Wix

Wix is an interesting service which allows you to produce sites using Flash, Adobe's proprietary animation and display program. Normally this is a complex process but Wix make it simple with a large selection of templates and 'Drag and Drop' editing.

You can have an animated site up and running in a few minutes and include sound, video, movement and some very fancy transitions. Not surprisingly, it has attracted quite a few folk from the visual community and if you browse their featured sites, made using the Wix system, there are a lot of photographers, designers and people working in the visual arts.

Interestingly, you can also produce Flash-animated headers to include in other websites, as well as small Flash promotional animations to use in e-mails.

Their first upgrade (paid-for) package costs $4.95 per month (about £3.30), giving you 500MB of storage space and 500 MB of monthly bandwidth but, sadly, it still contains the Wix logo and branding so you are paying to advertise them. If you really want a Flash site, then this is an easy way to do it stress-free, but you need to feel happy about paying to keep their name on your site.

Started in 2006, it has its headquarters in New York and Tel Aviv. Why, you may ask, is it called 'Wix' - well (something here for the branding experts to ponder) ..."it was an easy three-letter word with an available URL (web address)".

One of our advisors, Peter Schulberg, uses the paid-for version of Wix to host his Eco-LA gallery website, so to see a live version of what people can do with Wix, take a look.    www.eco-logicalart.org