Texty is a dead simple but useful new internet service that you can use to quickly create and edit content on a web page with zero HTML or programming skills.
Go to the site, start typing text in a WYSIWYG editor, format it and add images. Click a button and get an embed code. Your text will appear in whatever website you add the code to. And if you want to make changes, go back to Texty and edit it. The changes will flow to whatever sites you’ve embedded it on. You can also add comment functionality to a piece of text, and create a RSS feed.
There are lots of great and easy to use content management systems on the web already. Blogging software is just one example. But if someone is working on a web page outside of something like a blog and wants to add a bit of text and graphics, this is a good solution. See our coverage of JS-Kit which has similar tools. I was surprised at how many people are looking for something exactly like this.
I’ve embedded a bit of text and an image below. Everything below this paragraph, including the image, is actually embedded from Texty.
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Googling ‘Online HTML editor’ gets you quite a lot many similar applications. I would really want similar applications for AJAX…That’s where I am hit hard!
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Ah pointless flame wars. Welcome to the internet everybody!
Anyway, I think you can actually float images if you select ‘left’ or ‘right’ as your image alignment option.
This thing is just useless. Many other more useful tools exist. Try the text creator at Greetlets.. http://www.greetlets.com
So this thing get a write-up, but Greetlets has never been featured on TechCrunch.. Interesting..
In the same idea I use WriteToMyBlog (www.writetomyblog.com)
Sorry! it’s really not the same thing!
Unique Idea, there is a market space out there for a sort of Mini CMS. It has a tough road because it seems to me that if you have the skills to have your own website that isn’t in a CMS (ie. WordPress or Blogger) than you might already have in place a system to do this. Or you can simply edit the HTML in Notepad and FTP it.
I’m wary of websites that require JavaScript just to view the page.
This blog has code from 10 domain names. I enabled only techcrunch.com.
Get an add-on to control JS and you’ll see the better side of the Web without so much advertising, but you’ll miss out on anything created in texty.com.
Enabling JS for this blog will give you 3 more annoying ads.
Its kind of fun like starting all over again, but it may be useful somewhere, sometime.
“Click a button and get an embed code. Your text will appear in whatever website you add the code to. ”
You just lot about 70% of the market, based on the skill set of the average internet user.
For example, “I’m wary of websites that require JavaScript just to view the page.” as stated by zzz above.
Look man, javascript makes the internet go around - being “scared” of it is just plain idiotic.
The problem is that a lot of embedded site info does not show up in google reader. I had to actually click over to the site to see what you added with texty.
With a plethora of blogging and content editing platforms, be they hosted or not, does the world really need such an application? I am a bit skeptical.
If one is not able to hack xhtml and css, IMHO he would just stick with an hosted platform and in case get a free template. If one is a keen designer…won’t use texty for sure.
What’s texty’s target audience? I can’t quite understand.
What happens when texty goes dark?
What happens when google indexes your site?
Plus it doesn’t display in Google Reader, which doesn’t do embeds except video. So I wouldn’t use it in my blog posts knowing that it won’t display in some cases.
I use Google Docs to create text content for my business site. I use the Edit HTML tab to copy the resulting html and then simply edit my site’s template (based on a free design) and paste in the text. Simply and effective and with Google Docs I also have a very simple CMS for archiving and prototyping content.
My comment got deleted!
Politics I say!
I just don’t see the market for this.
finally a great brand ! yay - texty ! how cool and original, congratulations folks. some of you others should think about this.
-srini
Might be a good product if it could be deployed to my own servers. I agree with earlier comments - if the site goes dark, you’re screwed. Doesn’t seem very search engine friendly either and isn’t that how most people find your content?
Anyone ever heard of Light (speaklight.com)? I find it much more easy and robust then Texty.
I think solutions like this make sense. The ability to roll out a site and features quickly and cost efficiently is the most important thing in internet business, so turn-and-go solutions are always useful. You can test run a concept on a hosted version, if it flies then have the proof to put $$ into real development. I think more importantly, it can have value to small business users (like fashion designers, independent consultants, actors, etc.) who don’t have the capital to build a site. I think a friend recently did hers and it was several thousand.
It seems potentially disruptive to developers
Imagine a world where they weren’t needed as much. They can be so very expensive, especially when the market is in an upswing like we’re in.
I would love to see a round up of these sites. Hint.
Personally, I think that if you want to create a website, you really should dive into it fully, even wordpress is very simple, maybe even borderline too simple. When I started my website I created my own CMS (very basic), but now have switched to wordpress to make life easier.
Wouldn’t it be a better idea to retrieve the content with a crontask and store it in the database (or flatfile) of the user’s server? Then you benefit from the editing capabilities but you don’t have to rely on javascript or the uptime of their servers.
