As many people know, I've been building a new online community called http://www.livelink-experts.com using GATE Village technology (http://www.gatevillage.net). While I initially created GATE: Global Alliance of Trusted Experts with the honest intention of it not being about technology, I very quickly figured out that it had to be about technology and I set about making a kick-ass managed web-community building site. I am very close to finalizing a fully dynamic view into the community and (if I do say so myself) an attractive and functional multi-column front page. While I am the last thing from a web designer (as it encompasses so much of what I HATE about computing), I have created this page with fairly minimal effort (outside of the content creation itself) and it will automatically remain current.

I suppose I should briefly explain what a managed web-community building site is and how it differs from the many web-site building sites available.

1. A web-community has members and (possibly) visitors; a web-site has visitors only (often with a single account to administer the site)
2. A web-community has many features and functions to fit the differing needs and desires of the community members (and visitors); a web-site necessarily treats all visitors the same and generally offers few features and functions
3. A managed web-community provides a pre-configured, fully functional, scalable, and secure online platform that is easily tailored to meet any look-and-feel desired for a specific community; a web-site is rarely managed, though the base infrastructure (web server etc) usually is, it requires some specific technical knowledge as well as the ability to create content

A GATE Village web-community can also be a GATE Village Trusted Neighbourhood; a web-community that is created based on the characteristics of the membership of GATE Village itself. A GATE Village Trusted Neighbourhood participates in the GATE Village Trust System and shares much of the platform (code and content) with other Trusted Neighourhoods and managed web-communities. Such is what http://www.livelink-experts.com is, but that is not what I find myself compelled to write about...rather it is just how attractive that front page really is and I did it all myself ma!. I'm really proud and pleased to see that a hack like me can produce something as attractive using the very tools that I have created! I may have underestimated the technological requirements for GATE Village, but creating kick-ass technologies from robust software is what I do best! And this is the best technology-based solution I have created in a long time.