Crystal's blog called Babeofbusiness.com is all about "A Little Business Know-How from the Chick in the Skirt…"
"Building, maintaining and optimizing great Web sites takes time, effort and experience. It also takes some special tools and software – which usually have to be researched and bought from multiple sources. At the end of the day, it can be a time-consuming and expensive process – researching, buying, installing and using - for freelance Web designers and small businesses relying on limited resources and personnel. But don’t get down in the dumps just yet."
Website Platform Enables Designers To Boost Revenue and Reach New Markets
VANCOUVER, British Columbia – October 28, 2008 – Sitemasher’s new online website platform puts the focus on the website and not the programming and IT development needed to create it. Today, Sitemasher goes one step further in letting professional web designers be web designers and not IT people by launching a partner program aimed squarely at firms focusing on website design, development, and brand marketing and consulting. With Sitemasher’s website building platform, partners will be able to earn more revenue by speeding the design and development process and to access new markets by maximizing the skills of the entire team.
Sitemasher changes the game in building and managing websites. Traditionally a sophisticated, interactive site requires several people, including a designer, developer, back-end IT administrator and a project owner, to implement a full project. But the Sitemasher website platform enables designers to create pixel-perfect, full-featured custom sites that can be implemented easily without programming and IT integration.
“Sitemasher lets us focus on what we do best. My team is now not constrained by the need for mechanical processes such as CMS setup,” said Erik Themmen of Level2wo, a marketing & creative agency with offices in Miami, Atlanta and Boston. “Now my designers are free to design, and our IT staff can focus on finding new, creative ways to use technology.”
Sitemasher’s partnership program has three tiers depending on the number of websites published by the website design firm. Benefits of the program vary by tier and include listing as a partner on the Sitemasher partnership page, customer leads, a free subscription for the design firm’s website, varying levels of support, and volume discounts or commissions.
“We strive to help design, development and marketing firms find ways to make money faster. Most are artists and designers at heart, not technologists. By removing the technology side and giving them powerful design tools, our partners can increase revenues, profitability and even reach out to new markets,” said Sitemasher Vice President of Marketing Nicole Denil.
Pricing and Availability
All versions of Sitemasher include the fully hosted website builder, content management, analytics and search engine optimization, as well as the hosting of the published websites. Pricing starts at $99/month per website for the basic subscription that allows up to three users to build and manage the website. The Standard version allows up to five users at $249/month, and the Premium package is $699/month for unlimited users. Read more on pricing here.
About Sitemasher
Established in 2007, Sitemasher (www.sitemasher.com ) provides a fully managed, hosted website solution that seamlessly integrates website building, content management, analytics and search engine optimization (SEO), all within a single platform. Sitemasher can be found at www.sitemasher.com.
Did you know that it's Waste Reduction Week (http://www.wrwcanada.com/) from October 19 – 25th, 2008 in Canada?
“If you are heading down to buy a coffee, grab a portable mug from the kitchen or what the heck, grab a regular mug!” says Courtney Inman, Sitemasher’s Miss Everything (HR, Recruiting, and Office Management).
Courtney reminds Mashers on a daily basis that they should cut down on paper coffee cup consumption. Every little bit helps, so think twice about your daily habits and daily consumption
So what should you do for Waste Reduction Week in Canada?
Courtney challenges the Sitemasher gang (and anyone else) this week to:
Grab a mug from the kitchen before heading down to the coffee shop to reduce consumption of take-away cups.
Recycle the itty bittiest pieces of paper i.e. receipts, post its, etc. Every little bit counts!
Spread the word –email your friends, blog & twitter about Waste Reduction Week.
What Sitemasher does on a regular basis:
Uses 100% post consumer waste office paper.
Has a Mashcycling depot where we can not only recycle blue bin products, we also have the opportunity to recycle light bulbs, batteries, plastic bags, & old electronics.
No more big plastic bottles for Sitemasher…we already took the Tap Water Pledge. Read more here.
Recycled marketing material…from our biodegradable trade show signage to our recycled paper business cards.
Want to share what your company does for Waste Reduction Week? Please feel free to comment below.
Sitemasher (www.sitemasher.com/) has taken the pledge at Design Can Change (www.designcanchange.org/), a non-commercial initiative aimed at bringing together the design community and making system-wide changes to how our work affects the planet.
"Sitemasher is creating a new era of website development, but we also want to be part of a new era of businesses that think about their impact on the environment. We are not Mother Earth’s guardians by any means, but we aspire to be, one Masher step at a time,” says Courtney Inman, Sitemasher’s Miss Everything (HR, Recruiting, and Office Management).
How does it work? Design Can Change offers a simple framework for bringing sustainable practice to design studios. There’s nothing particularly strict about the effort – it’s really just a set of guidelines that gets the ball rolling.
