System and method for defining application definition functionality for general purpose web presences

A computer implemented method for specifying an application stored in a storage unit using a computer having a processor and a memory, the method comprising:

• storing, in a storage unit, an application definition language that has an XML schema definition that defines computational and data access aspects of the application, the application hosting a web presence on the computing device;
• storing, in the storage unit, one or more cells with each cell having one or more components and one or more presentations wherein each presentation defines a user interface for a particular application wherein each component is defined by the application definition language;
• and
• providing, using the computer with the processor and memory connected to the storage unit, a web presence for performing one or more applications wherein the web presence is instantiated from a cell instance with one or more components, one or more presentations and content associated with the cell instance, the one or more applications of the web presence are defined by the application definition and one or more components of the cell instance and the user interface of the one or more applications are defined by the one or more presentations of the cell instance wherein the one or more applications are configured to on the content associated with the cell instance;
• wherein the web presence is one of a web site, one or more web pages and a web service;
• and
• wherein each cell instance further comprises one or more lines of XML code, each component further comprises one or more lines of XML code, each web presence further comprises one or more lines of XML code, each widget further comprises one or more lines of XML code and each action item further comprises one or more lines of XML code, wherein each piece of content is based on an abstract base type object having one or more general characteristics elements of an object and one or more semantic property elements, and a plurality of base components, each base component being a child of the abstract base type object and inheriting the one or more general characteristics, each base component being a container item kind that describes a type of object and encapsulates the particular type of object wherein each type of object associated with the system is represented by the abstract base type object and one of the base components, wherein a format of each piece of content is preserved by encapsulating the original piece of content a type-specific container item defined within a universal information model that includes the abstract base type object.