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Who Killed the Webmaster?
XorNand writes "With the explosive growth of the Web in the previous decade, many predicted the birth of a new, well-paying, and in-demand profession: the Webmaster. Yet in 2007, this person has somehow vanished; even the term is scarcely mentioned. What happened? A decade later I'm left wondering: Who killed the Webmaster?"
.... It wasn't me.
Eclipse PDE and Me
The rumors for my death are greatly exaggerated.
So are the rumors that this article has any substance at all. But, hey, let's all make up random shit and run around panicked because of it!
I wanted a website too complex for a single person.
Next question.
Colonel Mustard with Web 2.0 in the kitchen.
Same thing that killed the guy who used to drive around bringing ice so your grandparents could keep the food in their icebox cold.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
I don't think the job is gone, but perhaps the title is. "Webmaster" has been rolled into other jobs, because management of a public-facing web site is increasingly just one facade of a far more important job, management of a company's entire systems, which falls generally to the CIO, and then gets delegated from there down to a particular person or group.
I can think of a lot of web sites where 90+% of the content isn't part of the "site" per se, but part of databases that are somehow interfaced into the site (CRM systems, accounting, etc.). The "webmaster"'s job can be a lot more like a circus ringleader, trying to keep everyone happy and plugged in.
In line with the increasing managerial responsibilities, the title of "webmaster" may have disappeared into various "Information Systems" titles. The job is still there, somewhere, but it's called something different.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
The answer is simple. What killed the webmaster? Specialization!
The old time "webmaster" was a jack of all trades, doing design, HTML, managing your hosting account, submitting your site to search engines, and coding or subcontracting interactive scripts.
But the web and the number of ways to create content and interactivity have expanded faster than any person's skillset can. Furthermore, people started seeing really slick, professional sites, and the "Geocities Home Page On Steroids" junk that a lot of webmasters were churning our just wasn't acceptable anymore.
There are still "webmasters" where the web operation for a company or organization is kept in-house and limited to a single person. But when you get into concepts like economy of scale... if you don't need a full-time person (i.e. your site doesn't need that much active management), it's just cheaper to contract it out. And in most cases, the big, slick operations are getting those contracts.
For the big slicks, it doesn't make sense to have a bunch of jacks of all trades, mastering none, doing merely acceptable jobs. It's better to have a team of specialists and parcel out different parts to the people who excel in those parts. You get slicker, better product, faster turnaround, and the employees are plug-and-play making a single point of failure less likely.
As web sites needed to have more and varied pieces, demanded more expertise in more areas, the "webmaster" started to be replaced by the Graphic Designer, the Web Dev, the Server Jockey, the DBA, the SEO person, etc. It's sort of like math or science. A long, long time ago, it was possible for a single person to obtain the sum total of human knowledge in these disciplines. Now, you can't. You have to pick a specialty. People entering the world of web site construction and maintenance are finding that they have to pick a speciality too.
There are webmasters out there, but they're being killed off by an environment that is growing ever more complex.
Start a happiness pandemic
>an image of C.S. Lewis's Alice tumbling down a hole
Both the author attribution, and the content of the article, belong to the wrong century.
They were just renamed to flash monkey.
I hate flash sites.
Saying "Content is King" in the same sentence as Myspace et. al. is like saying an overflowing ashtray is a sign of productivity.
The positioned has diversified into many others. simple
I suggest it was Mrs. White, in the Library, with the Rope.
If there were so many webmasters back then, in the world of "flaming skulls, scrolling marquees, and rainbow divider lines", as the article states it, perhaps the world has just come to its senses and the clueless "webmasters" have died off, leaving the sites to competent programmers and designers.
This time last year my wife and I were eating in our favourite restaurant and got chatting to the couple on the table next to ours. Sooner or later the subject of work came up. I said I was a web developer. "we are web developers too" they said. It turns out they work from home just down the road from us. He does the backend asp coding and she does the front end and photography. They still churn their way through local SME businesses that want a 4 page brochure website. The thing is they make a good living out of it. Just as much as I can make in a large but specialised web development company.
Yes "webmasters" are rare but they are not extinct.
another Roadkill on the Information Superhighway
the job still exists, it's just called different things. since nowadays most sites of any significance are dynamic you are either an administrator or developer.
if you just to page designs you are a 'wed developer' if you maintain the backend you are an administrator
in summary, the job specialized into different fields because web sites are too diverse in nature for one job description to cover maintaining all the different types
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Is there any chance that Video (on Demand) killed the webmaster? He wouldn't be the first victim...
Or maybe that was the radio star - I always get those mixed up.
:(){
Webmasters are still around.
The entire web isn't made up of Web 2.0 community-generated content sites.
And even if you've got the latest greatest custom CMS -- someone's got to maintain it.
Newspapers and magazines still have webmasters -- those are publications with
dozens of writers, editors, photo editors and community features.
Most of the web is still (and will always be) about content, and not all content
exists on blogs and news aggregators. (Although, TFA is correct in its observation that
an increasing amount of it is). Enterprise level publishing still requires webmasters
to manage increasingly complex sites with multiple integrated systems, databases
servers, ad networks and a distributed team of editors, writers and programmers.
If you're the New York times, WebMD, iVillage, MSN, etc. a WordPress install isn't
going to replace your webmaster.
I think a better question might be: who killed the low level webmaster?
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
...that, as technology moved on, there just weren't enough webmasters around who were good at their job. In the early days of the web, just having a website was enough to be taken reasonably seriously as a professional. Back in those days, all you needed to know was a little HTML (and not even HTML 4, depending how early on, never mind CSS, JavaScript, Flash or cross-browser compatibility) and you needed a few writing skills. Nowadays, the bar is a little higher. Nowadays, a "webmaster" would have to be a competent designer, competent developer *and* a fairly skilled writer, not to mention a pretty good moderator, since so many websites nowadays have a community.
People who are good at all of that are far and few between, so instead of having one mythical webmaster who does everything, it makes more sense to have the tasks split up into different jobs: Web designer, web developer and content provider (which may be any sort of professional, for example marketing or journalism, or the website user himself).
Basilisk Digital
What about the gophermaster?
:wq
Those of us who work in libraries and in other settings in which one spends a great deal of time trying to track down documentation of various kinds have found over the years that email to webmasters is very, very rarely answered. It is though your inquiry is sucked into oblivion as soon as you hit, "Enter." Or else the webmaster refers you to someone else who doesn't respond. It just isn't worth the trouble to try to get the info you need through webmasters, however nice they may be as evidenced by the courtesy they show in the rare instances you actually get an answer from one.
