Sitemasher to Unveil Sitemasher Site Network

We’ll be unveiling our newest addition to the Sitemasher product family – Sitemasher Site Network – in the near future, so I’d like to explain the concept. Sitemasher Site Network allows you to network multiple websites in order to share assets among the sites without duplicating pages, graphics, styling, and so on.

What problems does Sitemasher Site Network solve?

Over the past few months, I’ve met with countless companies that deal with not only the pain of managing their corporate parent website, but also the pain of updating their many regional websites. There is duplication of information and assets among websites, and maintaining all of that duplication is burdensome.

Any company with several websites has to look for ways to let information flow or be inherited from the main corporate website (the parent site) to the many sub websites (the child sites). Now think about that – can you imagine trying to keep pace with hundreds of websites instead of just one? Tools such as WordPress and RSS feeds enable companies to share articles, and some companies use custom XML or data-entry tools to make changes to user interfaces, and so on. However, these complex, custom systems are often cumbersome, and merely sharing articles is pretty limiting.

So we shared the concept on Sitemasher with early adopters and asked them to give us their “wish list” in order to change the way multi-site companies run their online businesses. Here’s what they said:

• What if I could have parent pages from a corporate website that could share site assets (logos, movies, forms, graphics, styling, and content) to related child websites?
• What if I could publish or update any kind of content to any number of websites in real time, through a system of parent-child sites?
• What if I could make all of these changes without having to make changes to multiple sites?

The solution!

Sitemasher Site Network allows the corporate parent site to create several common assets just once – such as advertising, branding, forms, search functionality, and labeling – and then publish these common assets to the libraries of all the child sites. The child-site creator can then create their customized website from a blank canvas and simply place the parent-site assets onto the page where they see fit.The critical point here is that once placed, the parent site is still connected to the child site and can update the assets at any time. And if you look at the breadth of an offering like this, you can do something as simple as I described here – publishing a connected library – but you can also create parent templates with locked assets that only the parent site can change. Plus, the number of sites you can publish to is virtually unlimited.

Coming soon

Sitemasher Site Network will be available in the Sitemasher product by late August 2008.

Have questions or want to be influential in this product’s feature development? Then send an email message to Ron Moravek, Sitemasher’s CEO, at Ron@sitemasher.com.

Sitemasher Attends Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference

The Sitemasher crew (Phil, Ron, and Nicole) attended the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WWPC) to discuss Sitemasher's recent entry into the Microsoft Startup Accelerator Program with Microsoft's Emerging Business Team.

Sitemasher was invited to join the Microsoft Startup Accelerator Program as a result of winning the Microsoft Blue Sky Innovation award. The program is designed to accelerate the success of high-potential software startups around the globe by providing access, guidance, and support for the Microsoft platform. Accelerator companies are selected to join the program based on their innovation, high growth potential, funding, platform decision, and strategic importance to Microsoft.

Microsoft is really excited to have Sitemasher within the portfolio of high-potential startups, according to Dave Drach, Managing Director of the Emerging Business Team at Microsoft.

Because Sitemasher's product portfolio is aligned with Microsoft strategy, there is ample opportunity for partnering, so after discussing business plans with Dave, the crew from Sitemasher moved on to talk to potential partners.

As Ron explained, “It's really invigorating to have Microsoft and partners get excited about Sitemasher's mission. It seems like everybody that builds, manages, or owns a website can relate to the problems we're trying to solve. Having that kind of response at an event like this is huge! The Microsoft team and partners were really enthusiastic.”