapidly add extended features to their website such as videos, widgets etc.
Other aspects and features of the present invention will become apparent to those ordinarily skilled in the art upon review of the following description of specific embodiments of the invention in conjunction with the accompanying figures.