9. A method for specifying an application stored in a storage unit, the method comprising: providing an application definition language that has an XML schema definition that defines computational and data access aspects of an application, the application hosting a web presence on a computing device, the XML schema definition of the application definition language provides a consistent definition of the computational and data access aspects of an application used to develop a new web application running on a third party system; providing one or more cells with each cell having one or more components wherein each component defines the computational and data access aspects of an application and one or more presentations wherein each presentation defines a user interface for a particular application, each cell further comprising one or more lines of XML code, each component further comprising one or more lines of XML code, each web presence further comprising one or more lines of XML code, each component further comprises a widget that comprises one or more lines of XML code and component further comprises an action item that comprises one or more lines of XML code; providing a web presence for performing one or more applications is instantiated from a cell instance that has 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 language 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 operate on the content associated with the cell instance; and wherein the web presence is one of a web site, one or more web pages and a web service.
9. A method for specifying an application stored in a storage unit, the method comprising: providing an application definition language that has an XML schema definition that defines computational and data access aspects of an application, the application hosting a web presence on a computing device, the XML schema definition of the application definition language provides a consistent definition of the computational and data access aspects of an application used to develop a new web application running on a third party system; providing one or more cells with each cell having one or more components wherein each component defines the computational and data access aspects of an application and one or more presentations wherein each presentation defines a user interface for a particular application, each cell further comprising one or more lines of XML code, each component further comprising one or more lines of XML code, each web presence further comprising one or more lines of XML code, each component further comprises a widget that comprises one or more lines of XML code and component further comprises an action item that comprises one or more lines of XML code; providing a web presence for performing one or more applications is instantiated from a cell instance that has 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 language 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 operate on the content associated with the cell instance; and wherein the web presence is one of a web site, one or more web pages and a web service. 10. The method of claim 9 , wherein each component further comprises a variable associated with the component wherein the variable is recalculated automatically, wherein the variable further comprises a formula portion that specifies a value of the variable and wherein the formula further comprises a situated query to retrieve data from the same cell or from other cells and a context for the situated query is specified by the particular cell or within the situated query.