The butler, they're always guilty.
It was the head of HR, in the server room, with the ethernet cable.
Twas Chuck Norris killed the Webmasters.
Hey, guys. Big gulps, huh? Cool. All right! Well, see ya later.
I shot the BOFH, but I didn't kill the Webmaster... Oh no, no...
[All Your Fish Are Belong To Us]
I did a rather quick search on monster.com (results: http://jobsearch.monster.com/Search.aspx?q=webmast er&fn=&lid=&re=130&cy=us&JSNONREG=1 ), and as of 1/29/2007 2:30 (GMT-6), there are 189 listings for "webmaster"
2 0star&fn=&lid=&re=0&cy=us&JSNONREG=1&pg=1 ) , and as of 1/29/2007 2:30 (GMT-6), there are 24 listings for "radio star", thus proving that Video didn't kill the radio star.
0 picker&fn=&lid=&re=0&cy=us&JSNONREG=1&pg=1 )
I also did a quick search on moster.com (results: http://jobsearch.monster.com/Search.aspx?q=radio%
Of course, you can take these results for what they are worth. After all, I got 371 results when I searched for "nose picker" on monster.com ( http://jobsearch.monster.com/Search.aspx?q=nose%2
Navicula hydraulica plena anguilarum est. Omnes castelli tuus nostri sunt. Ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta.
... in the library with the lead pipe.
My thoughts, FWIW -
People who might have called themselves webmasters before now call themselves bloggers. These days it is quite trivial to make a web page, especially with all the on-line tools around. Maybe back in the day you had to know a little HTML to put up your own personal web page, and you might have felt special enough about it that you gave yourself a title. Not so anymore. When your average 12 year old can churn out a Myspace page (albeit a blinding, noisy, tooth grinding affront to all that is holy) being a "Webmaster" just doesn't give you the street cred it did back in the 90s.
On the flip side, large Web sites these days are not one man shows anymore. Network engineers, graphic artists, db admins, and scripters are all involved. On sites like that, there's no one who can take the title of "Webmaster" since the whole thing is pretty much a team effort.
-R
I hate it when people call me a webmaster. What am I, fucking spiderman?
Your previous generation of self-appointed "webmasters" were the first folks on the scene. This was before most people even knew what a hyperlink was, let alone HTML. Therefore, being able to hack together a page that would render properly was a rare ability. It was a new form of media, with its own rules, and it was trying to borrow aesthetically from print media. So you had a bunch of "pages" that, honestly, looked like crap (partly because the people with skills were focusing more on functionality than form, and partly because nobody knew what a good "web page" was supposed to look like).
Gradually, programmers started making better tools so that less technically-inclined people could jump in and try things. Some of these folks were artists, and some rather beautiful and elegant layouts were developed. At about the same time, tools started popping up that allowed people to type content into a text box and have it appear with the proper formatting applied, or have the data be automatically imported and formatted from a database. With this, the amount of content on the web increased dramatically. A webmaster's focus was on editing and uploading individual HTML files (a comparatively laborious task compared to entering something into a blog post form), and at the same time he had to compete directly with the better designs and layouts from the art pool.
So what happened? The more technically oriented webmasters became LAMP specialists or coders (and the bottom of the barrel started making IE-only pages). The more artistically inclined ones discovered CSS and Dreamweaver and went on to contribute to a prettier and easier to use web. A very small minority with talents in both areas got fantastic jobs and made lots of money making tools for artists or better interfaces (dynamic HTML, slide-out widgets, WYSIWYG in forms). And the rest? Well, you don't get very far if you can't adapt.
Ok, it had to be said...
Oh My God, They Killed Kenny The Webmaster. You Bastards!!!
Navicula hydraulica plena anguilarum est. Omnes castelli tuus nostri sunt. Ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta.
The job is taken by a female, so the title is now "WebMistress"
::Wince:: A WordPress blog making the frontpage of Slashdot (my blog nonetheless). FYI, I'm using the WP-Cache Wordpress plugin to help keep the thing online. If it stays up, it's almost certainly because of that functionality. The software itself is running on a pretty much idle, dedicated Xeon box in a datacenter.
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
Same thing that killed the guy who used to drive around bringing ice so your grandparents could keep the food in their icebox cold.
Syphilis?
Push Button, Receive Bacon
But I did not shoot the deputy.
Some say specialization killed the Webmaster. I say common knowledge killed him. It just isn't cool to be a Webmaster anymore, pretty much anyone can do the job or knows a kid who can do the job.
And while I agree that some people have chosen to specialize even more, I've seen people go in the other direction as well. There are still Jacks-of-All-Trades, except those new Jacks may know a scripting language or two, a bit of database, a bit of graphic design, a bit of apache, etc. And those new Jacks-of-all-Trades just couldn't market themselves under the old label Webmaster, since that label doesn't really describe what they do now, nor does that old label describe something that's very special anymore.
No mod points today but you're at 5 already. There are still webmasters doing college sites and sites with resources too low to hire more than one person. But for the major business sites, you're right...there's 10 jobs for any one website, so there is no "master" anymore...maybe just a Web Middle-Manager to keep the live team in-line with Accounting.
> ... it wasn't me.
No, I was there, and... it was me.
Well, there were a few of us involved. But my personal confession reads as follows:
I wrote scripts that let end users change their own pages. I integrated Wysiwyg editors into CMS systems. I coded some wiki-markup processors. I made design changes friendly for non-techies. I wrote image thumbnailers, and CSS-generators that used customer preferences.
I didn't know it was wrong! I was just following orders! Everyone was doing it! Lots of others killed him more than I did!
*Moves to Brazil*
The webmasters killed themselves....
When a profession is made by 95% of incompetent, overpriced and ego-inflated people, even if the demand is high, survival is quite unlikely. Too bad for the few good ones around.
Nowadays, "webmasters" who are still in business have mutated into "web developers" or "system administrators".
Managed hosting and the bunch of tools for a CMS, database access over the web, a control panel like PLESK, cpanel etc. Who needs a webmaster anymore when you can do much more sitting with a notebook on ur beanbag?
fifteen jugglers, five believers
It was spam. I mean, I still have all those webmaster@(whatever) accounts for all the domains I actually administer, but in the last 5 years or so, I've never seen anything but spam in there. So, spam killed the webmaster for me.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
...with its tools, in the server room.
Ok, ok, the Clue jokes are getting old and have been repeated like a billion times by now. So I won't make (another) one.
