Synthasite – Weak Name, Good Features

I wanted to do some testing on some web analytics tools so I needed a web site that I could be easily created and would allow HTML/JavaScript.  I selected Synthasite and was able to quickly build a site.  The site’s application is similar to that of desktop publishing software such as Microsoft Publisher, and people with little to no skill in Web site editing and design will be pleased with how user-friendly the interface is.

What’s Cool

• Easy to use – I had my first site up and running in minutes.  The Synthasite editor is very easy to use.
• Hierarchy – It is very easy to reorganize the page order.
• HTML/JavaScript – Very easy to add your own code
• Widgets – They have a gallery of widgets that you can add to your site.
• Self Publishing – Easy access to move all your work to another server.  You can download a ZIP version of your pages for deployment on your own server (all you need is PHP support on your Web server).
• Integration – You can easily add Google Maps, Google AdSense, WuFoo Forms, Flickr and more.  In some ways Synthasite is like a mashup using the best of these other services.
• Continuing with their mashup orientation Synthasite uses the Get Satisfaction service as a support platform.

What’s Not – minor stuff

• The company name and thus the website name is hard to remember xxx.synthasite.com.  Though you can redirect to any other domain name that you own.
• The widget gallery is great – but using many of the widgets involves extra steps that may not be obvious to novice users.
• The only thing that is missing is a nice blogging feature – I suspect that they may use the mashup approach to add this in the future.

I found Synthasite was much easier to use that Google Pages and will continue to use this service – it has some of the best features I’ve seen so far in a purely Web-based Web site creation and editing system.