Websites over Blogs - The Future of the Net and World Wide Web, Websites over WordPress

Question

Hey there, I have been a blogger for the past six years and frankly it has been getting tired and stale. It’s the same thing day in, day out. Recently a co-worker introduced me to Adobe Muse and I am going back to school to learn web design so I can make my own websites. Don’t get me wrong, blogging is cool but I am tired of blogging now. I want to know if it is more rewarding and more stable to work with websites instead of blogs.
My issue is the updating of websites. I want to be able to make websites about my favourite new movies and music, not to mention TV shows and Caribbean culture. I’ll do three different sites of course as I like to divide and conquer and I hate doing the general thing. I already have a domain name picked out and I would sign up and start doing my websites as early as this evening. I have been positing like crazy on message boards about this but I wanted your take. I know you have done websites before and a co-worker, recently introduced me to Adobe Muse and I am loving the drag and drop features. It’s easy to use and it’s great to use and I am still learning to publish.
What I want to know if how you update blogs without manually pushing down later posts down to a new page or to the bottom of an existing page, because in blogs WordPress does this for you automatically when you publish something new. I know webpage programs vary but what is the general procedure like? Blogs automatically create pages where things are basically archives to an older page with the older posts being there and newer posts appearing at the top of the main page. I really want to do websites again and learning how to create my own sites and all is cool. What I want to know as well is, if I can import my own templates and apply them to my site in Adobe Muse and Adobe Dreamweaver which I have used in the past when it was a Macromedia product.
Also how do I publish my website or publish updated stuff like updated pages and items, etc? Blogs are fun and all but lately it’s just getting tired so with emerging technologies like php and css as well as html5 which are the future is it worth it to create blogs to put your opinions and content out there or work with websites and are most pages out there blogs or regular websites? Which is more profitable? I ask this because while websites are here to stay and have been around first and longer and still going strong blogs are hot and popular. Blogs haven’t been able to topple websites.
Do you have a website or websites for yourself and how has it been, the process and so on? Can you update easily and do you use Adobe Dreamweaver? How is your web publishing and web content experience? What is web content like to you and where do you see your content going in the next five to ten years because while social media like Facebook is hot now, wit may not be hot in the next five to ten years. It may be a trend now that may evaporate in a few years so the next big thing may come along and websites and blogs may hold their own. What is your take?

Answer 1

With the steady stream of emerging web technologies, the web is constantly changing.  What worked well for web developers 6 years ago has been replaced by all new programming and design methods.  This cycle never stops either.  A new trend emerges, remains popular for a while then fizzles out and is replaced by another one.  It's impossible to predict what will and won't last.  Only time will tell.  So professional web developers  must keep pace with all new technologies or risk being left behind. 
6 years ago almost all web sites were built to support the average desktop/laptop screen.  A standard page width of 800 - 1000px was common.  Today however, we must cater to a whole new generation of mobile and tablet devices.  The one-size-fits-all web site layout is no longer relevant. 
Mobile users interact with the web differently than desktop users.  They need finger-friendly navigation and forms.  They want quick access to less content.  And they need pages that fit their device and don't drain their batteries & data plans with gratuitous images, animations & other media files. 
On the other hand, a desktop user with a good broadband connection is likely to want more information, greater interactivity and plenty of media-rich content because their device can support it. 
Finding a balance between these two polar opposites is just one of the many challenges modern web developers face. 
Dreamweaver vs Muse
Dreamweaver is a pro-level web authoring tool aimed at people who care about code.  There's no limit to what you can do in DW, providing you have the requisite skills with HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, PHP and MySql databases.  DW expects you to know code.  If you don't, you'll be very frustrated until you learn code.
Muse is aimed at consumers and designers who know nothing about code.  All that drag & drop ease of use is nice but it comes at a price.  MU is limited.  You cannot use it to build dynamic blogs, shopping carts, or content management systems like WordPress.  It won't build mobile phone apps either. MU might be all you need for a static hobby site, but if you need more than that, you won't be able to do it in Muse.  More importantly, if you build your site in Muse, be prepared to stick with Muse for the life of your site.  The code it generates is almost impossible to work with in any other HTML editor.
Decide what's important for your long-term project goals.  Use the right tools for your project.
Nancy O.