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Wix Opens Its Flash Publishing Platform In Public Beta
Wix, the browser-based designer that lets users create Flash-based widgets and full-scale webpages, has launched in public beta. The site specializes in creating colorful Flash pages without requiring any coding, and seems to appeal most to “MySpacers” looking to add some flair to their sites (Wix does have some more professional templates for businesses). You can see our original review of the site here.
One of the common concerns about Flash websites is that they don’t play nice with search engines, leading to lower page traffic. Wix says it can get around this by generating an XML map for each of their sites that is SEO friendly. Since the launch of its private beta, the company says that they’ve seen a surprisingly high number of users using the designer to create full-fledged sites rather than basic widgets, which makes this search optimization especially important.
Wix sees general competition from a number of other browser-based website designers, which include Weebly and Synthasite, but is most similar to Sprout, another Flash-based widget designer.
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1,000 Wix Invites for TechCrunch Readers
We’ve got even more to give away today. Wix has set aside 1,000 spots for TechCrunch readers who want to give its website/widget creation tool a spin.
When I reviewed Wix last week, I called it cluttered and candy-coated. The promotional video below shows a tamer, yet still very colorful, side of the service.
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Wix: The Bold Web Content Creator
Cluttered and candy-coated are two ways to describe Wix, a new Flash-based website and widget creation tool that we’ve been anticipating for months. It’s also feature-rich, very well-designed, and - sorry - still in private beta.
Wix joins a multitude of browser-based website creators such as Weebly, Synthasite, and Google Pages. But it reminds me the most of Sprout, a widget-creation tool that can also be used to make websites, since both provide fluid Flash interfaces that appeal to your inner designer.
Both of these companies are blurring the line between content that’s meant to stand alone as distinct websites, and content that’s meant for syndication over blogs, social networks, and other destinations. It’s because of this obfuscation that they’ve opted to use the unspecific, yet self-referential, names “sprout” and “wix” when referring to their creations.
Whereas Sprout is mainly marketed as a tool for spreading media content, Wix most certainly appeals to a younger population that’s obsessed with expressing themselves online (call them MySpacers, if you will). Wix does have a collection of tasteful business themes, but the vast majority of its templates are for fun and fall into categories like “street art”, “emo”, “playground”, and “sexy”.
Once you pick a theme for your new website (or widget, just depending on your dimensions), you are taken to a popup Wix Editor that provides you with an overwhelming number of ways to spice up your creation. You can add shapes, clipart, photos, videos, songs and animations; you can tweak colors and set visual effects for user behavior; and you can add text paragraphs and headlines. Photos can be uploaded manually or pulled in from either Flickr or a royalty-free stock collection; videos can be embedded from YouTube; and there’s also a collection of free song clips that can be used in a range of skinnable music players.
Each wix supports multiple pages with links between them. When you want to edit a particular object on a page, you click on it and options for rotating, resizing, and positioning are revealed. A Mac OS-looking doc at the bottom of the screen also provides icons for setting effects, behaviors, animations, and more. You really need to play around with Wix to fully appreciate how much flair and how many customization options it affords.
As you work on your wix, you can hit a preview button to see what it will look like. And once you’re done with it, you can publish it either as a website hosted on the wix.com domain or as a widget to be embedded or sent to friends via email.
One of the major complaints many have about Flash is that it doesn’t allow for indexing by search engines. Wix gets around this by producing content that’s a hybrid of HTML and Flash, despite the fact that it’s editor is entirely Flash-based. This will be a huge benefit to anyone who uses Wix to set up a serious website, but it probably won’t make any difference to widget creators.
Update: Wix is giving out a couple hundred private beta invites to readers who email info@wix.com with requests.
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