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Affinity Debuts CreateIt Site Builder
Web hosting provider Affinity Internet (affinity.com) said that it had released the CreateIt Site Builder, a downloadable desktop application that allows customers to easily create and publish Web sites without any technical expertise.
"We built CreateIt as an Affinity solution that makes it really easy for a small business to build a Web site and get online," Jim Collins, chief marketing officer for Affinity Internet told the Web Host Industry Review.
Collins says CreateIt will first be offered for free to customers of Affinity's ValueWeb (valueweb.com) hosting brand. In a press release, the company said the tool would also be available, for a fee, to customers of its WinSave and HostSave brands.
Affinity developed CreateIt as an extension to Macromedia's Web content management and publishing tool Contribute 2. The company did everything in-house, while also collaborating with the software software developer, which "opened its doors to let us embed a bunch of stuff into Contribute," explains Collins. Affinity, which had previously provided customers with site building solutions from IBM and Adobe, said sites created using CreateIt would then be compatible with any Web site editing software such as Macromedia Dreamweaver.
CreateIt is designed with an intuitive interface that makes it easy for users to build Web sites, says Collins, appealing to small businesses, especially those that do not yet have an online presence. The solution makes the Internet a simpler and more enjoyable experience, masking all the back end technology that can make new customers uneasy about getting on the Internet.
"The killer thing about CreateIt Site Builder is that it takes a great site management tool in Contribute ... and makes it accessible to a small business that wants to build a great looking professional Web site quickly and easily, and it takes all of the technical knowledge out of publishing your Web site," says Collins.
And its not just the technical aspect that scares potential hosting customers away, it's the fear of the entire process of purchasing and deploying Web hosting services, fears Collins says CreateIt also helps alleviate. By allowing customers to create a Web site before signing up for hosting, CreateIt allows them to see for themselves how easy it is, and most importantly says Collins, prove to themselves that they can do it.
"A lot of the small business community would like to have a Web site, but fears the prospect of the shipping process, they fear that their lack of technical expertise is going to get in the way," says Collins. "So we designed this tool to help them overcome that fear and I think the biggest way they can do it is by proving to themselves, before they make a financial commitment, that they can do this and this tool allows them to do that." 07.06.2004, Affinity Internet Inc.
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