Building Sites Getting Easier

The Web will really explode as it gets easier to assemble sites and do mashups with no technical expertise ... When it's as easy as taking a picture and sending it, or writing an email, or playing a game. (And as generations change.) I make no judgment on this announcement, but it's one of what I expect will be many to come. From a Freewebs press release:

There was a time when being on the Internet was a privilege reserved only for HTML coding gurus. Then, there was the Geocities and Tri-Pod movement, which allowed for a somewhat less sophisticated group to create web pages. Now, ordinarily tech shy people are doing extraordinary things using Freewebs (www.freewebs.com), which has become the clear choice for anyone who wants to build a comprehensive personal or small business website: more than 17 million Freewebs sites have been created to date. This Wednesday, August 15, building and managing personal websites gets exponentially easier with the streamlined relaunch of Freewebs and its dead simple to use, what-you-see-is-what-you-get Page Builder.

For anyone familiar with prominent Web 2.0 products like MySpace and Google Page Creator, you will easily see what Freewebs has done with its Page Builder is nothing short of revolutionary. As easy-to-use as MS Word, Freewebs Page Builder allows for total customization and integration. Users start with one of 300+ template motifs, then add multiple content boxes and move them around. Not only can they fill these boxes with text, wrap and split paragraphs, users can also add web widgets, photos, sounds and videos from Freewebs or through seamless integration with leading UGC companies including YouTube, Brightcove, Digg, Photobucket and others. And there’s no more shifting between editing and public views to see how your site will look to visitors: novices and experienced users alike can build and edit on the same screen and watch their sites come to life—in real time.

What’s more, sites and blogs living on other platforms can be simply imported (though you will lose comments, sorry). But that’s a small hurdle especially when you compare what you can’t do on with current site or blog software. Where some portals and social networks see the Internet as a series of walled gardens, Freewebs sees an ever-expanding universe of opportunities for people to freely express themselves using the best available tools.