Orangeinks

Free Easy Website Design Tools

Edicy is another website design tool which lets you create a fully functioning website in just a few minutes. The easy to use WYSIWYG editor makes it a useful tool for users who want a website created quickly without coding knowledge.

Based on their template designs, the web editor is basically designed for creating a simple profile pages for small companies and individuals. You can choose from a small selection of templates with simple but elegant designs. Although the editor doesn’t give much freedom to customize the layout of the page, it does allow you to easily add media to your pages. Edicy also has a blog installed where you can compose a blog entry from within the web editor.

Wix: This is a tool for creating flash based blog sites which we covered when it was still in private beta. It is now out for public use and I must say that this is the most interesting flash based website creator that I’ve ever seen. The editor has a very visual touch where you can just drag and drop media on the pages. When I tested the service, the only coding part that I can remember of doing is the part where I placed a URL link to an outside site. Wix also offers an embed code for your flash site so you can publish your creation and embed it anywhere. You can read the full review.

Weebly: This one of the more popular website creation tool. It gives a lot of freedom to the user with regards to the content of the created website. It even allows you monetize your creation and place Google Adsense and Adbrite ads in your pages. Custom HTML is also allowed which makes the tool quite versatile. They have a wide range of templates for you to choose from which makes it a favorite of many.

FirstPagr: Make a simple introduction page with FirstPagr. Create lists, list items with links, descriptions and images, and drag and drop lists and items. It’s great for introducing your list of websites or top favorite websites to everybody. Firstpagr is very simple and very easy to use.

Google Sites: Is a website creation tool which is geared to creating a simple website for a group of people or a community. The members can each access the created website to input their own content/news. Read the review.

Tags: edicy, firstpagr, google sites, webdesign tools, website, weebly, wix

Create a Group Website using Google Sites

Google Sites is an online application which is part of Google Apps program that lets a user create a website in a snap. You do not need to have a domain to create a website from Google Sites. The general service is similar to blogger but with huge differences in practical application. Blogger is obviously specifically optimized for blogging while Google Sites is made for team or group website building. It targets organizations who want to create a website which can be managed and edited by a group of people. It’s like creating a wiki website for a company or an organization where every member can take part in the development and content distribution of the site.

The service is entirely free and each account is allowed a 100 MB (megabytes) of space for images and attachments. Using the service will let people gather information about their organization in the website. They can place videos, calendars, presentations and attachments. The website can be set to be viewed by the whole world or for members only. The owner can easily invite others to the website as co owners, collaborators or as viewers. You can check out the video demo below on how to use Google Sites.

Tags: create, Google, google sites, group sites, website

Scoutle: The Automated Social Networking Site for Bloggers and Website Owners

Scoutle is a social networking site which targets website owners, bloggers and other social networking site users. One might ask what this particular social networking site has to offer. There are already numerous social sites out there aimed to connect bloggers together not including niche social sites where other bloggers use to promote their websites on. With so many out there the only thing missing is a social networking site for social networks.

So what makes Scoutle unique? What Scoutle does is automatically do the networking for you. They described Automated Social Networking as networking without doing anything, without knowing each other and without the need of communication. All of this is done by web crawlers called Scouts. A scout contains information about the website which is created by the owner. After a Scout is created, and embed code will be given to the owner to be placed in his (her) blog or website. As far as finding networks that suites your blog depending on your given category and the value of your blog, that is all you need to do. The scout will crawl or as they say “walk the internet” to meet other scouts. The meeting will take place on a “stage.” The stage is the widget placed in your blog where other scouts meet and say hi to each other. The number of meetings that your scout makes with other scouts affects the way your site is rated in Scoutle.

Behind the names of Scouts you see the amount of points that Scout has. This actually is a rating. The higher your points, the higher your website is rated. A high rating will be given to Scouts (websites) with high traffic and lots of connections. Connections are made when two site owners agrees to approve each other’s connection requests. A higher rating will give your profile more visibility in your category.

Scoutle is a new and interesting way to promote and get visitors for your blogs. You get to meet other bloggers without actually meeting them, weird but interesting.

Tags: Blog, scoutle, social network, social network service, website

Create Your Own Video Sharing Site with StartYourTube

Want to know what it feels like to have your own YouTube? StartYourTube(now known as BootCast) is the Ning of video sharing sites. It lets you easily create your own video site without hassles. There is no installation needed, no servers and other technical stuff. It’s just like creating a blog in Blogspot. Actually the procedure is very similar to creating a Blogspot account where you create an account, customize your site (upload logos, change theme colors etc), use your own domain name and advertise (where they keep 40 percent of the revenues for the free account).

Being a video sharing site, StartYourTube lets you have your own members where they sign up and share their tubes in your created tube site. The service is free but will only allow you to have 10 thousand page views per month and upload a maximum of 200 videos which should not exceed 2 GB of storage space. You also get to have a “Powered by StartYourTube” mention in your pages and you cannot disable advertisements. This is not a bad deal considering that you are paying them nothing but it is not enough to survive a Digg effect if ever one of your videos gets dugg. However, a paid account will let you get a bigger storage space and bandwidth, remove the StartYourTube mention, run your own ads and keep all the profit.

