Get your site at Gandi!

Ryan — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 09:29:00 +0100

No, we're not referring to healing the blind, although with our new online website creation tool, Gandi SiteMaker, you are indeed able to work with accessibility features to help the visually impaired...

Gandi SiteMaker is a product that has been developed by our English subsidiary, Moonfruit, since 2005. It is certainly the most impressive web 2.0 application that I have ever used, and this in an atmosphere where everything these days is being called web 2.0. It is really for this very reason that we asked them to join us at the time.

I can hear you saying right now, "...there’s already a boatload of WYSIWYG website creation applications out there”! And you could not be more right. Except that is has now been 9 years since they began the project, which has not stopped improving since then… And yet, I am not one who is really destined to appreciate this type of simple tool! I'm “Old School”, an old HTML tagger that still tries to optimize my gifs to be just the right hues… But to help Gandi, I have gone with Gandi SiteMaker, in order to see what it can do and experience its strengths and weaknesses.

What we are offering today, is an application with a extremely wide range of possibilities that will let you create a website of amazing quality in the blink of en eye! Dozens of templates are available to you as a basis for your site and for inspiration, while those of you who are graphic designers will find themselves a type of QuarkXPress of the web (yes – I did mention that I was old school…).

Now just hold on there (because I can hear the skeptics snickering in the background, thinking that I am going to launch into a sales pitch). I am not selling anything here! It’s free! Yes, that’s right: for those of you that have a domain name at Gandi, you can now create a website without any technical experience necessary. There are so many features that we had to create a lengthy FAQ just to cover all the questions of the product.

Features? Excluding the possibility of creating a website from an existing template (or a blank page for those of you that prefer it, of course), you may choose pre-established structure to help you along, and finally, with one click, you will find your website ready to be published or modified!

I recommend that you have a quick look at this video, which is no longer than 3 minutes long, and will show you just how easy it all is:

Now it’s your turn!

Wouldn’t it be nice to make a website for your parents of photos of your newborn? With one click on “insert”, then on “object”, I select “Pop-up Gallery”, and voilà! I now have a photo gallery, for which the most difficult part was to choose the order of my photos.

Have you been wanting to create a website for your local sailing club? Nothing could be more simple: a video player to show clips of the year’s bloopers, a web page where you can add a forum in just a single click, and a subscription form where you can manage the rights of members of your forum.

Aspiring artist, are you tired of non-lucrative expositions, and do you dream of having your own website with a gallery, an order form and an online payment system, so that you can sell your works all around the world? Once again, only a few clicks are needed to build your own website, and you do not need to know any computer language!

Hey! Let’s add a guestbook, ah…now that really is nice for visitors. Perfect!

Do you have a domain name at Gandi? Congratulations! You also have a Gandi SiteMaker Free Pack that you can already activate in your account, and begin to see this wonderful tool for your self – a tool that will truly let you create your online presence in no time at all!

Professional and customized

We have limited the Free pack to 2 pages, because we feel that this is enough to make a presentation page (a welcome page and a personal résumé for example) and in order to let you try out SiteMaker whenever you want. This is not a limited-time offer, it is a given for you.

Our two fee-based backs are for those of you that are more convinced that this is the tool for you, and who greater needs – still within an affordable price range. See for yourself: our Starter Pack, at €4 euros (excl. VAT) per month, allows you to create 50 pages, and to store up to 500 MB of files, and to benefit from all the advanced modules (with the exception of e-commerce). This latter feature is available with the Professional Pack, which costs €8 (excl. VAT) per month, with an unlimited number of pages and having 2GB of disk space. You can refer to our pack comparison page for more details.

Many of you have been requesting a service between free hosting and our Gandi AI virtual dedicated servers. With Gandi SiteMaker, we now hope to meet this demand, since the hosting of your websites is included in all the packs!

Gandi is coming to the UK

Wendy — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 12:30:00 +0100

Yes that's right, Gandi is coming to the UK! But wait you ask, haven't we always been here anyway? Well yes, you're right we have. It is true that Gandi already has thousands of UK customers, with tens of thousands of domains registered, and a sister company located in the UK (www.moonfruit.com), but we don't feel we've ever given the UK as much love and attention as it deserves. So like a friendly cousin that lives just across the Channel in France, we're packing our bags, saying 'au revoir' to mummy and daddy Gandi, and moving to London!

So what does this mean for you? It means a dedicated UK team based in London working to support our UK Gandi customers and promote our ethical domain and cutting edge hosting services to new faces far and wide. The UK Gandi team will be keen to get your feedback on what you like about Gandi and what you think we could do better. We'll be taking our popular Gandi supports policy to the UK which has the goal of helping businesses that share our vision for the internet to get started online (please contact us if you think you’d be a good UK candidate for Gandi supports).

And what is our vision for the internet you may well ask? We intend to continue Gandi’s tradition of challenging the status quo, sticking to what we believe are ethical business practices and codes of conduct and always providing high quality products and services.

And we speak English-English! None of this fancy French-English, or "where's the 'u' gone?" US-English. Just plain old "May I have a cup of tea?" English as the Queen intended (though we don't believe she's a Gandi customer. Yet.).

So there you have it, Gandi is coming the UK: the new arrival of an old friend, it's as if we've always been here...looking forward to catching up with you soon.

Gandi Bar - Tag - Moonfruit

Get your site at Gandi!

Gandi is coming to the UK