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August 10, 2007

Texty: Dead Simple Content Creation And Editing

Michael Arrington

66 comments »

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.

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Friday, August 10th, 2007 at 10:48 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Trackbacks/Pings (Trackback URL)

  1. Texty: Dead Simple Content Creation And Editing » TechAddress

    August 10th, 2007 at 11:30 pm

  2. Alexandre’s Blog » Blog Archive » Texty: Editer vos textes sans éditer votre code!

    August 11th, 2007 at 1:06 am

  3. Tiffinbox

    August 11th, 2007 at 7:42 am

  4. Zoli's Blog

    August 11th, 2007 at 7:55 pm

  5. CenterNetworks

    August 12th, 2007 at 7:04 am

Comments

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  1. Anand

    August 10th, 2007 at 11:15 pm

    —————————————————————————————————-
    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!
    —————————————————————————————————-

  2. Jono

    August 11th, 2007 at 12:00 am

    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.

  3. Ed

    August 11th, 2007 at 12:08 am

    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..

  4. Alexandre

    August 11th, 2007 at 12:37 am

    In the same idea I use WriteToMyBlog (www.writetomyblog.com)

  5. Alexandre

    August 11th, 2007 at 12:39 am

    Sorry! it’s really not the same thing!

  6. Joshua

    August 11th, 2007 at 12:44 am

    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.

  7. zzz

    August 11th, 2007 at 12:47 am

    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.

  8. Garth Hall

    August 11th, 2007 at 2:42 am

    Its kind of fun like starting all over again, but it may be useful somewhere, sometime.

  9. Alex Grogan

    August 11th, 2007 at 3:43 am

    “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.

  10. Alex Grogan

    August 11th, 2007 at 3:45 am

    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.

  11. Jason Nelms

    August 11th, 2007 at 4:12 am

    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.

  12. Savino Sguera

    August 11th, 2007 at 4:35 am

    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.

  13. Jon Gilkison

    August 11th, 2007 at 4:59 am

    What happens when texty goes dark?

    What happens when google indexes your site?

  14. ThePlaz

    August 11th, 2007 at 5:20 am

    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.

  15. Tom Gleeson

    August 11th, 2007 at 5:40 am

    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.

  16. Mustafa

    August 11th, 2007 at 5:50 am

    My comment got deleted! :( Politics I say!

  17. Kris

    August 11th, 2007 at 5:55 am

    I just don’t see the market for this.

  18. srini

    August 11th, 2007 at 6:12 am

    finally a great brand ! yay - texty ! how cool and original, congratulations folks. some of you others should think about this.

    -srini

  19. Vic

    August 11th, 2007 at 6:45 am

    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?

  20. Colin Rowley

    August 11th, 2007 at 6:53 am

    Anyone ever heard of Light (speaklight.com)? I find it much more easy and robust then Texty.

  21. patricia

    August 11th, 2007 at 7:21 am

    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.

  22. Mike

    August 11th, 2007 at 7:54 am

    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.

  23. Shnitsel

    August 11th, 2007 at 8:09 am

    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.

  24. sainib

    August 11th, 2007 at 8:10 am

    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 ..

  25. Richard Corsale

    August 11th, 2007 at 8:22 am

    its a cool little web 2.0 widget type thing that has REAL marketing potential… I been thunk it gooder.

  26. desik

    August 11th, 2007 at 8:24 am

    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 .

  27. Richard Corsale

    August 11th, 2007 at 8:27 am


  28. Nerd Forum

    August 11th, 2007 at 8:53 am

    Whatever happened to the good old days when people actually need to know how to code?

  29. Chris Byrne

    August 11th, 2007 at 9:05 am

    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.

  30. Holger

    August 11th, 2007 at 10:05 am

    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…?

  31. Mike

    August 11th, 2007 at 10:13 am

    This type of inline html editor is almost 2 years behind the curve! I’m surprised that TechCrunch is actually reviewing this.

  32. TechDumpster (living in First Life)

    August 11th, 2007 at 10:18 am

    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.

  33. Chris

    August 11th, 2007 at 10:24 am

    You could rather use Google Docs and click edit HTML to copy the codes and paste it directly instead of the Javascript.

  34. Teddy Roxbing

    August 11th, 2007 at 10:38 am

    I used it to help me code this page:

    http://www.buysportsvideogames.com/football.html

  35. Ryan

    August 11th, 2007 at 10:53 am

    This is nothing more than Tiny MCE embedded on a web page. See: http://tinymce.moxiecode.com/

  36. Tim McCormack

    August 11th, 2007 at 10:53 am

    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

  37. Webdesignr

    August 11th, 2007 at 11:08 am

    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!