But seriously. Webpage design is outsourced to designing companies, a content management system is slapped onto the page's back and from then on, anyone with at least half a clue can add and manipulate content rather easily, without even knowing the first thing about HTML.
The webmaster isn't dead. He's just working for another company now, or he is unemployed because instead of 100 companies needing 100 webmasters, there's now one company that needs 10 of them to write the CMS for their 100 customers.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
webmaster is one of those late 90's terms when the internet seemed like this magic place you needed skills to navigate. then reality hit and no one was going to pay someone to edit documents when shirley in accounting can do the same thing in her lunch break.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
The premise of this article is just dumb. "Webmaster" was never a profession - the term is just dumb and that's why it's no longer used. There are a lot of well paid, in-demand web developers, designers and administrators out there, but I expect most of them would object if you called them "webmaster".
But I did not kill the sys admin
The Webmistress. She caught him foolin' around with Ruby.
Mea culpa. Although you're right, 'facade' almost makes sense there, since what I was suggesting is that the actual frontend seen by the public -- the facade -- is only a small part of what might be a much bigger system, generating and storing all the data that's delivered in various forms to viewers. E.g., depending on how you define 'content,' the person responsible for the largest part of a big site's content might actually be the DBA of an interfaced system, rather than the 'webmaster' of the frontend.
... I don't even know what I'm doing awake at this point. :)
It's really late
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
... Kaiser Sose
So the web has changed. Static pages are mixed with dynamic pages. Making a simple website is a kids job (for eg. bloggers). Making a large website requires DB admins, graphic designers, system admins, scripters, etc., and none of these can be given the title of a webmaster.
And then of course there're Wikis. With the arrival of wiki, everyone and anyone is a webmaster. Anyone can edit pages on wiki (some require registration or login).
So where did the webmasters go? They have mutated and forked into wiki admins, web developers (for dynamic content from databases), and so on. Yup, all the old webmasters beware: there's a war coming, WebMen - The Last Stand!
They have been replaced by a bunch of cunts with a $TOPIC for Dummies book and some software collection CD from a cornflakes box. Those cunts now whine at their hosting company when they fucked up their webserver. Deserves them right. Stupid cunts.
I was a webmaster. The first thing I did was build a Content Management System so the people who were actually going to use the website could update it themselves. Once I'd added all the initial content, trained up the users and fixed some bugs there was nothing for me to do any longer so I went and did something else.
I'm sure this is a typical experience.
Then I ate his website with a nice chiantti.
It's probably due to not only specialization, but the growth of more methods and more complex methods of designing on the internet. When I first got a computer around 1999 - 2000, I remember around 6 months into being on the internet wanting to learn how to start web designing. It probably took me about 2 years of self teaching to get familiar with HTML (the 3rd or 4th year I pretty much knew everything about HTML), and only recently in the past year have I been serious enough to sit down and learn CSS (on shaky ground since CSS2 sucks standards balls, but whenever I get to taking a web design course or when I fully comprehend the box model I should be fine). I never learned javascript because I never took an intro to programming class in high school (i regret it), and don't give me that generic arrogance about not needing to programming to know javascript: Ive met plenty of people who just dont get programming at all, and a few of these 6 or 7 finally went to an intro to progamming class and were finally able to get it (one of them is still stuck on visual basic, another breezed through and is currently learning C# and PHP.)
That brings me to another point: early web designing (where it was just basically HTML, Javascript,) required much less patience and certain abstract concepts to utilize (i.e. the box method with CSS). When most moved to CSS, and left tables behind, a ew stood by tables and Im more than sure a seperate group eventually just stopped doing web design altogether. Im beginning to see that this might be true, as although Im currently so far into learning CSS that I might as well go the full mile and learn it inside out, I can't say the same for AJAX or all of PHP. The simple days of simply delivering content effectivly were more than met by HTML and javascript, but then other concepts became important: appearence, feedback, viewer interaction, standards (always been there but became a spotlight issue as more browsers appeared, css appeared, and when IE *was* the dominant browser). .ASP) etc. etc... As time goes by, and as more technologies become popular, I wont' be surprised to see the roles of the webmaster further mutate (very obvious), but I also wont be shocked at the changing numbers of webmasters; like say, during this whole web 2.0 charade, many become dormant because their goals/ideals/philosophies/techniques as webmasters do not fit the current climate of focus: obviously, if your a professional web deisnger, adhering to older technologies wouldn't get you much of a job, but if your slow to evolve and/or learn newer ones, your job security becomes null. I bet when the hype around certain technologies dies down, some will become less dormant and possibly some will start learning some of the technologies they originally rejected (a backlash of the backlash, if you will).
Web 2.0 has been, more or less i think, about interaction and dynamic web pages: blogs, news delivery systems (Drupal, CMS, PHP,
Personally, Ive gotten tired of web designing specifically because with CSS, my perfectionism has made doing any web design on my own free time for my own (hiatus) sites a living fucking hell because I cant stick with a design lol. Of course, I haven't taken any officially training or courses, so I'm sure that would help eventually. I wouldn't be surprised if some perfectionists just slowly gave up when all these new technologies came out (depending on certain webmaster's laziness or discipline levels ). :/.
Although, PHP is pretty useful, I'll eventually learn it when I know how to program. Until then it's just notepad, what litle patience I have, and trial and error. XD. Anyways, all in all, certain new technologies are going to weed out those who want to adopt, and those who don't. And then of those two, there could be two other groups: those who end up quitting altogether, and those who wait out the trendy tide and come out during the calm waters. I hope I'm one of the later
We all know maggie killed the webmaster.
This seems like a good opportunity to recruit more webmasters for the GNU Project.
:)
If you know your GNU from your Linux, and you fancy the chance to work on a very popular website, www.gnu.org, then please drop me an email...
mattl at gnu dot org - put 'slashdot webmastering' in the subject please
Join the Free Software Foundation
I've found that as soon as a company gets what it wants design wise and everythings up and running, they chuck designers and webmasters (i.e. me, surplus to fecking requirements). This is even more so if the site is static. Best to develop a professional attitude to the market and move on the next design job / contract once your baby's out in the world wide web.
Someone set up us the bomb!
It is not really that hard to figure out - it is called "market forces".
We use something called "supply and demand" to determine prices and such, not just on consumer goods but on jobs and salaries also. Some jobs are just low pay or go away, 95% of the time this is better for society (though it may really suck for an individual).