Why should I care? The risk that global warming presents is huge and its impact can be devastating. As the main contributors to this crisis, we all have a major responsibility.
How Sitemasher is acting on its pledge on sustainable practice
Sitemasher took the “tap water pledge” to drink tap water rather than bottled water. Did you know that Vancouver has awesome, delicious water…from the tap? Read more here.
Sitemasher has a Mashcycling depot conveniently located in the kitchen that enables employees to recycle plastic bottles and containers, metal and tin containers, aluminum foil, glass, all paper products, electronics, batteries, light bulbs, and plastic bags.
Sitemasher uses green office supplies ordered from Sitemasher’s local office supplier, Frogfile. Green products (such as office copy paper that’s made up of 100 percent post-consumer waste), green delivery, and great service!
Sitemasher uses green cleaning products for its dishes, counters, floors, and carpets.
Sitemasher uses energy savers such as energy-efficient light bulbs and power bars to kill phantom power. And because Sitemasher couldn’t get the BC Hydro Cheerleaders to encourage Mashers to turn off the lights, we now have “Yahhhh to turning off the lights!” reminder signs.
Mashers like to think green when they party at company events outdoors…from recycled napkins to biodegradable cups, cutlery, and plates.
Sitemasher is open to suggestions for continual learning and growth. We have an improvement list and would love to keep adding to it, so please send us an email message with your suggestions to Courtney@sitemasher.com.
Sitemasher challenges you or your company to join the pledge! Visit http://www.designcanchange.org/ and read about the effort. The site will answer many of your questions and recommend ways to start addressing the issue. If you feel the initiative makes sense, then why not sign the online pledge?
PLEASE DO NOT PRINT THIS PAGE. It looks nicer on your screen and you can help save a tree!
Want to share what your company does for sustainability or let us know that you've taken the pledge? Please feel free to comment below.
Invites Students and Professionals to Showcase Their Design Skills Using Sitemasher’s Online Platform
VANCOUVER, British Columbia – October 8, 2008 – Sitemasher’s newly released online website platform unleashes the design process from the complexities of coding. To encourage both students and professionals to experience this design freedom, Sitemasher today launched a free website design contest that rewards the best in design, usability, functionality and ease of maintenance.
The Sitemasher Website Design Contest, which runs through March 1, 2009, is a professional development opportunity for those looking to prove themselves in the fast evolving design market. Tools like Sitemasher change the rules for website building, making it fast, easy and inexpensive to develop and manage highly interactive websites. Participants in the contest will get an opportunity to showcase their skills by tapping into the power of this new platform, which combines an intuitive website builder, content management, analytics, search engine optimization and website hosting in one powerful online tool.
“At Sitemasher, we foresee a day very soon when folks strive to prove themselves as ‘mashers’ – ones who have mastered our platform and are able to deliver sophisticated, pixel perfect websites in record time,” said Nicole Denil, Sitemasher’s vice president of marketing. “Our goal is to give the design community the power and performance of high end, high cost tools but in an affordable, much more manageable manner. Our online platform automates the complexity of building and managing a website so the emphasis can be on delivering a killer website in less time and less cost.”
Website Design Contest Details Sitemasher created the Website Design Contest to recognize excellence among design students and design industry professionals in implementing powerful websites using Sitemasher.
Design students will receive a cash prize for education and an award they can use to grow their career and resume.
Design professionals will receive a cash prize and an award to promote their excellence in design and proficiency with Sitemasher.
Websites will be judged by a panel of experts and will be scored on the following:
Design: Judged based on overall visual concept, an intuitive navigation scheme and a high quality of execution.
Usability: Judged based on basic techniques such as label links and images that enhance usability throughout the design.
Functionality: Judged based on the extent participates maximize multiple media types and promote user interactivity.
About Sitemasher Established in 2007, Sitemasher provides a fully managed, hosted website solution that seamlessly integrates website building, content management, analytics and search engine optimization (SEO), all within a single platform. Phil Calvin, chief technical officer, began developing Sitemasher in 2006. Ron Moravek, chief executive officer, joined the new corporation in August 2007 along with Curtis Terry, chief financial officer and chief operating officer for Sitemasher, both from Electronic Arts, Canada. Eric Dorgelo, vice president of development, joined the team from Rockwell. Nicole Denil joined Sitemasher from Microsoft Corporation. Eric Carlson became the sole venture capitalist and partner in December 2007.
Briony Smith (07 Oct 2008) has written a story on Sitemasher at ITWorldcanada.com
A Vancouver startup launches a hosted offering that simplify the work that goes into designing Web sites and content management systems. It's also putting its money where the cloud is
Web site development service Sitemasher went live Monday with a new service geared toward making developers’ lives a little easier.
“We wanted to take the complexity out of Web sites,” said Sitemasher’s CEO, Ron Moravek. “Usually you have to deal with the CMS, the hosting, and the design."
