Hypersites- When is a Website More than a Website

The internet has always been about the next big thing. It can be a theme, a thing, or a program that multiplies on the successes of its predecessors; drawing headlines and worldwide attention… just witness any new chip or operating system and the fanfare it draws.

This new ‘next big thing’ fits this description exactly, only it has come into existence without any fanfare or headlines. Enter the ‘hypersite’.

A website is more than a website when it is a group of websites. Put briefly, a hypersite is a commune of closely associated websites that share a common visual identity. They are inter-related, but with a noncompetitive market, and share their customers freely.

Rather than bear the brunt of competing directly with a site that is more likely to successfully dominate a peripheral niche market, the owners band their sites together to increase their sales as a whole.

Say for example that the person who owns ‘dogs.com’ realized that many of the households who owned dogs also owned cats. Say also that these households would be more likely to purchase online from a single supplier for all their pets.

Rather than take on a whole new line of inventory to sell to cat owners, the owner of dogs.com might contact the owner of cats.com, and arrange to share traffic.

The term ‘hypersite’ is a marriage of the term ‘website’ and ‘hyperlink’. Hyperlinks were arguably one of the top ten great innovations of the internet where any document could link to any other document.

The pages of the internet are like the pages of a giant book, where the next page could be any other page the reader wanted. The pages rearrange themselves as the interest of the reader propels them, and these interests are all likely to be contained within a hypersite.

Real world hypersites:
The classic example of a functional hypersite is the .US Hawaiian hypersite, a series of sites devoted to information on, and travel to, each of the Hawaiian Islands.

In this hypersite each of the islands has its own unique site devoted to it, but they all have common themes, graphics, and are heavily interlinked.

A quick look will make the concept very evident:
http://www.bigisland.us
http://www.maui.us
http://www.lanai.us
http://www.molokai.us
http://www.oahu.us
http://www.kauaii.us
http://www.niihau.us

This hyper site is one of the first, and is owned by John Bottomley, Ron Rossetti, and James Robinson (John and Ron were the ones that coined the term ‘hypersite’ to describe their business model).

"We formed the hypersite right after the .US domains became available", says John from his North Carolina home. "We had all tried for the same URL’s, none of us could buy the other out, and this was the next best thing".

He adds "It has also been a great laboratory. We could compare what worked to what did not work and make changes to all."

Ron, who lives in Japan, agrees with John, "This is the best thing about a hypersite. We all work independently, and at the same time as a team by sharing and comparing. There is great scope for improvement and expansion in this, as we all learn from each other while not being dependent on anyone."

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