November 18th, 2011

Apostrophe: Now it's for Everyone

Geoff DiMasi
Founder

Last Tuesday while most people on the east coast were heading home from work or enjoying a pleasant happy hour, we ordered Thai takeout and quietly launched hosted Apostrophe.

We held our breath and waited for the sky to fall. Somehow it didn't, so with the sky safely in the heavens we are pleased to announce the public launch of Apostrophe. Please kick the tires and let us know what you think. 

Apostrophe is based on the open source plugin we created to solve our clients' real-world problems. They want to easily update the content on their websites, but don't want to suffer through intense training or be required to refer to a manual every time they want to make a change. In other words, they don't want to have to become an expert in their CMS on top of their other responsibilities. They wanted to be able to easily add a page, upload a photo, and add video. They wanted the power to publish without devoting a lot of time to learning a difficult system. It should just be easy.

In this goal, we have succeeded. People who have sites built in Apostrophe are very happy people. I think it is something like 80% happier in fact.* However, it still requires some skill and time to design and build a site in Apostrophe using the open source plugin, so it isn't always an economical fit for a small business, fledging organization, or my mom. That is, until now.

We knew that if we had any chance of making the world a better place, we needed to make it easier to create a site with Apostrophe. With the launch of hosted Apostrophe, this dream is fulfilled. If you can fill out a form with your name and email address, you can build a website in Apostrophe. With this launch we're doing our bit to democratize the web.

So go forth and spread the word: websites for small business owners, organizations, bands, mahjong clubs, bocci leagues, and world changers are now a couple clicks away.

There is one more thing. If you are a designer with some basic CSS skills, we really think you can build a business on top of this platform. Work with a client on design and content, build them a theme, and leave the heavy lifting to us. A CSS editor is built right in, with preview and history features that blow away the competition. And we built in a really easy way to transfer ownership of an individual site to your client once they pay that final invoice. If you choose, you can stay on the site in an admin or editor role, and you will see all of your client sites in your dashboard. Exciting, right?

We sincerely hope that you find this product useful. Please let us know what you think.

To get started building your own website, head on over to apostrophenow.com.


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* Just ask your scientician.

Geoff DiMasi
Founder

Check out another article
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Art Safaris
October 25th, 2011
Creative Connector
October 4th, 2011
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