Like it or not, a "webmaster" never was one of the really tough jobs that took a lot of talent and ability. Yes, there were - and definitely still are - sites that require such, but the title of "webmaster" includes a lot less. When a current high school student can do the job, chances are that 50,000+ a year isn't going to last once the market figure it out. It never should have been that high to begin with.
The real talent isn't called a webmaster anymore, they have moved into the software development team. What used to be a "webmaster" job is now just a sideline of one of the developer's job. Such is the way of creating a job that doesn't require much knowledge, skill, or time outside of one of the jobs that does - it goes away (especially when said job applicants demand a salary on par with those that not only do their job but much more).
We do not live in the late 90's where no one knows what "the web" is or what it is capable of. We can longer demand really strange things - welcome to the real world (by now, most of us have figured it out, haven't seen on of these "questions" in quite a long time). Once business figures out anyone and their brother/sister can do the job it's salary drops to nothing or is rolled into another. To expect otherwise is silly - how many complaining would pay someone what they are wanting for those services?
------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it
Yet in 2007, this person has somehow vanished; even the term is scarcely mentioned. What happened?
Two things...
First, the task formerly called "webmaster" really didn't involve all that much real "skill" - During the dotcom boom it paid well, but damn sure shouldn't have. In general, you had two types of people doing the job - Real coders tasked with keeping the company website updated in their "spare" time, and wannabe coders who could handle HTML but not much else. Sorry, that sounds harsh, but it does set the stage.
Enter easy-to-use WYSIWIG page editing tools, AJAX, Buzzword 2.0, and what-have you. These changes, over time, have radically segregated the web into two distinct subgroups: We have the coders I previously put in group #1 now spending a much more significant chunk of their time maintaining fairly complex systems, but still not enough to dedicate a full-time engineer to for anything except a few megasites (and on them, they have whole teams of people working on something much more similar to a real software project than to the traditional "web site"); group #2 has no role in that, and has taken to blogging, vanishing into the masses as everyone and their brother pretends the world wants to hear about their breakfast and latest messy romance.
So what happened to the "webmaster" of old? Simple - the job outgrew most of its practitioners, but still hasn't made it far enough (with a few exceptions, of course) that real engineers would give it first billing on their resumes.
Syphilis? I only wonder how a webmaster would get syphilis.
I sometimes feel like killing my self, when I take on my webmaster cap. I manage my own sites, a couple of galleries, blogs and forums, and I spend so much time fighting spam, that I sometimes feel like just giving up. I already removed most of the options to leave comments or submit feedback, but that isn't always an options (eps. for the message board). Yes, I've captcha'ed everything etc. etc..
Anyway, somebody else already answered: Specialization...
TC - My Photos..
Webmaster is such an ambiguous and egotistic title which actually has no meaning...I mean webMASTER? What the..? Might as well make it webwizard, webking...
And what would a webmaster do anyway, master the web?!? Maybe this was relevant pre-1993 when only a handful knew what the 'web' is let alone to use it.
Maybe this job still has promise...the internet is awash with information which still must be navigated, maybe a research assistant or something. Then again there is always Google and Wikipedia.
Fine examples are dozens of stolen or duplicated porn sites on the web. Where is not clear who exactly created the original content, but is very clear that a dozen of 'webmasters' are selling it like crazy over various .coms
The third element is ... and the fourth is PROFIT!!!!!
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
with three different skill sets:
Sys Admin, takes care of the box, OS, server apps
Web Designer, designs look, feel, navigation of site, artistic type with likely limited technical skills
Programmer(s), most likely more than one if the site is complicated and uses more than one language and/or a db.
(note I grouping dba's in with programmers here, but that doesn't always happen that way either. so maybe 4 jobs)
my old sig is obsolete, and I haven't come up with a stupid enough new one yet
The company/orgainization I work for has maintained the title of WebMaster in an the hyphenated form of "WebMaster-Network Administrator", and although the scope is massive I am the single point of failure. The organization has transitioned to use web-based applications for most of its functions, all of which were designed, and programmed by me.
.ASP, Oracle, CSS, etc., to keep the databases running smoothly, the servers running properly and the 20K+ lines of code between our intranet/extranet growing.
a tor"
We have customers that we support in a 24x7 operating enviornment globablly with 50+ million hits per month. We have 20+ GB of data fed through the site a day which is parsed, analyzed, databased, and dynamically displayed (and you guessed it, I run the suite of databases as well) with tools/page layout and navigation method put in place by me. I've put CMS systems in place to handle static content, of course - but nearly everything now is handled machine-to-machine with the interfaces between them in web-based platform allowing nearly seamless access to all of our data. Of course, there is always some new application they'd like, or some feature added to what currently exists, and I hear a question that starts with "Hey, would this be possible..." at least a few times a week.
Though I do have a team of administrators that handle the day-to-day management of patching the 50+ servers that are running scripts, and producing products, and though all content (primarily grapical in nature) is handled by a group of 130 individuals; the vast majority how they access data and the tools they use are all being designed and programmed from my desk.
Yes, it takes a large amount of specialized knowledge about MS, JavaScript, ColdFusion,
Without the term webmaster, I don't know what I'd call my job without something crazy like:
"Network/Web/Systems-Engineer/Developer/Administr
even with CMS - most of which have issues that often require a webmaster to step in, I've worked for a variety of organisations as a 'web master' although I hate the term - it sounds a bit too dungeons and dragons for me.
Considering the original "webmaster" was the sysadmin maintaining the machine that ran the webserver itself (ala postmaster for the smtp server) and people who posted a website just called themselves "webmaster" inorder to inflate their own ego (although webmaster@whateverdomain went to someone completely different)...
Did this box, by any chance, go "bahhh" and eat grass?
I was a Webmaster. Amongst other things in the field. Now Joomla and the secretaries are doing the job nearly just as good as I ever could. And way cheaper and a milllion times faster. Journalists are moving in fast aswell. And nobody even needs DW anymore to do it. The last time I started DW was more than a year ago. I toyed around a bit for 5 minutes and thought of back in the days of 2000 when we were handlinking entire e-learn lectures with the DW crosshairs and DWs offline template engine. It took us hours to do what any OSS LMS I can download in 3 minutes does in an instant.
Now I make my money setting up the CMS, customizing it, building webapps and designing databases.
The Webmaster went the way of the weaver when the mechanical loom came. And that's a good thing. No need for humans anymore. Automate it and move on. It's a big wave and it's called cyberpunk. Learn to ride it.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I used to be a webmaster, once. Those were grand old days. Sitting around drinking free pop all day, shooting the breeze with my buds in design. Every so often I'd kick out a fresh page, clean up the design, change a button, or add a script. It was great.
