Jimdo and the webset

Thanks to a heads up from Profy, I have enjoyed getting to know Jimdo – a web building kit site, apparently its undergone a revamp or two of late and if how easy it is to use is anything to go by, then its mission accomplished.

If like me you are a web-building novice, usually relying on internal support for guidance, using a tool like Jimdo is actually quite empowering. Not only is it effortless to customise your own page within Jimdo; point, click, edit (that’s pretty much it) it’s also free.

There is a pro version available for 5 euros a month, the main benefits of signing up to this is that what you get in addition to the basic package is a choice of own domain name like .org/.com etc. an email account, 5Gb of storage, an ad free page as well as an advanced stats package.

Jimdo claim that they are the only website building platform world wide that permits users to integrate their own design and from my trial run it’s not offering a bad suite of tools to do that. There is a fair selection of customisable images and stock photography to use, however Jimdo is the kind of application built for users to customise from the ground up.

You can place the usual coupling of copy and multi-media on your page whether that’s Youtube videos or photos its up to you. A very basic knowledge of html will permit you to add in a whole set of widgets, allowing some great customisation options. If that seems even a little daunting the FAQ’s section offers compact step by step guides with accompanying screenshots.

Given that you have a built-in stats package at your disposal (even for the free version), indicates that Jimdo believe their user-base will be serious enough to want to monitor usability and traffic results rather than for Myspace page-hit narcissism.

I think the opportunity in such easy to create web sites, will see a boon for more project-based work or be useful as a presentation gateway to peers and colleagues. Most organisations will already have an official website and blog offering, Jimdo offers the opportunity to carve a presence somewhere in between the two. I can certainly see myself using something like this the next time I need to share results or progress from project work around the office. The fact that it’s so easy to use is what makes Jimdo fly above the rest.