Site creator Wix announces funding, subscriptions
No-brainer Web site creator Wix announced on Monday that it has raised $3.5 million in venture funding from Bessemer Venture Partners and Mangrove Venture Capital, and has also launched a "premium" version of the service geared toward businesses.
Wix's paid service, which costs $9.90 per month, follows a similar model to other Web publishing and productivity services that target small businesses: hosting and no ads. Allon Bloch, the company's co-CEO, said in a release that Wix's premium service will allow participating companies to cut down on the high costs of hiring a professional to design and build a site. "For the average small business, making a professional Web site is as complex and costly as it was in 1998," Bloch said. "I can't think of any other fundamental Internet technology that has changed so little in the last decade."
Wix, which focuses on easy creation of Flash-based sites, exited private beta in June. It's not the only company doing this--Synthasite and Weebly are two of its competitors.
The venture funding, which puts Wix's total capital at $8.5 million, will be used for further product development--as well as marketing, crucial for getting those paying users on board.
Caroline McCarthy, a CNET News staff writer, is a downtown Manhattanite happily addicted to social-media tools and restaurant blogs. Her pre-CNET resume includes interning at an IT security firm and brewing cappuccinos. E-mail Caroline. 
The product is very powerful and can be customized by non-technical users much more than any other app in this category. The only thing missing is a blog feature which they are currently working to deploy.
We are recommending this tool to clients and are currently remaking our own website as a demonstration of its capabilities at http://mindovo.snappages.com .
Tony Mars
Mindovo
http://www.snappages.com
Well I have had nothing but problems with this site, it's taken me days to get things to work right, it's simple to make a page but if you put it up on MS it changes the code and you get 1-2-3-4 of the same page you want to put up no matter where you put the codes at. I was trying to post text in there TOP SPACE then a new Picture in the HEADER but only after 2 very frustrating days they can't and did not Think if supporting that. I find it pretty nice looking but they also kept trying to guide me out of WiX to Ad Air and some MYSpace editor to make my page... I just bought it to make the page, I found the support to be "Canned" and out and out misleading.
Well I have had nothing but problems with this site, it's taken me days to get things to work right, it's simple to make a page but if you put it up on MS it changes the code and you get 1-2-3-4 of the same page you want to put up no matter where you put the codes at. I was trying to post text in there TOP SPACE then a new Picture in the HEADER but only after 2 very frustrating days they can't and did not Think if supporting that. I find it pretty nice looking but they also kept trying to guide me out of WiX to Adobe Air and some MYSpace editor to make my page... I just bought it to make the page, I found the support to be "Canned" and out and out misleading. Things don't work and it's riddled with bugs.
- by angrywixuser November 5, 2009 9:19 AM PST
- Beware of Wix hell ... it's not as easy going as it looks. Many months ago I went to Wix and created a page and description I soon realized had an error. Unfortunately, the incorrect description immediately showed up on top of Google's list and continues to do so each time a search is done for my company name. I've done everything I know over months to get rid of this description, including resetting the Wix page with the correct description, giving the page new names, deleting the page and so on and so on. I've also gone to Google for help and tried to do it myself. Of course, I contacted Wix "webmasters" about this and asked them for help. Eventually, I cancelled my account thinking that would surely put an end to it. WRONG! This Cached and non-existent page still exists on Goggle's List and goes to the incorrect file and description. WIX appears INCAPABLE and DISINTERESTED in fixing the situation. They also never include previous e-mails so that the chain of events of what?s been tried is constantly broken. FRUSTRATING!
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