Then came the day when the scripts became too cumbersome and I threw it all into ASP. When I told the boss man I needed a server upgrade to run the junk, he threw a tizzy and out-sourced my job to a consultancy firm to "save money".
Well, that's the long and short of it. The consultancy firm do a better job than I ever could - alone, but the boss man don't save much money. Still, he's happy. He gets weekly statistics and reports on click-throughs and downloads. He doesn't know any better. And me, I'm a Network Engineer now. Better pay, but I do miss the free pop.
Col.Mustard in the boardroom with a candlestick.
Miss Scarlet in the personell office with a dagger.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Like hearing your call is very important and is being recorded for quality purposes, which of course are both ridiculous lies, the notion that there is a man behind the curtain making sure your experience is good, is a quaint silly anachronism. No one cares if their website runs better than a C- average at best. Fewer care if your browser is compatible.
Having said that, there are plenty of "webmasters" out there, with a broad range of web-related skills that defy easy categorization. If you read forums like Web Hosting Talk, Digital Point or SitePoint, you'll see lots of participants that that fit the general a description.
RichM
Data Center Knowledge
As an in-corporate web designer, my wife never gets to use her BFA anymore. That's the graphic designer's job. And she doesn't work server site code. They've got a person for that and she certainly isn't a server admin. Her job is to script client side code. Period.
I don't think it is the economy or India. She was laid off this fall in a corporate consolidation but only spent a month on unemployment because she was unprepared and spent two of her three months of severence twiddling together her online demo portfolio I put on the home web server. She's moved up another 5K/year and is still getting calls for interviews weeks into the new job. Some wonk in our state government reported that web design is still a growing field here and it may be true. I guess the corporate store front is recognized as so crucial many people really don't want to trust it to some contractor in India.
I only step in when people need customizations to the CMS's I set up for them, I let them handle the content management and crap that I don't want to deal with. I don't think the webmaster is gone, I think the term is antiquated, but I also think the role has evolved to a more background brains type of role, not the more front of house content drudging crap...
dB Masters
by The Buggles ;)
Privacy is terrorism.
We all know it was Reiser :)
Video did!
The true webmaster is not only well versed in code and page design. Those who were only well versed in those areas are dead for sure, as far as being a 'webmaster' is concerned. Todays true webmaster:
- Is well versed in marketing, and thoroughly understands the communication process of graphic design and it's interconnectivity with information design.
- Understands the core concepts of customer service and concept resolution. He / she understands that a website is not just a trivial meeting place of data and the eyes of potential customers, but is a powerful response tool for solving problems.
- Understands the information model of the data he / she is working with and can select and seamlessly infuse the best choice of information technology to get the bottom line across.
- Has a firm understanding of physical networking and understands the concept of code consolidation and resource conservation.
- Must have PR skills that allow him / her to truly understand what the client / customer is trying to say to their target audience.
I don't think the wwwebmaster is dead, the level of understanding and responsibility has just increased tenfold if you want to stay on top of your game.
People are demanding interactive pages that Sally the GM's personal assistant can update as required. "Web masters" are no longer really called web masters, they've been replaced with graphic designers and application developers...
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Who killed the webmaster, what an interesting question.
.. they were never too clear on the title, and I had business cards for both at one point.
.. and started asking for help with the websites for the local markets. Then they asked about help with the servers, setting up software, database design, etc etc etc. And I was migrated into the roll.
.. and we gave away like a dozen trips to Hawaii.
:P [Not their fault, advertising / marketing people are not code folks .. what did I expect ?]
.. I left .. Now i run a tech department at a start up doing some interesting stuff and the future looks to be interesting, lucrative with some luck.
:
.. a cake walk. Those people go t bored. Most left.
My last job, at a fortune 500 power tool manufacturing company, my title was actually 'Webmaster' and I hated it. I took the job in 2000, Coming from another large company, the one that 90% of you use for your cable modem in the U.S. There I was a 'Web Designer', or sometimes a 'Web Developer'
In 1998, when I took the job at the 'Cable Company', they were just rolling out their Cable Modems, and looking for sales-men. Having spent the last five years local, and over the pond, selling metal toy soldiers, paint, and full colour hobby magazines to kids [or to reluctant store owners, who didn't understand that kids spend a lot of money on my former company's products.] I sent a resume in. I was hired. Quickly. And spent 6 months in the number one,two, or three spot on their sales floor.
Someone, somewhere found out that I actually had a degree in Computer Science
Lots and lots of work in a brand new 'field', learning something new every day.
Skip forward to 2000, and I changed companies for a 50% pay increase. I figured any company willing to almost double my salary HAD to have a challenging environment. Woah boy was I wrong. Most of the other 'web masters' there knew html. maybe a little javascript out of a book. NONE of them had any experience in programming. My job quickly turned into churning out HTML filled spam-email, and endlessly updating the look-and-feel of a few corporate websites to keep up with marketing driven initiatives.
I did get to write a cool football pick program for a well known cystic fibrosis charity the last year there though
I spent FIVE years there, trying to make my job a better one. But that great salary was becoming less so, as I had few raises. I was moved from my original department that had a bonus scheme - to another that didn't. [like a 10-15k a year pay cut on good years] I worked for a number of bosses who had NO idea what I could actually do, and when I tried to explain to them - couldn't understand what they didn't understand
It got so I was embarrassed to mention my title to anyone in the company. I was doing NO real work, just busywork, and watching folks who went to other companies that I doing all the cool stuff, for the same or more money. I had chosen poorly.
So
So what killed the webmaster ? I think it was a little bit of a lot of things
Many early webmasters were code heads who learned html early on, and went with it. Hacking away at a new idea was like breathing to those guys. These guys became in high demand, as there were very few full time coders who wanted to give that up for 'html' crap, but people did give it up, when the salaries surpassed what they were making. With clear second site, it seemed such easy work for good money
The other kind of early webmaster was the person who saw html code, and dremweaver or (shudder) frontpage, and set up shop as a webmaster, with no coding experience - and PROUD of the fact that they were self taught. They could do layout, many had a good eye for design, and carved a niche and hung on to it desperately in the early 2ks. There were LOTS of these guys.
Throw on top of that the cha
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
It appears that NOBODY has killed our webmaster. She is still incompetently doing her job! Unfortunately she got the job because she is a friend of a Director and has not got there on merit or any sort of qualification!
If anyone wants to kill her, please feel free to go ahead. I will provide an alibi for you.