Sitemasher instead offers developers a hosted solution that makes the more annoying parts of Web design less hideous. The browser-based system offers a simplified design structure, along with a completely integrated CMS. Said Moravek: “The CMS maps in real time as you go along, building in the roles and permissions as well.”
The drag-and-drop feature updates the schema easily, while the software-as-a-service functionality cuts down on maintenance time, courtesy of fast updates. “We talk to a lot of companies that employ armies of people who just cut and paste all day long, but this allows you to cascade the information to all your networked sites,” said Moravek. This keeps the designer and key developers in the equations, but cuts out costly and unnecessary coding staff who man the Dreamweaver or SQL, he said.
All-in-One Online Web Site Development and Management Platform Enables Collaboration Throughout the website Lifecycle
To help simplify the website development and management process, Sitemasher today introduced the full availability of its online website platform. Unlike other systems on the market, Sitemasher combines an intuitive website builder, content management, analytics, search engine optimization and website hosting in one powerful online tool. This tool and workflow enables everyone involved with the design, launch and maintenance of a website to collaborate easily throughout the project lifecycle.
Sitemasher is built around the four primary roles in advanced Web design and development: the business or site owner, site designer, information technology expert and marketer or content person. Traditionally, players in these roles operate in their own spheres causing problems as a site moves from vision through development. Sitemasher creates a collaboration platform with an intuitive interface that makes the most cutting-edge website elements simple to implement and update.
Website designers and developers can increase profitability by implementing designs without having to worry about technical requirements on the back end. They can also deliver more value to customers by reducing implementation time and cost, as well as providing analytics and websites that are optimized for search engines. Website design firms can assign customers the ability to manage their own content through user roles.
“Nearly 80 percent of the design and development process is repetitive. We’ve automated most of that process, leaving the design and IT teams free to innovate and add business value,” said Nicole Denil, Sitemasher’s vice president of marketing. “Tools today either cater to large companies with significant IT staffs or individuals who don’t need dynamic, interactive websites. We’re focused on making it easy for site designers and owners to take a site from vision to implementation in a matter of days.”
“As a growing firm looking to maximize productivity, Sitemasher’s suite of tools could help us significantly streamline our Website design and development process,” said Chris Ramaglia, web development project manager at Discovertec. “We can deliver more business value to our customers while reducing implementation time.”
The new Sitemasher platform features the following benefits:
Single platform – Sitemasher covers the entire lifecycle of websites –site builder, integrated CMS, analytics, SEO, all in a scalable hosted (SaaS) environment. The integrated environment allows an extremely rapid development, implementation, and content management.
Powerful Interface – The building environment is a professional, pixel perfect builder for fully customized sites with the ease of use of a drag-and-drop, WYSIWYG tool.
Reduced back-end coding – Design elements such as form creation automatically create a database, thereby eliminating the need for complicated coding to accomplish simple tasks.
Collaboration – All of the stakeholders (designers, marketers, website owners, and the IT teams) can all access the site 24x7 in a collaborative way, speeding time to implementation.
User roles and workflows – The site owner can easily set user roles to work with the corporate workflow, giving users the permissions to update the site content or design based on their skills. So a marketer cannot make accidental design changes to a live site while trying to update content.
Site analytics and SEO – Sitemasher’s SEO friendly platform and SEO toolset makes it easy to layer in meta tags and other elements of SEO without repetitive coding for each page. It also enables site owners to easily see what programs are working and to easily make any necessary adjustments.
Managed hosting – Sitemasher hosts the tool as well as the website through its partner Peer1. This provides all tools with the latest infrastructure, security, and hosting requirements, including software maintenance, updates, and upgrades.
The Sitemasher tool is the result of years of research, development and implementation from a team that has a unique understanding of online communications. The Sitemasher executive team all played key roles in such companies as Microsoft, Electronic Arts, Citrix, Rockwell International and a host of other high-profile and innovative technology leaders. Sitemasher first became available in April 2008 when it was opened as a beta version.
Pricing and Availability Sitemasher is available online at http://www.sitemasher.com/. Introductory pricing starts at $99 a month for a basic account that includes two users and a single published domain. A $249 a month program includes up to five users as well as the ability to set different roles, and a $699 a month program allows for unlimited users.
About Sitemasher Established in 2007, Sitemasher provides a fully managed, hosted website solution that seamlessly integrates website building, content management, analytics, and search engine optimization (SEO)…all within a single platform. Phil Calvin, chief technical officer, began developing Sitemasher in 2006. Ron Moravek, chief executive officer, joined the new corporation in August 2007 along with Curtis Terry, chief financial officer and chief operating officer for Sitemasher, both from Electronic Arts, Canada. Eric Dorgelo, vice president of development, joined the team from Rockwell. Nicole Denil joined Sitemasher from Microsoft Corporation. Eric Carlson became the sole venture capitalist and partner in December, 2007.
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