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January 9, 2008

Typeroom Simplifies Web Page Editing Online

Duncan Riley

37 comments »

typeroom.jpgLos Gatos, CA based Typeroom is developing a web based content management system that enables on the fly editing of existing sites.

The idea is simple. Typeroom users specify the URL of the page they wish to edit. Typeroom then creates a copy of that page on their servers for editing. The editing itself is WYSIWIG based and covers areas such a text editing and image placement. Once a user is finished making their edits they can download the edited page directly to their computer, or (presuming its their site) update it via ftp directly from Typeroom itself.

There are a number of companies operating in this space, but most are focused on creating websites from scratch, and sometimes don’t support existing websites, at least not from typing in the URL of the page and allow users to edit the page then and there.

Typeroom went into closed beta testing this week and is aiming for a full launch later in the year. It’s a good idea that in use works well (I tested it), and may find a willing audience when it eventually launches. Sure, many reading this might prefer to install their own CMS or edit pages via html, but for those not wanting that level of interactivity, Typeroom provides a web based alternative to desktop design packages that even those not design literate could use.

Demo video as follows:

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 9th, 2008 at 4:19 am 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.

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  1. chrisw

    January 9th, 2008 at 4:44 am

    Interesting product. I can see how this might have relevance to simple sites but for professional sites I can see some possible pitfalls. For instance, what if you want to add a new page as shown in the demo and wish have navigation links to the page added to the entire site (ie every page of the site) - how does it do this - if at all? Does it support navigation systems that are not simple ordered lists?

  2. totallity

    January 9th, 2008 at 4:54 am

    WYSIWYG is WYSIWTF !

  3. Yako

    January 9th, 2008 at 4:55 am

    This is like a frontpage 2.0

  4. Stanley Miller

    January 9th, 2008 at 4:57 am

    No need to wait for a beta. Chicago-based WebEditorPlus launched last year.

    http://www.webeditorplus.com/

    The founder, John Wondrasek spent a lot of time developing and maintaining sites for school districts. He found that once a site was up, users wanted was a simple tool to make edits on their own. Apparently there’s still a lot of basic html out there.

  5. Daehee

    January 9th, 2008 at 4:59 am

    Is there a reason why I would pay for the Typeroom Pro version instead of just downloading a free WYSIWIG HTML editor?

  6. Duncan Riley

    January 9th, 2008 at 5:01 am

    Daehee
    I only tested the lite version, I believe the Pro version will have a lot more features than what I’ve covered here but to be honest, until I see it, no idea.

  7. Paul Freet

    January 9th, 2008 at 5:01 am

    This is nothing like Frontpage!

    I can design quite complex web sites, but I don’t always want to. Sometimes I just want something quick and easy to push some new content. I think this could do quite well for that.

    I am a little curious about their business model. Have they talked about it yet?

  8. Daehee

    January 9th, 2008 at 5:09 am

    Paul - In regards to a business model for an online WYSIWIG editor, where is the revenue for a similar application Weebly coming from?

  9. Ambientium

    January 9th, 2008 at 5:49 am

    If you want to create a professional website very quickly use http://www.webnode.com. I’ve spent plenty of time in the end of last year searching for a suitable tool for my ambient music project (www.ambientium.com). Webnode.com is really amazing tool. They’ve got a one-click demo on the http://www.webnode.com, try it yourself and you will see. It’s much better than weebly, synthasite and all the others. It is completely drag and drop, with many components like polls, forum, photogallery, file management, news….. Webnode is a pretty good work, I’ll never use anything else!

  10. John Luther

    January 9th, 2008 at 5:51 am

    I don’t get it. This tool seems to assume that all the content on your site is in static pages. Who still runs even medium-sized web sites that way? From what I know most serious web sites today use some kind of CMS or template-based page generating system like Smarty, JSP, etc.

  11. chrisw

    January 9th, 2008 at 6:17 am

    From Typeroom’s web site: “Typeroom Lite is a website editing tool that allows you edit to any web page.” That’s a pretty bold statement. I bet I could find a dozen web sites in under 2 minutes that wouldn’t be able to be edited using this system. How does/will it handle flash or other media files? What about dynamic html or forms? Perhaps they should change that statement to “Typeroom Lite is a website editing tool that allows you edit to many different web pages.”

  12. Duncan Riley

    January 9th, 2008 at 6:17 am

    John
    this obviously isn’t aimed at design shops and (as you put it) serious websites. I could however see my mother using it.

    Paul
    I believe they’ll be charging for the premium version.

  13. chrisw

    January 9th, 2008 at 6:19 am

    Hmm - just realised the grammatical error on the Typeroom web site in that statement “Typeroom Lite is a website editing tool that allows you edit to any web page.” - should be “Typeroom Lite is a website editing tool that allows you to edit any web page.” Perhaps they need to use their own product to correct mistakes on their own page first.

