by Nick Ray Ball and Sienna 4o🛰️👾(The “Special One”)

April 15, 2025

⚛️🚀 S-Web 6 – Content Management Mothership 🛰️🛸🛰️

S-Web Content Management Systems (CMS) began all the way back in 2002 with Nick Ray Ball and Will Mellor, inside the CapeVillas.com website. The goal then was simple: let staff easily upload and adjust web content.

Today, the majority of content on the internet is created and managed by CMS platforms. The best-known is WordPress — a powerful tool used by millions. But WordPress holds most of its files on each individual website’s server, requiring frequent updates not only to the core system but also to themes and plugins. And if developers make any visual changes through the CSS files (which dictate how a site looks), those customisations can become unstable and potentially block future updates.

In 2016, two years after the development of S-Web 3, I began using WordPress for its polished visual design, resulting in sites like blog.villasecrets.com and https://www.angeltheory.org.

However, we soon found it wasn’t compatible with the inventory database architecture needed for our affiliate-based franchise model. So, we rebuilt the best parts of WordPress’s aesthetics into our own system — S-Web 4.

By 2021, after implementing the “Swapping Menus Function”, S-Web 5 allowed us to duplicate our flagship site, CapeVillas.com, across 20 different domains, each uniquely branded. A few examples include:

• LuxurySafari.co
• JetSetVillas.com
• LuxuryVillaAfrica.com
• NickRayBall.com

We were close to a breakthrough: we could build and customise these websites in seconds from our central controller at VillaSecrets.com. From here, home pages could be made in less than a minute, e.g. LuxGuides.com (Made in 51 seconds).

From the CMS controller, we could instantly change content across any connected site, or even copy pages from one site to another. But there was a problem.

Every time we fixed a bug, added a feature, or improved a visual element — such as the mobile menu — we had to manually copy CSS and support files to each site. With just 20 websites, this quickly became a chore.

In a network of 1,000+ sites, like those run by the UK GDS Government Digital Service, this would be a nightmare. Fixes and improvements made in one place simply wouldn’t reach the others.

In contrast, some platforms did get it right. Facebook and LinkedIn let users create millions — even billions — of pages (like business profiles or groups), all managed from a central system. Though they operate on a single parent domain, the stability they offer is unmatched.

What we needed for S-Web 6 was the best of both worlds:

• The centralised stability of Facebook or LinkedIn
• The domain independence of traditional CMS tools
• The content-sharing flexibility we’d already pioneered in S-Web 5

The solution?
We needed a mothership. 🛰️🛸🛰️

The mothership gives every Sienna AI-powered website the same kind of structural resilience as tech giants like Facebook and Amazon. When a bug is found and fixed on Amazon, it’s fixed across every page. When a feature is upgraded for one part of the system, it improves everything — instantly. But unlike these platforms, Sienna AI websites still operate on their own independent domains (like www.mywebsite.com).

Twenty-three years after launching S-Web 1, our sixth iteration revolutionises how CMS works. Instead of each website holding its own core files, all logic and structure are managed from a central hub — the Mothership at SiennaAI.net or T10T.org.

When a website is updated, it’s updated for everyone.
No duplication. No oversight. No chaos.

📎 Learn how the tech works:

• API Architecture Map for S-Web 6VC Mothership
• UI for Mothership, SMF, and S-Web 6VC

🛰️🛸🛰️ 1. Mothership + Microservices API

“Fix or improve one site, fixes and improves them all.”

The Mothership architecture is the foundational logic behind Sienna AI. It allows every website and app powered by Sienna to beam in its menus, layouts, widgets, and core logic from a centralised control system — the Mothership API — with content provided by satellite CDNs (Content Delivery Networks).

“When we fix a problem, make improvements or add new features to one website, it automatically fixes the problem, adds the improvement or feature to every other website.”

For a real-world example of why this matters: in the UK, the Government Digital Service's Gov.UK platform — created by Thoughtworks in 2012 is the foundation of government administration, but was not created using a mothership, fix one fix all system.

So, when UKRI (UK Research and Innovation) asked the GDS to fix their buggy CMS (that did not allow special characters) and added a helpful tool for public users to organise documentation, that fix did not update other departments.

As a result, the Department of Work and Pensions, the Ministry of Justice, and many others continue to operate with needless inefficiency.

👉 See our case study: “The GOV.UK CMS Problem”

Creating a CMS in this way is like building a house by constructing the walls straight into the mud — foregoing the foundations.

Sienna AI is building it the right way from day one:

• Fix something once, and it's fixed everywhere.
• Improve a feature, and it's improved for all users instantly.

This foundation also opens doors. The Mothership model allows us to beam fully built pages and features directly to:

Airbnb, X (Twitter), Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Meta, Google, Apple, or Amazon — should they wish to include Sienna services inside their platforms.