  38. Revsense

    August 11th, 2007 at 11:15 am

    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.

  39. gropHal

    August 11th, 2007 at 11:52 am

    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..

  40. Too Much

    August 11th, 2007 at 12:11 pm

    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.

  41. Importer

    August 11th, 2007 at 12:45 pm

    Why are the comments getting deleted??

    Either block the whole damn commenting thing..or give the users the liberty to express what they feel…

  42. Miguel

    August 11th, 2007 at 1:16 pm

    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

  43. Metagg

    August 11th, 2007 at 1:27 pm

    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

  44. Azzam Sheikh

    August 11th, 2007 at 1:48 pm

    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.

  45. Faisal

    August 11th, 2007 at 2:17 pm

    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.

  46. Andrew Pass

    August 11th, 2007 at 2:31 pm

    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.

  47. David Mackey

    August 11th, 2007 at 2:37 pm

    Interesting idea…But not for me.

  48. chad

    August 11th, 2007 at 2:41 pm


  49. beng

    August 11th, 2007 at 3:16 pm

    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

  50. Jess

    August 11th, 2007 at 3:41 pm

    Very neat idea!

  51. Alex

    August 11th, 2007 at 3:45 pm

    Advanced HTML editors have existed for years now, before web 2.0 etc. In general i would prefer someone putting 100% effort writing an interesting article / comment rather than wasting time putting a pointless rant and using something like texty to decorate it with links or other stuff.

    Notepad ftw.

  52. Allen Stern

    August 11th, 2007 at 3:52 pm

    Company goes out of business, there goes all your text and effort with this javascript model.

  53. jeremeyr

    August 11th, 2007 at 8:41 pm

    Although this might be used by Web2 sites - lets face it - anyone reading this blog probably maintains a website for a friend, family member or small business. And all of us hate doing small text changes when they want to modify the homepage text, or change some message from the “ceo” or something. this solves for that. so i dont think it should be judged on the basis of a replacement for higher grade cms systems - but a solution for the small personal website..

  54. Vuknje

    August 12th, 2007 at 2:58 am

    I am working on similiar web app, but aimed at web designers.

    Because of javascript/search engines problem, I decided to generate code for embeding in .php file. It’s CURL based, and it is search engine friendly (naturally).

    Check it out on http://www.frontfriend.com/beta

  55. Derrick

    August 12th, 2007 at 5:50 am

    Does this look like the TINYMCE editor? well with a lot less buttons though.

  56. Cosmican

    August 12th, 2007 at 4:15 pm

    For dead simple content creation for your blogs, you may want to try Stuff-a-Blog ( http://stuffablog.com ).

    Here, you can enhance your post with popular content from the web.

  57. Splikker.com

    August 12th, 2007 at 10:04 pm

    Come on Michael, are you serious? What about real applications like Writely (http://writely.google.com) and Interspire’s DevEdit (http://www.interspire.com/devedit)? Texty isn’t a rich HTML editor at all.

  58. Via me Via you

    August 13th, 2007 at 3:49 am

    Another service which used to do an “instant blog” type of thing was BubbleTwo. Now it’s gone, and I miss it. :) You just started to type, and it created a blog.. without having to spend more than 1 second on configuration!

  59. Jeffro2pt0

    August 13th, 2007 at 12:36 pm

    Hello there crunchers. I published a review of this service today on my own site click on my name to check it out. There are two things worth mentioning about this service.

    First of all, what happens if this site or service disappears? All of the content that is saved onto Texty.com would most likely disappear as well. Secondly, and I may be wrong about this, but I don’t think the text will be crawlable by search engine spiders. Instead of seeing text, the spiders will see a line of javascript code which makes up the Texty hurting the search value of your site.

    Could this be the poor mans blog?

  60. lucia

    August 13th, 2007 at 1:27 pm

    What problem is this meant to solve? Not knowing how to use HTML? That problem was solved back when dinosaurs roamed the earth.

    Not being able to ftp?

    The local knitting store owner didn’t know how to do that and also didn’t want to, so she asked me, a customer to train the highschool student. So I did. If you can learn to run the cash register, you can learn to ftp!

  61. NanuNanu

    August 13th, 2007 at 2:55 pm

    I believe I can see the future if this thing gets out. Yes, I see another round of ugly websites showing up again. It burns the eyes of the people that know how to type code. The WYSIWYG IS just hurting my eyes with the ugly coding on the page.

    That is how many websites that turn out with the WYSIWYG editor.

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