Gmail editor is better than this .. What is in it that Techcrunch wrote about it?? CMS area is enough mature now and the new entrants should either do something new or at least give the full range of service as other CMS services in order to attract users ..
its a cool little web 2.0 widget type thing that has REAL marketing potential… I been thunk it gooder.
The applying comments and RSS functions are helpful - the rest is lost on me . Maybe the designer should focus on significantly increasing the number of interactive elements users are able to embed with this app .
Whatever happened to the good old days when people actually need to know how to code?
it’s missing a lot of standard content editor stuff like text alignment. The claim that a non HTML person can insert the resulting Java script into their page actually makes them an HTML person in my book. non HTML people usually resort to templates (which is what a Blog is) and even that is a challenge. Nonetheless this is something I will be recommending.
Do people not want to have the contents of their sites indexed by search engines anymore? Or have I missed the search robots starting to interpret every bit a js code that is inserted into a page? So how is this a good idea for anyone serious enough about people actually *reading* what they write…?
This type of inline html editor is almost 2 years behind the curve! I’m surprised that TechCrunch is actually reviewing this.
Way to delete like half the comments on this post Arrington. Shame on TechCrunch. You just want your readers to be a bunch of fanboy bozos.
You could rather use Google Docs and click edit HTML to copy the codes and paste it directly instead of the Javascript.
I used it to help me code this page:
http://www.buysportsvideogames.com/football.html
This is nothing more than Tiny MCE embedded on a web page. See: http://tinymce.moxiecode.com/
I wonder if this creates text that is compliant and readable in outlook, if someone were to post text that would end up as a newsletter.
The new outlook ‘07 has some very strict restrictions that mess up how html appears. If this created compliant code, this would be very useful for lots of marketers around the world.
Maybe I will have to check the website…
Tim McCormack
http://www.iRent2u.com - The Online Rental Marketplace
I have a ton of clients that this will save a load of time for basic about page changes, etc. Ialso have blog templates that this would make much easier to change!
I was gonna say this is cool, but for anyone with a half of a brain, using this to put primary content on any website of any level is a criminal thing to do.
The spiders ain’t gonna find that content. It ain’t gonna show up in the search engines. You’re just shooting yourself in the foot if you use this. Shame on you for not pointing that out in the original post Mike.
No matter what level of website that even uses this tool, its a bad idea. Now if they provided a way to export the generated html for upload to your site, that would be a different story.
This works for content control for me - i use it for my bio then anywhere my bio appears online it uses the same content DB..
Texty, welcome to the WYSIWYG party..we’ve been having fun for the last 6 years or so…thanks for bringing nothing special to the table other than a flashy logo and enough payola to get you written up on TechCrunch.
Why are the comments getting deleted??
Either block the whole damn commenting thing..or give the users the liberty to express what they feel…
Hi guys, I’ve just tested and nothing happens, no user profile created, click on the contact tab and there’s no contact, I think they are just working around and start the web without testing public access.
Cheers
This is an interesting idea for syndication. I like the idea about editing it once and having it roll out to all the sites containing the embed code.
However, with over 80% of my traffic coming from search engines, I can see why having your content wrapped up in javascript is a bad Idea. A search engine friendly way to do this would be to have Texty push out an RSS feed and then all your sites would need some server scripts to grab the feed and publish it, of course, that is tons more complicated than pasting some code into your html…-Metagg
This is a gross abuse and misconception and frankly I can be harsh enough to say misrepresentation of users who do not understand nor use HTML.
Who in their right mind would produce a tool that delivers text in a javascript?
So once you have these codes in place, what does the spider see. All of you out there who have rated this tool as cool can be forgiven if you fall into the same category as those who do not understand HTML or SEO, but if you understood and rated this tool as cool then you guilty of supporting this type of useless tool.
I implore you not to use this tool on your site. It is bad for Search Engines, Bad for validation and can affect the performance in the various multiple browser that visitors to your site use.
I will be bias here, but it is a tool I use all the time for small changes and it is hosted on our site:
http://www.oscandy.com/hoteditor
Simply type in what you need, upload images, put in link, whatever you need and press submit. It will convert the information into html for you and just copy and paste.
beautiful concept , name/domain.
However the Rich Text editor is not really Rich , they should allow selecting Font/Color , and eliminate the Pop-Up for links , images , html . etc ..
they need to embedd that as a layer.
I just tried it and I don’t like it. I am not very good at html coding but I use Yahoo SiteBuilder. SiteBuilder makes it very easy to develop good looking websites. Texty doesn’t even allow the user to have different backgrounds. I’m wondering why Arrington gave it the honor of a post?
By the way, I just passed the $100 mark for the first time on Google ads with my website, http://www.pass-ed.com/Living-Textbook.html.
Interesting idea…But not for me.
comparing greetlets to texty is like comparing yahoo to google….
just look at the pages…greetlets is a mass of crap and texty is clean and focuses
Very neat idea!