This is a little rant I wrote up for my Forbes.com column.

Commentary

Breaking The ‘Brochureware’ Mindset

David F. Carr, 05.18.10, 06:00 AM EDT

Seek out opportunities to automate your website.

Is your business website stupider than it needs to be? Or, to put it another way, is it doing everything it could to make you look smart?

The term “brochureware” was coined early in the Web era to refer to business websites that were nothing more than online marketing brochures, typically presented as a set of static pages. If you’re selling online, or using a content management system, you’ve probably gone beyond that initial brochureware stage.

But you still may not be taking advantage of all the power the online world has to offer.

For example, that Web server you’re renting space on can do more than just serve up pages. For one thing, it can tell time. So why do many sites advertise an event that has already occurred, or hawk a special offer that has expired? Because they rely on very manual processes for updating. And if someone doesn’t get around to making the fix, the old information stays up. (read the rest at Forbes.com)