I think there is some stigma around webmasters and techies in general. I get the feeling CS departments look down on web design (probably art in general) and sysadmins. I've tried hiring co-op students to help be in both areas and I've not been impressed with the candidates. I work in the metro boston area so the lack of good schools definitely isn't the problem.
The couple of really bright kids that I have gotten seem to steer away from the I.T. and webadmin side of things when they realize that the pay is only okay, the hours are long and the respect is low. I think if we could break the stigma around webmasters and techies being obnoxious stupid buffoons we'd see a lot more people in the field.
Also, If management would realize that I.T. pros are as essential to running businesses as the multibazillion dollar CEO's who tank them then maybe the pay would make it worthwhile. And before you say, "I hear our really good IT guy makes $60k plus," find out if he/she has a significant other and if so how disgruntled they are that they never see said techie....
I agree. In "web 2.0", webmaster is gone and "E-Commerce Marketing Associate" is in. At least, that's what I'm called... and I'm fairly well paid (I'll be even better when I open my own business, charge a business roughly $13,000 for a 5 page site that takes a couple weeks to launch and $20 a month per site for shared hosting.
Of course, before I started (straight out of college), my small company was paying about $1,200 a qrt for shared hosting and the Chicago company refused to give us access to our database because it was a 'security risk'. It didn't take long to convince the powers that be to switch hosting. Now they're much happier when they want to change a word on a page and it takes seconds instead of days. hehe Of course, now I'm battling an up-hill battle to convince the 'senior officers' that the website can be a useful tool, more than just brochureware.
"webmaster" is still an appropriate term to use I think. In the different situations I've seen and what I currently know, having knowledge of...
I'm sure there's more I can list as well, this is just a 'quick' list of things I do every day as a 'webmaster' for a company (I'm also the only one). However, in a ad agency setting, you might find these rolls broken up into individual skills:
and more. "Webmasters" are still out there, they're the people who work in a very small or single person environment. The reason "webmaster" has died out is 1) The web has become a place to make loads of $ and grown in complexity, making specialization important. 2) People thought "webmaster" wasn't 'PC' enough so they gave it a better name.
Props to all my fellow web masters out there!
Cheers,
Fozzy
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
web developers.
Basicly, a "web-master" is a type of programmer. We still have programmers who develop web-sites and web-based applications. We just don't use that prepostorus title anymore. Thank god.
... only old people hire webmasters.
--- Sueños del Sur - a webcomic about four young siblings
*checks title on work badge*
:-o
"Hmmm.... Webmaster"
*checks pulse*
"I'm still alive."
*re-reads title on Slashdot*
"Wait... Do you know something?"
All you need to do to "CSI" the demise of the webmaster is to seek a job where the "internet" is the core. The listings on Monster, Dice et al read like spilled alphabet soup. That's fine. We can adapt and learn...
BUT THEN... They ask for not skill sets, but ***Mindsets*** which not only are difficult to get in the same schedule, but also difficult to get into the same brain. Here's a Nutshell of one of them:
First off... Just getting the DOT NET and the LAMP into the same career requires moonlighting. But then, trying to pack a
Not only are their requirements mutually exclusive, but frankly, I don't think I'd want to meet the UberG33k that could possess or BE possessed by these requirements. He/She/it'd B2 1337 4 me!
PS: I DID find a job
PSS: SlashDot rants do NOT count as "excellent written and verbal skills"
The exalted grand poobah of leet skilz signed a contract to manage the network environment, which included websites. With CMS and vendor supplied playbooks and content, the webmaster is more of a caretaker and less of a focal point.
Organizations want a a simple and useful design to their web content. Once that is done, then they do not want it touched. Period. And to keep that running, they look to the webmaster as a base service and nothing more. Because of that, businesses have quantified the role and equated it to an hourly role.
Additionally, big guns like SAP are creating web-enabled modules that snap into Web Application Servers, like WebSphere so that coding is done on the product side and not on the production (outward facing application set) side.
It was fun while it lasted. But I want to know this: who the hell empowered the content creator in the first place? I want that "webmasters'" head?
Programmer. I don't think so.
Web stuff isn't programming. Its package configuration.
My problem is I'm an actual programmer (realtime OS's, device drivers etc) and having people that can (only) set up websites call themselves programmers devalues the whole job title.
OK, I'm called a "Web Programmer" or "Web Developer", but I design the data tables, develop the stored procedures, program the web pages, change the server settings (or ask the supposed box admin to), and just generally figure stuff out and make stuff work.
I get layouts from Marketing, but the roughly 50% of the time they forget to specify enough, I pretty much make that up too.
Mind you, we're not Amazon or anything. But I doubt Amazon *ever* had a "webmaster".
I have clients ask me all the time if I do web design... which I truly don't, so I tell them I can set them up with a CMS so they can manage the site once I hand it over to them. They almost look puzzled when I ask them "how do you plan to keep the site up to date once I'm done with it?"
Its pretty strange, but apparently people don't realize that web pages don't updated themselves, and that having a good web-site, especially for a product, idea, or concept, requires some hands on personnel.
Relocating to San Francisco / Palo Alto... Hire me?
Thank you. That made my morning.
My name would be OJ and I would have made millions.
== First cross river, then insult alligator.
Or at least that's what the business cards say ...
... I report to a VP, sit on various Steering Committee's, etc... I like to think of myself as providing leadership and guidance to the team and it's members.
I am more of a manager at this stage of the game. I lead a diverse team of developers, designers, DBA's (I still handle the system administration and application architecture), I even oversee Technical Support
As a former code jockey working on bits and pieces, defining the things at a high level and watching them come to fruition is very satisfying.
In Soviet Russia, webmaster kills easy to use site hosting applications.
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
I accuse Ajax, with the Web-CMS, in Web 2.0.
Hookerz.com! We deliver! (Used to have some wacked business "plans" in the .com era).
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Imagine if a site like Myspace was run by only one person. I'm sure someday a long time ago it was only Tom, but once it got modestly popular the "Webmaster" had to be replaced by the "Web team". Sure, there can still be profits, but with any popularity at all, it becomes too much for one person alone to handle.
Windows has detected an undetectable error.
Webmaster? i think i used that term like 10 years ago. When somebody asks for a site, I say that i can have it up in a couple hours. (minus DNS changes, or extra flashy graphics) I have not coded a site from scratch since Y2k.. The only thing i need to think about is, what modules does the client need? That will help me make a choice on which CMS i use.
