macdavid pro

Basekit.com is not a new site, but it has received renewed attention in addition to it’s 20,000 registered users. It’s been launched in the US and UK due to a recent $2.6 million dollars of VC funding from Eden Ventures and NESTA.

The whole premise is that coding is time consuming, costly and prone to immense error (Hello, W3C) when it comes down to developers that need a site quickly and easily. In so many words, BaseKit has stated that they are filling a market hole that provides ready-to-use features for web building. Think SquareSpace, but not–which is of a similar purpose: get a site up and running for your needs lickity split. The difference between the two is that SquareSpace has ready-to-edit templates for one to build and modify. BaseKit allows uploading your own Adobe Photoshop site design, although technically SquareSpace can do something similar, but through a blank slate template offered on their site. Nevertheless, both provide the user with the means to customize and edit almost every component of the site.

BaseKit was originally set-up by web design entrepreneurs Simon Best, Richard Best and Richard Healy in 2008 after realising that the technical design of websites could be improved if processes were streamlined. By reducing iterative development tasks through a common, fully hosted framework, BaseKit is able to create websites faster and make them easier to manage.

Here is what you can do with BaseKit:

• Draft Sites as well as Active Sites
• Your own, individual template (via Adobe Photoshop – PSD)
• One change, unlimited instances
• Limitless design and layout (site width and column layout)
• CSS customizable dynamic widgets (layout widgets, content widgets and form widgets)
• Preview and make quick changes
• Built in CSS editing
• Instant preview
• No set-up or download required
• See changes in real-time
• Easy hosting
• Edit in your own browser
• Coding free (for photo and video uploads, adding twitter and RSS feeds)
• Customizable forms
• Easily redesign template with little hassle
• Drag and drop
• Manage your own forms data
• And most importantly it’s all W3C compliant

As a person who in recent years studied web design at the Art Institute only to find that coding is for super geniuses who literally enjoy thinking in code 24/7, this may in fact be the answer to a lot of people’s prayers. Furthermore, I think the appeal for BaseKit is the option to just be a designer for all the Photoshop lovers without having to get bogged down in coding it all correctly by web standards. So I think BaseKit attracts developers in a rush as opposed to a novice to web design. SquareSpace may be a better option regarding the latter. …Just my opinion.

Post by David Moore

I have been using the Apture plugin on this blog for many months now and I truly love it! It has helped save me time in researching for blog posts and making embedding content a whole lot easier. But not only can it be useful for authoring this blog, but it can also make understanding and researching certain portions of a post for the reader very convenient.

So I have one simple question for you: Have you had a chance to try out the Apture feature on this blog and was it helpful.

If you haven’t utilized it as a reader here, would you please try it out and leave a comment. I am a little pass due to email the Apture developers about my experience with it, but before I do I’d like a little input from you.

I greatly appreciate your help in advance!

TweetDeck has a feature that allows you to update your Facebook status if you so choose. And it was apparently in response to Seesmic’s Desktop application. Read about it here.

Just thought I’d share.

Did you hear a collective sigh of relief across the internet yesterday? If you didn’t then you probably don’t use Facebook.

For the record, I really was a little peeved about the change because I don’t want to give up the rights to my intellectual property to anybody. But according to an article by Time: Business & Tech, Facebook recanted and changed back to their previous Terms of Service.

Time: Facebook Does an About-Face an Privacy

On Monday, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg responded on his company blog, explaining that the change was needed to ensure that stuff like Wall posts and internal messages would remain intact even after someone quits the service. This would make sense — you don’t want gaps in interuser communications. But rather than mollify the masses, the explanation inflamed them. So today [February 18, 2009], Zuckerberg recanted and said Facebook was reverting the TOS to its original language and would continue to study the situation. He also launched a Facebook group, soliciting user feedback on how best to handle the situation and help establish a users’ Bill of Rights. Read more…

As far as the users’ Bill of Rights, I think it is a marvelous idea and could help to set a precedent for social media simply because of how social networks connect people, especially when a good enough cause is thrown into the equation. Take the last presidential race as an example.

New York Times: How Obama Tapped Into Social Networks’ Power

Like a lot of Web innovators, the Obama campaign did not invent anything completely new. Instead, by bolting together social networking applications under the banner of a movement, they created an unforeseen force to raise money, organize locally, fight smear campaigns and get out the vote that helped them topple the Clinton machine and then John McCain and the Republicans. Read more…

I guess the point I’m making is the power of social media is based upon the interpersonal relationships (on all levels) that we maintain online (mainly business, personal, and mutual friendships). And so, due to this fact drastic changes that affect people so personally would naturally tap a nerve for many. Having said all that, Facebook should now continue to listen to it’s users more when it comes to making changes as deep-seated as privacy and intellectual rights.

Finally, I think careful democratization on social networks for how people can handle their content is key, while granted people do need to take the time to read the Terms of Service always before joining an online community.

Here is a video from www.rocketboom.com giving a rather thorough clarification on the issue of Facebook’s recent change and “about-face” on the Terms of Service.