Originally posted by DigitalJay
a full on portal where the first page is covered in news/stories from the newsletter, links from the directory, most recent posts from the forum
Oh absolutely, 'content' is definately king when it comes to a resource site however, at the same time, we musnt confuse what we want from a 'surfers' perspective with what is NEEDED from a webmasters point of view.

Ultimately, so long as the information can be accessed easily without a heap of confusing 'content' getting in the way that will make a site successfull in the long-term.

Over the last 5 years, we have found that the way a site is navigatable (is that a word? ) ultimately doesnt bear any significance on whether a site is or, isnt a success. What makes a site a success from a webmasters perspective, is the content on the site and, how different that content is to the hundreds of other sites sharing pretty much, that same content. A good example of this are sites that have articles on them, for the most part, many sites keep re-writing the same tired information over and over again but they spruce it up to fit with the latst industry crazes without putting that information / knowledge into practise, articles on topics such as tgping, basic seo, copy writing are slew across the resource side of the net however, tutorials on marketing techniques, programming, technical knowledge and product reviews, arent.

Of course, with the recent boom in industry forums lately, the one thing that has surprised me is that other than Netpond and us, nobody else has incorporated a full resource in to a community forum layout, giving the sites end users the best of both worlds, a place to network with industry friends, colleagues and peers on one forum as well as a place to find sponsor programs, hosts, content providers all listed with descriptions on another forum on the same board and, i truely beleive we will see many more companies adopting this business practise over the coming months / years.

Regards,

Lee