  14. .rb

    January 9th, 2008 at 6:53 am

    * There still is a barrier to entry - for the low tech person.

    FTP / many people don’t have the first clue on how to http://ftp. 90% of website owners (who didn’t build it themselves) don’t even know their FTP credentials

  15. And watch...

    January 9th, 2008 at 6:59 am

    as the number of ripped sites sky rockets.

  16. Javy

    January 9th, 2008 at 7:16 am

    This software is really limited. After reviewing it I would still rather use either Joomla, WordPress or Drupal for a CMS.

  17. Maro

    January 9th, 2008 at 7:23 am

    Isn’t the lesson learned over the past few years that users don’t care to create custom webpages, like in the old days, and instead prefer to use a template based systems like blogs or Google Pages or Facebook profiles? I’d rather tell my grandma to use a blog and work around its limitations than throw something like this at her. I mean, she still would have to either download the result and upload it to the site and/or configure the direct FTP connection. This seems to go against the trend.

  18. Rajeev

    January 9th, 2008 at 7:46 am

    Quite innovative I would say.

    http://tekno-world.blogspot.com

  19. Craig Klein

    January 9th, 2008 at 8:20 am

    Sounds like an easy way for someone to rip off existing sites….

  20. Reilly Sweetland

    January 9th, 2008 at 8:52 am

    This is Reilly (the guy in the screencast). To answer a few of your questions / points here:

    The “lite” version is definitely meant for simpler websites with the main advantage being that 1. it is instant and 2. there is a free version that does not require (or allow) http://FTP. We will be posting a screencast on Typeroom Lite soon to show this in more detail. (Will be posted on http://www.typeroom.com/blog )

    After operating a web design / development business for 5 years, I can tell you that there are still plenty of straight HTML/CSS that need updating. :)

    The “pro” version won’t be a total replacement for Joomla or Drupal…at least not yet…but definitely accounts for “serious websites”. This system (as well as Lite) is built to co-exist easily with other applications easily like blogs, carts, forums, etc.

    @15, 19: browser>file>”save as”?

  21. Eve

    January 9th, 2008 at 8:58 am

    I have been down a path like this before - and it’s a real bad path.

    We set up a 10-page site for a customer, which they could edit using a tool like this (homegrown). They could even create new pages.

    The site grew to 200 pages. Then they wanted to change the menu. On every page. and a few styles.

    Normal sites with CSS and a central navigation area and a central template would be simple to make massive changes to. Tools like this (it appears) make each page a separate entity, with no common elements! (Look up DRY principle!)

    Not to mention that customer would try unusual things like creating web contact forms themselves, and wonder why they don’t work.

    Good luck with this bad idea.

    Why not just tell them to paste this into their Address Bar? (try it, all one line)

    javascript:document.body.contentEditable=’true’; document.designMode=’on’; void 0

  22. bob

    January 9th, 2008 at 10:09 am

    @21 Eve, can you explain more about your 1 line statement?
    javascript:document.body.contentEditable=’true’; document.designMode=’on’; void 0
    What does it do?

  23. Don

    January 9th, 2008 at 10:22 am

    Quite honestly, I have seen many other products do much better than this product.

    Techcrunch really does not have a handle on this world of CMS. They’ve posted this mention for a very mundane product, and then Duncan admits that it’s probably best used for his mother!

    Is this a Techcrunch quality product? A product that you can’t even justify would be useful to the majority of people who build Web sites (designers, developers, businesses)? Is this the new “mom CMS”? Big audience there.

    The commentors here know more about this industry that you, Duncan. If you’re going to post about CMS, why don’t you learn about the issues that exist in the market?

    - hundreds of pages
    - separate design from content
    - various permission levels
    - sharing content
    - etc. etc.

    They don’t even have users to justify their product will succeed!

    As someone who is building a CMS product, and who has submitted their product for honest review by your staff, this posting is almost offensive. It’s your Web site but as a loyal Techcrunch reader this posting either smells of ignorance about the industry or a friend helping a friend—and both smells make me wary of reding anything on here.

  24. andrej telle

    January 9th, 2008 at 11:46 am

    at Don: you probably did not have a youtube-video to go along :)

  25. rasko

    January 9th, 2008 at 11:59 am

    Did someone say “Contribute”?

  26. Eric R

    January 9th, 2008 at 1:17 pm

    I am no tech guy and have very limited knowledge of the inter workings of websites. But I am part of Typeroom’s key market as am a professional and avid internet user and website owner.

    I personally have had the opportunity to test out Typeroom on my website and what I found about it is once I get the basic familiarity with the functions I no longer need to call my web designer for a simple news update or a small change in information.

    To me this product is fantastic as it adds the ability to have constantly new content on a website without the unneeded third party designer.

  27. Jeff Lindsay

    January 9th, 2008 at 2:42 pm

    From what I understand, most of the issues people mention about what it doesn’t do are addressed in the unreleased Pro version. I also think people underestimate the different niches that exist in a given market as large as online publishing.

