Posted on Tue, Nov. 02, 2004

Spinsite builds Web sites easily

By CHARLIE PASCHAL

Special to The State

The Web may be more than a decade old, but having your own Web site can be complicated — especially if you want to register a domain, pay a domain host and then build a site.

To do this means you need considerable knowledge, not to mention HTML (hyper text markup language), the Web’s basic programming language.

A California company called Spinsite approaches these problems with a different mindset. It sells a program that attaches to its Web server, where you use their template/wizard setup to build your Web site.

After this, if you want to buy your own domain name — such as www.askcharlie.com — the company will host the domain on their servers — at a price, of course. This is sort of a complex “paint by numbers” where you choose the colors and styles you want out of the available materials from the company’s toolbox.

You can get a free tryout — without giving the company a credit card number — for 48 hours. If you want a longer trial, you must cough up your credit card number. If you decide not to use the company, users have reported no problems canceling without a charge.

Simply put: If you can read, you can build a Web site using their materials. Even if you want to put together an e-commerce site, you can do it on their servers. When you buy the package, it includes three months’ Web hosting and e-mail.

This is not for everyone, such as people who know HTML and understand domain names and domain hosting.

For people who don’t want to — or can’t — learn the ins and outs of HTML, this is a good choice.

Spinsite sells a version for $99 and another one for $49 at www.spinsite.com