Kill your TV
... but I didn't kill the dBA
-GiH
That's an excellent synopsis but you're forgetting the non profit site. True, only a few people care about the content but they are often passionate about it, wanting current information about their organization. Forget that the sites for all volunteer organizations look 10 years old and ugly. Non profits are one of the few places where the webmaster is alive and well, though not remunerated.
pretty much anyone can do the job or knows a kid who can do the job
Ah yes, the old "the kids can do this in their sleep" chestnut. I think we're too quick to confuse mad skillz with actual ability to get things done under pressure for a professional organization. Often even in webmastering people skills and business skills are required, and they have nothing to do with technical ability. The one-person web shop has to be able to cover all of that ground.
There are still plenty of webmasters out there still, even if many of them have been replaced by specialized teams. In my experience, most of them are old hands, not newbies. I've also come across plenty of "webmasters" who have no idea what they're doing. Saying that anyone can do it is akin to saying that anyone can create a site with clean XHTML/CSS. It's easier to do now, but it's still a stretch for most people.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
The .com burst killed the webmaster, they consolidated his job to the systems administrator :( I know this for a fact... I'm now the webmaster too.
:(
It's been that way at almost every company I've worked for from Postal Service to Medical field. They have a graphics designer/web designer make the page and you're expected to maintain it
Shadus
For the big slicks, it doesn't make sense to have a bunch of jacks of all trades, mastering none, doing merely acceptable jobs. It's better to have a team of specialists and parcel out different parts to the people who excel in those parts. You get slicker, better product, faster turnaround, and the employees are plug-and-play making a single point of failure less likely.
:-)
This is where my company is now - I am the 'webmistress' for about 5 or 6 of our clients, but their needs are rapidly outgrowing not only my available time, but also my knowledge. In the 90's all I had to do was make things look good, see that the navigation made sense, and maybe insert a feedback form now and then. Things have certainly changed. I've shifted more towards the graphics end of things and am praying daily that our budget will allow me a nice back-end techie co-worker very, very soon.
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
HR departments have adopted new job titles. Now you have "Technician", which essentially means system administrator, webmaster, onsite tech, helpdesk technician, application developer and so forth. Then you have managers which are all now titled CEO. Ever wondered why companies have 50 CEO's?
In the beginning, the Web was created by a bunch of http servers, serving a bunch of static pages. Then we got CGI and SSI. But all of this was still essentially static content served by a configured-and-let-run server.
Today, even "static" free sites aren't just static sites - they're powered by some application running inside or behind the web server, doing additional parsing and on-the-fly editing of pages. Most corporate sites are full three-tier environments with some sort of middleware sitting between the web presence and the databases in the back end.
The WebMaster is an obsolete job. Todays web environments are too complex and large, in most cases, for a single "WebMaster" to run himself. Since I've been "in the field", in 1998, the only "WebMasters" I've worked with are the IT guys who run the internal sites. They are part of the same team of people that do desktop support and take help desk calls. The Production web environments are managed by a team of people...systems people who run the hardware, and configure web servers. Applications people who run the middleware - WebLogic or WebSphere or PeopleSoft or the CMS systems or whatever. And DBAs who run the databases. These are teams of several people, all of whom have enough to do in their silo that they don't have the bandwidth to be able to manage all the pices of everything.
The WebMaster is gone - he's not been obsoleed, he's been overwhelmed and overrun by the technical requirements of the "New" Web and replaced with several teams to do what one person used to be able to manage himself.
This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U
You should not belittle DW. Her artistic talents are unmatched.
For a sample, check here:
http://pbskids.org/arthur/games/artstudio/
(flash required)
signed
Arthur
then we kill the videostar
and you couldn't keep your dirty hands of the webmaster!
m10
Sorry, but CSS layout + style results in a lot less coding than tables if you know what you're doing. You don't have a ton of tables or tables-within-tables on every page for layout, but instead maybe three or four div areas defined with normal content inside them. If you want to change a column width, you change one file instead of every page. Includes further simplify life. You can use CSS and an include to get drop-down menus with only two files that need changing for your entire site's dynamic navigation.
Tables are still useful for tabular content; I think applying CSS to highly detailed tables can be self-defeating if the goal is to simplify support. But if you're looking for flexible layout with low support, CSS is the way to go.
in that I'm currently a webmaster, and make a great living working from home. I think the key is diversity...large projects require lots of people with a few talents, or a few people with many talents. The latter is generally cheaper and easier to work with, so compamines are often very willing to work with one reliable person who can handle a multitude of tasks. It's true that there's no way I can keep abreast of all of the technologies, but I try...that's why I read /.
The thing is, the skills required for smaller jobs, which is generally where I make my living, are actually a lot less than what is needed to work on very large projects. That's not to say that any monkey could do them, or if they could, they probably couldn't do it as quick or as well.
I feel strongly that design is an integral part of a good website, and if a company can find a person who can handle the design, development, implementation, QA and installation of a site, they will jump at the chance. I'm also discovering that being able to manage a site by understanding and choosing the right technologies is just as valuable as building the site.
We exist, but the skills required are pretty diverse. I think the main reason not so many of us exist is that many people specialized in one type of web skill and did not jump at the chances they had to learn new skills. On the days I'm not using HTML I'm happily designing sites, or building them in Flash, or doing UI development work.
who insisted on calling them "webmeisters". They were annoyed to death.
WebGuyCS
Coffee just about came out my nose. That was the funniest thing I've read here in weeks.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
And I would add "What IS a Webmaster"? Every company has a different definition on what a Webmaster is. You're right that it's now been broken up. Mainly because one person can't do it all any more. Previously, if you could administrate a server and put up a web page, maybe do a little coding in JavaScript, you were a webmaster. Now with all the different skills needed, not to mention a litany of programming options, no one person can do everything and there's not enough time to, even if they could. Now you tend to have a server admin, graphic artists, content managers and coders. I think it's gone by the wayside for use of a more discriptive, accurate job title.
If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
I find it amusing that the CSS zealots out there will rant about making sites that are pure CSS
I know. There's such hype about CSS layout. The truth is, the CSS machinery for layout is dumber than the table machinery. With CSS, the basic mechanisms for layout are "float", "clear", explicit sizing, and absolute positioning. Because the first two are weaker than tables, absolute positioning is overused. Then you get things like text appearing on top of other text, something that never happens with tables.
Dreamweaver had table-based layout working great years ago. Most of the complaints about tables come from people writing the tags by hand, but with a proper layout tool, it works very well.