    I think Lite is just a teaser to show off their awesome editor… I mean, it’s one of the few that makes super clean code, encourages good semantics, while still being WYSIWYG.

  28. Eve

    January 9th, 2008 at 3:35 pm

    @22 Bob:

    The Javascript command that I listed on line 21 allows you to edit a page, ANY page. Paste it into the URL line of this web page, for example, press enter or go, and then start editing the page.

    See http://www.digg.com/programmin.....mages_Text (not an original idea)

    Of course you can’t save the page. I was just offering a free alternative as a joke.

  29. Rocky Tilney

    January 9th, 2008 at 4:47 pm

    I have used the lite version and I can definitely see a market for this. Some of the comments from folks saying that this isn’t a good solution have got to be kidding. The majority of businesses are not Fortune 500, they are small businesses who can’t afford (time or money) to hire a design team for ad hoc text changes or simple images updates.

    I’ve designed websites for small and medium sized business for 10 years now. Most clients don’t know or want to know how to maintain their website. Most open-source CMS tools are over-developed and too complicated for this segment of the market.

    This is a great tool and fills a need.

  30. Robin Fisher

    January 9th, 2008 at 6:02 pm

    For major interface or site structural changes, of course people will have to contact a pro for assistance. But for everyday maintenance, this is a great value added DITY tool that I will be adding to my arsenal to ensure my client’s satisfaction. There are many, many small businesses and non-profits who will benefit from this tool which has a low learning curve, doesn’t intimidate those who are not so cyber-savvy, writes clean code, and eliminates the hassle of training clients how to code and/or http://FTP.

    I for one will be using this tool for many of my clients in the future.

    For the poster who suggest that this is too low-tech for TechCrunch to give online real estate to - give me a break. It is a tech tool designed for a specific market - the non-cyber savvy - not the heavy hitters in the industry. IOW, for real people, not cyber-jocks such as yourself.

    For the poster who mentioned that custom designed websites are a thing of the past - think again. I sell more custom website designs than any other type of design work and my services are becoming more popular, not less. Templates work for some, but many small businesses care about differentiating their brand from their competitors - enough so that I make a very good living providing custom designs for them.

    For the poster who mentioned that static pages are not used for “serious websites” - you are an arrogant snob. All of my clients are very serious about presenting information about their businesses on the web, no matter how small their businesses or website might be. Static pages serve this need just as well as dynamic pages, if not better from an SEO perspective. Neither browsers nor users care what lies behind the visuals - as long as it renders properly and works functionally, the type of coding and/or programming used is irrelevant.

  31. Max Kanat-Alexander

    January 10th, 2008 at 1:08 am

    Brilliant and beautiful. :-)

    -Max

  32. Don

    January 10th, 2008 at 6:46 am

    You do Typeroom no favors by calling people “cyber-jock” or “arrogant-snob”. This smells like a Sunnyvale/Mountain View inside job. Your personal sites reflect that.

  33. MaxPayne

    January 10th, 2008 at 7:39 am

    This is obviously going to appeal to those web site operators who has a lot of static content pages. That might be a good market, but for the projects we come across, every page is built dynamically so this wouldn’t be a good fit for our projects.

  34. Shelley

    January 10th, 2008 at 10:11 am

    Does anyone know what this costs? We’re using a web-based editor to manage our static content now. It’s called WebEditor+ (webeditorplus.com). It costs us less than $10 per month for unlimited users and 25 editable pages. We love it.

  35. Sheryl Hamlin

    January 10th, 2008 at 8:42 pm

    For those who would rather control the process, the security and the physical files, an alternative would be Bizyweb, a rich Internet application for the management and maintenance of websites, where a non-technical user can define a ‘place’ on a page and edit the page. Screen shots are available at http://www.plugandplaywebmaster.com and screencasts showing the product in action at http://www.bizyweb.com where you can also download the product and try it yourself. You can preserve the look and feel of the site, while changing the variable content or you can clone a page, change the content and create a link to a new page. Read the whitepaper on creating a new page. The product is designed for use by the novice to the advanced user depending which features are invoked. Bizyweb is not merely HTML editing of a page, which is why it is called ‘Place Management’ because only the defined ‘place’ is editable.

  36. Brad

    January 24th, 2008 at 3:49 pm

    @34 Shelly: This doesn’t cost anything. The pro version does though. Maybe my own writeup ( http://chaotictech.wordpress.c.....-its-beta/ ) will clear things up a bit. :D

  37. Reilly Sweetland

    January 25th, 2008 at 1:31 pm

    @Shelly: The program is free for emailing your edits (to a webmaster, etc) or downloading the edited files. Directly FTPing files will require a paid account (when we are out of beta). The cost for this will be $12/mo and allows for editing any number of pages on a given domain.

    And yes, Brad’s review (above) does a great job of introducing you to the system.

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