The trick is to start free play around with a niched video site and eventually upgrade your account if your site becomes popular. This is another interesting service and a potentially useful one (if they can offer larger bandwidths and storage) for people who wants to start a niched tube site.

Update: StartYourTube is now known as BootCast.

Hi everyone ,

We have to choose another domain name for StartYourTube.com
Please take one minute to give us your choice

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=IKrB6jg7c3S_2fSrp3cW4DXA_3d_3d

best,
startyourtube team

Tags: ning, startyourtube, tube, video, video hosting service, website, youtube

Create a Flash-Based Website Online Using Wix

Wix is an online application that you can use to create and publish Flash-based websites without any programming knowledge. I was very curious to see what they are offering and when I got an invitation from the Wix team to test the app, I immediately took the plunge.

The Wix Editor is a flash based drag and drop tool which makes it easier for anyone to add, remove and arrange objects in the webpage project. Adding a page element like buttons and borders can be done in just a couple of clicks. Adding a new page and linking them together will not require you to place href codes, you can just click the image of the page you want an object to link to. Linking to an external page however will require you to place the URL of the external link, which is the only coding part of the website making process that you will ever encounter when using Wix.

Different forms of media like videos (from YouTube), music and pictures (from Flickr, Wix or your hard drive) can be easily inserted in the project. Widgets like photo albums, media player and mini pages are also available as enhancements. What is even more interesting in the editor is that the editing is not only limited to using the buttons and menus in Wix. You can also use keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl+X for cut and Ctrl+V for paste and other keyboard shortcuts. The right click mouse button can also be used when editing which is rarely seen in flash based applications. There is no undo function so one must be careful in deleting elements, instead use the cut command.

Once you have completed a website or a page, you can choose to publish it publicly which will be available to the Wix community and will be indexed by search engine or you can choose the private mode. An embed code is also provided so that you can place your work in social sites and blogs. You can also use the email option which can be useful if you to use the flash page for marketing or company brochures.

In conclusion, Wix is a powerful web app which can do wonders for anyone who wants to create a website without going to the process of coding. The user friendly and eyecandy user interface makes website design an enjoyable experience. The service is still in private beta and If you want to check out the cool app, just visit their site and sign up for an invitation. Check out a simple website that I made using Wix. I have provided an embedded version below. Check out the full size here.

Free Flash Websites – Wix.com

Tags: flash, web application, web search engine, website, wix, wix editor, You Tube

Stumpedia: The Social Powered Search Engine

Stumpedia is a human powered search engine that relies on participation from its members to index, organize and review the information found in the internet. Users can participate by sharing their knowledge and interests with one another and provide an alternative to search engines that are powered by bots and algorithms.

Page ranking is totally human generated and will depend on votes/rating made by the members. Think Google search results combined with Digg rating. Whenever a search is made the results with the most votes will appear first. In the image that I have provided (below), I searched using the keyword “google” and it displayed Sphinn on top of the Google homepage. This is the result of more people voting for Sphinn rather than Google and you will see thumbs down votes for Google itself. This is how human interaction can totally affect the search results for Stumpedia. It is totally up to the members to properly vote in order for the search engine to work properly.

I emailed the Stumpedia team and asked a question regarding the prevention of spam in their service and got a quick reply from Luis Pereira, Founder & CEO of Stumpedia.

How do you protect Stumpedia from being infiltrated by spammers and spam sites?

Presently we’re leaving it up to the community to handle spam submissions by voting down irrelevant results. We’re also monitoring activity and are prepared to take action if spam becomes a problem. Banning people that spam, removing spammy results, etc, are all options we are open to.

Another feature of Stumpedia is the instant answer feature where anybody can ask a question and get an instant answer from real people (members of Stumpedia). You can also participate in answering questions by downloading their widget. This feature is slightly similar to the Mosio service which provides answers from its users through the use of text messages, email and IM’s. The only difference is that most of the questions asked in Stumpedia are link or website related.

Founder and CEO Luis Pereira also mentioned some of the features that they are adding to the Stumpedia service.

Some future stuff in the works include:

a.. Users will have the ability to import and share their social bookmarks, making them easily searchable using the Stumpedia search feature. Imported bookmarks would be ranked using their Social Rank algorithm and their associated tags would become search engine friendly. For example, tags such as “search engines,” “search_engines,” “search-engines,” and “searchengines” would be considered one in the same and produce the same search results.

b.. Social bookmarking features similar to del.icio.us will be added.

c.. Additional social networking features such as adding/inviting friends and sharing link submissions are in the works.

d.. A feature that ranks and scores activity of members.

e.. Future submission sections for news, videos, and images will be added.

Human Interaction is always important for social networking services. In a service like Stumpedia, a certain degree of responsibility among the members is the key essential in order for the service to be a success. People will want and expect accurate search results from the search engine (which is what everybody expects from any search engine). It will be up to the community to to manage the results through responsible linking and voting. Stumpedia is an interesting service and if you want to help it grow by registering your blogs and favorite websites, head over to the site right now and start Stumpin.

Tags: answers, Google, human generated, mosio, pagerank, questions, search-engine, social bookmarking, stumpedia, web search engine, website