50 cent Web applications

Mike Mathieu has a very simple goal. The founder of Seattle's FrontSeat wants to develop compelling Web sites as quickly and cheaply as possible.

"Our mantra is to create a 50 cent Web site," said Mathieu, the brains behind WalkScore, CountMore.org and half a dozen or so other civic-oriented Web sites. 

On Tuesday, Mathieu and his partner, Matt Lerner, got a little closer to their 50 cent goal. They introduced a "Digg-style" news site -- what Mathieu also calls an "idea aggregator -- where people can offer suggestions and tips for Obama's new chief technology officer. Dubbed ObamaCTO.org, the site was built in less than four hours at a cost of about $75.  

Despite the low cost, it is gaining traction. Some suggestions for the new CTO -- who has yet to be named -- have generated more than 3,000 votes from users. Suggestions include: "Build a nation-wide smart grid," "Start a green-collar jobs program" and others

"It seems to have struck a nerve," Mathieu said.  

He came up with the idea for super-cheap Web sites after attending the recent Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. The former chief executive of All Star Directories and Microsoft manager said he realized at the event that some of Front Seat's Web sites were going to be very hard to "monetize."

Given the low revenue per user of sites like WalkScore, Mathieu said he decided it would be far easier to build a number of Web sites for as cheap as possible. ObamaCTO was built in that vein.