CSS layout should have been constraint-based. You should be able to express concepts like "align bottom edge of this box with bottom edge of previous box" and "align left edge of this box with right edge of previous box". Then you could handle situations like the dreaded "3-column problem" cleanly. The right way to do it would be to allow arbitrary linear constraints, such as "box must have same width as previous box" and "box must have 0.5 width of enclosing box", dump them all into a linear constraint engine, crank the simplex algorithm, and get out a layout that satisfies all the constraints.
If you allow constraints with respect to non-adjacent boxes, you can do grid-based layout, too, and do all the things tables do. You'd want to do layout like this in a GUI tool, not by writing constraints by hand, of course. Drag box corners to other corners and edges and have them snap into lock.
This isn't a new idea; it's called "parametric CAD" in engineering design. But it's something the designers of CSS probably didn't know about.
Fortune has never been more appropriate: Perhaps too many hands got caught in snowblowers?
"You're everywhere. You're omnivorous."
it seems that the PHB killed the webmaster.
the same middle-management shill that trashed the security budget.
They're using their grammar skills there.
>For the big slicks, it doesn't make sense to have a bunch of jacks of all trades, mastering none
Just FYI, the full colloquialism is:
"Jack of trades, master of none, though ofttimes better than master of one".
Smaller companies should take better note of the full version, it's incredibly truthful.
The webmaster just became the Network Administrator.
;)
Honestly, in today's world, if you are assuming the role of webmaster, chances are you're familiar with setting up some kind of server environment, or at least knowing how to use it.
Plus, 'Network Administrator' looks way better on a business card
To me you have your systems or network administrator, who is responsible for a bunch of servers, routers, the physical cabling, etc. Then you have your webmaster who is directly responsible for web servers, namely the hardware and software, possibly even a web farm and the load balancing stuff, and almost certainly the security and configuration of the web servers.
I'm not sure the job/title was redefined. Considering the skills needed to do the job, there must still be a huge need for webmasters.
Sure, the vast majority of websites out there are on hosting plans but there are still many companies that will necessarily find it more cost-effective to have internally hosted web servers and to hire someone to administer them - not that managers are known for making logical decisions.
Robert Paulson
I used to be a "webmaster", or at least that's what I set out to do. I started a business with my focus on developing websites for the small business - specializing in content management made simple. I developed in ASP and built sites that allowed the small business owner to update his own content in whatever focused ways they wanted.
I started out when I was able to land a 6 figure contract (okay, so not a small business but the one that let me get started). That project went well, and I marketed to many companies in my area. I partnered with an advertising firm on some projects, and used networking to get clients. What I found was that the typical small business owner wanted a "website" but didn't have the slightest idea how to use the web. Most were not willing to pay for the CMS custom programming (CMS systems were not ubiquitous at the time).
Most sites were "brochureware" although some went farther than that. Over the next 2 years, the going rate for a website fell precipitiously. Some firms managed to make up for that by being uber-efficient and going for volume. But by and large, I was always competing with someone's brother-in-law, or their sister's boyfriend, or the grandkid that was in high school. Rates went from 6 figure to 5 figure to 4 figure.
I finally quit when I could not land one of my neighbors... he ran a small business on the side called DoggiePoo.com where he picked up dog crap out of other people's yards for a fee. I quoted a 3 figure price and it was too high.
Then I went and got a real job at an insurance company again...
Good times while it lasted though...
Originally everyone who wanted a web site made one. Everyone had an HTML editor they could use. The .com surge created a job for people doing it for them, since they couldn't do squat except spend their seed money like crack addicts. The job still needs done for some people somewhat, so it survived the bust for a while. Now, with blogging so ubiquitous (blogging +is mostly just one-page web site creation, a practice we used to decry as poor form), it's obvious anyone can do it. Again. The webmaster was a mythical beast brought to life by the beliefs of those around them that needed to believe in them. As happens with gods who lose believers, they're fading away. The job is being absorbed as a part time project for one or more of the IT team. It doesn't take more than that, particularly when you can find people doing it by themselves as a damn hobby.
godz help the poor B grade CS/CStech bachelors students who were taught HTML as their "programming" language. They're obsolete from the get go.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Grrr, another user using the slashdot story submission to draw traffic to his personal site. If I was to blog about my recent experience with BluRay movies and the PS3, could I post a Slashdot story and have people come to my site? Oh wait, let me get my ads up so that I can get something for the traffic.
.... I think at the time, the title of "webmaster" seemed roughly analogous to the role of email "postmaster" - effectively, the admin of the web system. When it turned out that the job was really much more content delivery and publishing than "tuning the knobs" that the good postmaster did/does, that job went to better qualified persons for the changed role.
sloth jr
Just the other day I was thinking exactly the same thing.. whatever happened to the will-be-ubiquitous webmasters of the '90s? Great article, thanks a lot, mate!
"Enter the world of high-technology, make websites like a pro..."
Pretty soon the term "webmaster" became a slur on resumes meaning
"I'm cool! Look at me! I know HTML!@#!@#*!@*(#&".
Technically I'm still webmaster at the company I work with, but
two years ago I demanded that my title be changed so I wasn't being
lumped in with people using those nifty tools people like kale77in
wrote who called themselves webmasters and are not.
The main point is that now that most of the web is running on some CMS or other, you don't need a webmaster to update the content.
Yes, you probably need a consultant or contractor to set up the site and make any major structural changes, but what you *don't* need is a permanent member of staff answering queries about the site and updating every single little content page.
It was in the nation's best interest.
Content Management Systems and workflow replaced the webmaster and the subject matter expert became the important human link in the chain.
I killed him.
In the server room.
With the candlestick.
There are so many half baked Web Developers around these days. Basically if you can create an HTML page (not to any standards) or using Dreamweaver etc and install some open source scripts that makes you a Web Developer? All websites seem to contist of these days is a CMS, phpBB for the bulletin board along with Coppermine for the photo gallery. It is annoying because the average "users" do not see that the actual website took little effort to make, as in a simple click on the CMS install button etc. Then there are these Web Development companies who know nothing about Web Development, yeah they might be able to install phpBB but when asked to integrate phpBB with System "X" they cannot do it. If asked to do something out of the ordinary they look around for open source scripts, and if none are available their stuck because they have no real idea how to do it. The amount of times I have seen person "X" ask on a forum, "Please help me I really need this script for a clients website I am coding" if they knew they could not do it, and they knew they could not be bothered to learn how to do it, why did they take the job? They probably do not code there own HTML. They do not custom code their own applications. Their websites consist of a jumbled bolt together of current open source software, none of which integrate with any parts of their website. And these are the so called "Professional" Web Development companies.