A typical project: your company is located in one city, the client team is in another, and your subcontractor is in another state. Keeping track of all the details, making decisions, and keeping everyone informed can involve wasted hours of travel and needless long-distance bills - or it can involve a project site.
A project site is a client-contractor communication center. In web jargon, the project site is an extranet - a password-protected site designated for those involved in a project. Used well, a project site helps your project stay organized and on track. Project sites usually contain the schedule, a chronology of events, email threads, a page of contacts, a page of resources, and more, depending on the project's requirements.
Project sites are useful to both clients and contractors. Maintained by the producer, who knows what's going on with both teams, the site reminds the contractor team of deadlines and decisions made. Clients can access it at any time of day - even in the middle of the night - to refresh themselves on the status of an item or to review designs when they have time. New team members can play catch-up simply by reviewing email threads and discovering how particular decisions were made.
Project sites are not just useful to web-development projects. Architects, engineers, creative directors, photographers, ad agencies, event coordinators - anyone who works with clients - can make their administrative workload lighter with a project site. Mockups, demos, portfolios, comps - all can be shown on a project site, and via conference call, you can walk clients through your presentation.
