Monday, December 01, 2008

Great Website Building Tool: Weebly.com

I've been meaning to post something on the free Web-based website-building tool Weebly because I find that I use it for something at least a couple of times a week. I personally have about 10 websites that I've created there that are in various stages of deployment. I find it particularly amazing that I can purchase a domain name (I use GoDaddy but you can get them through Weebly as well) and then have a site up with that domain name in about 10 minutes.

Of course, then the tweaking of the site begins, but it's the lack of a real barrier to entry that allows me to feel experimental. As Clay Shirky says (paraphrasing): when failure is (almost) free, you try a lot more things! And this is how I like to work--get it up fast, get feedback, and make it better.

When a project won't necessarily benefit from user collaboration, instead of using Wikispaces or Ning, I now use Weebly. I created a private Weebly site for my daughter's soccer team, which I coach, and it was super-easy to posts practice and game information, maps, and other material and not to have to worry about communicating with everyone. I have also used it for my new project, K12OpenSource.com. I used Weebly for the landing page, which then handily links to the associated wiki and Ning sites. This allowed me to get the project started in a matter of hours, and when the site needs more sophistication, I can graduate to something appropriately more complex.

(I also love using customized prefixes to keep everything related. "http://www.K12OpenSource.com" is the Weebly site. "http://community.K12opensource.com" is the Ning site. And "http://wiki.K12OpenSource.com" is the wiki.)

More and more, as the tools become easier and cheaper, it seems to me that the value proposition of a project is no longer primarily the ability to create a revenue stream model in advance that will overcome the financial hurdles to creation (that's a mouthful); but rather the ability to quickly and easily gather an audience--and if the goal is commercial, working with that audience to find authentic services that they want you to provide.

Here's an "infommercial"-like video on Weebly that gives a pretty good sense of what it can do.

10 comments:

  1. Hey Steve, long time no chat.

    I love Weebly, too. I'm amazed at how simple it is for creating websites. In my research, I've found about a dozen or so similar sites that any teacher could use to create a class website (see my list here) but I keep returning to Weebly every time.

    One thing I've had a huge problem with, though, is redirecting an existing domain name to a Weebly site. Do you think you could help me out with that one of these days?

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  2. Hi Steve,

    My name's Dan Veltri and I'm one of the founders of Weebly. Thank you for your positive write-up and review of our service!

    Best,
    Dan

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  3. Darren: glad to help you, always. Ping me.

    Dan: you've done a great job. Congratulations. Let me encourage you to visit my Classroom 2.0 network (http://www.classroom20.com)and participate there. I've been demonstrating Weebly at most of the workshops that I do.

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  4. Hi Darren,

    To have your Weebly site hosted on a domain that you already own, check out this area of our support portal:

    http://www.weebly.com/support/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=4

    If you have any additional questions, let us know by submitting a support request.

    Best,
    Dan

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  5. wow great application!

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  6. This is a great resource. I want to have the Juniors and Seniors at my school working on creating their "digital footprint," for their college application process. This would be a perfect tool for them to do that. Thanks for sharing it.
    -Liz

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  7. Liz:

    Great use for the tool. I immediately did the same thing for my children--bought them domain names, then started to build Weebly sites. There is something very real and tangible about a "digital footprint" or "resume." Of course, I'm also working with my daughter who is a junior in college to build a Ning network around her major, which is Theater in Education. :)

    I always love it when you respond. Take care.

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  8. Anonymous1:42 AM

    I thought I loved Weebly too, until I encountered a problem with trying to get my MX records changed to Google. Weebly has absolutely no support. I've emailed and sent in help request on numerous occasions but have yet to hear from anyone. Unfortunately I bought my domain thru Weebly (as a reseller for Register.com) and I have no way to personally sign-on to my own Domain account manager. I can't get any help or anyone to give me my own username/password so that I change the records myself. Register.com has tried to help as much as possible, but states that I need to contact Weebly for these support issues. It's very frustrating because I have sales literature going out with my email address, but no way to receive email.

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  9. @sdpettus,

    I'm sorry you weren't able to get a prompt response from Weebly support. Did you write in using our form or by emailing support@weebly.com? We have a couple hour response time for Pro users and a 24-48 hour response time for all other users.

    Regarding your domain name, you should have received an email when you first registered it with Weebly including the login credentials for making any sort of change. You can always re-request these credentials from Weebly support, or ask for our assistance in making what can some times be a complicated change (MX records) -- we would be more than happy to assist as best we can.

    If all else fails, please feel free to email me personally at david+c@weebly.com, and I'll make sure the issue gets resolved promptly.

    Best,
    David Rusenko
    CEO, Weebly

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  10. Ya.This website is very nice. I like it.

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