[slubu]

Randomly I came across PageCloud and the idea of being able to quickly edit webpages entices me greatly. I don't know how to code, and even though I know some very basic wordpress this seems takes it to another level.

If it really is this easy, it may be quite useful for business purposes or tailored marketing. Let's say I get a call on a potential case, maybe civil rights. While the client is on the phone with me, I go to my firm's website, edit my bio to reflect my civil rights background first and then tell him "you can see my experience on my webpage." Viola, he goes and see all my achievements in that field.

Next week, I get a call about a real estate deal that's gone bad. Rinse and repeat. All that said, I am not that versed in creating websites and not sure how much value this service has. Maybe you guys would know better.

Finally, they seem to indicate it would not be useful for blog type websites. Of course I can't find it now, but there was some dicta somewhere on their website about that.

Here's a video by them. Thoughts?

[DaveR]

I guess it's inevitable that content creation will become more user-friendly as time progresses. The incumbents (WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, etc.) were revolutionary in the beginning but have been quite stable for a long time now.

You'll probably still need a designer at the start to get something that looks professional, but this

There are already too many blogging platforms, so there isn't much to add in that area. It makes sense that they aren't focussing on it. Some of the PageCloud developers recommended Ghost for blogging ( https://ghost.org ).

[tatami]

$25/mo (reg price) seems pretty steep. Per site! Geez. If you have 5 sites, you'll pay $1500/yr. Yeah, it looks a lot easier but it's not going to be worth that kind of money to most people, is it? Maybe I'm just cheap but hey, I'm not the only one. I predict someone else will clone it and charge a one-time fee for it (or even make it free). No reason this can't be a one-click install at your host, is there?

[DaveR]

If you already manage your own hosting, Wordpress, etc. then you're probably not in the target market. $300/year is reasonable if it means you or your personal assistant can manage a site and make changes instead of contracting a web developer/designer each time.

[joost]

I worked as a web designer in the past. Let me give you my opinion:

PageCloud is not a new idea. RapidWeaver comes to mind when I heard about creating webpages without knowing html/css.

The huge problem I see with those tools is how bad the code is. It is really messy. You might not notice but bad code is bad. It can make websites load slower, consume a lot of data and break pages (not functioning properly) making a bad experience for consumers. If something is not working properly, you're screwed since you don't know where to look for. In PageCloud video you see him changing text size for "mobile". What if the user put the device horizontally? What if the device has a different size?
Pasting photoshop files directly? I doubt those images are going to be optimized (compressed properly).


I recommend you to learn html and css. These days, It's not as hard as it seems. Check lynda.com to see if there's some online courses. If you don't want to bother, stick to wordpress.

As for price, you can register a domain for around 10 dollars per year. As for web host, there's even free options. If your website is not going to have as many visitors as Google (exaggerating), you can get 100GB bandwidth/month.

[nomadbrah]

Seems like a fad for the reason I can't figure out exactly what I should use it for?

That's a big red flag for me. The main page has zero technical terms and while some may think that's a good thing, to me it screams 'overpriced hype'.

Drag and Drop is nothing new, neither is easy website creation. Fact is, if you want any custom functionality then code is needed, if not by you then someone else.

I could be wrong, just saying the sales page doesn't sell me as someone in the business.

[RichieP]

As in all design industries, there'll always be a market for templates / quick-n-easy DIY solutions, and a market for high-end custom design, and everything else in between. Inevitable trend.

[LouieG]

As the founder says in slubu's speech, PageCloud is really intended for professional designers who know what they want visually, but lack the coding chops to get it online.

If you're not a professional designer, you're better off with something like Squarespace, which gives you a drag-n-drop page creator and the huge added benefit of a pro-quality design template to build from. They also give you web hosting that's 10x better than what you get from Bluehost/Dreamhost, free customer service (which you'll never need, because your site will never crash), and they're 50% cheaper than PageCloud, and already live. I believe Weebly and Wix provide similar services.

If you want to play around with something similar to PageCloud, try Webflow, which is free to get started.

All that said, if PageCloud is actually as good as it looked in that demo, it would be a big deal. That drag-n-drop editor is miles ahead of anything I've ever seen, including Squarespace, which is pretty good by the standards of drag-n-drop.

[tynamite]

It's basically a site builder that instantly converts your designs to HTML without having to do any slicing. It competes with iWeb and Adobe Muse. No web designer is going to touch this with a bargepole, it's more for the people who don't know HTML. When real web designers and web developers want a design done, they'll use Photoshop to make it and slice it themselves in a text editor.

Next!

[jamaicabound]

I have several sites but not too saavy in how they are designed I normally hire people or use something like shopify. How does this differ from something like wix where you just drag thigns into position. I get this seems to work with sites already built and lets you edit them so I take it I could take my wordpress site built by an indian designer I use and I could make changes to his work without having to run to him for every little change?