What can you use the application for?
Yola (formerly SynthaSite) is an application that’s designed to make building websites really quick and easy. Traditional tools to build websites were always very complicated, however using synthasite is simply a matter of dragging and dropping various components around and designing your website. Unlike a number of other online site designers this one produces very high quality, professional looking websites that you will be proud to show off to everyone. The website can also be hosted for free which is another unique idea.
What is the history and popularity of the application?
Synthasite was founded in 2007 by Vinny Lingham, Brent Viljoen, Trevor Harries-Jones, Peter Bodechtel, and Stefan Lourens. The site raised $25 million in funding from a number of different sources including Reinet Fund. It’s a very popular site and its competitors include Wix, Jimdo and MindTouch. In 2008 they acquired Clickpass which is designed to make OpenID easy and accessible to the masses. SynthaSite changed it's name to Yola in March 2009.
What are the differences to other applications?
Yola offers a number of differences over other online web designers. This service offers free hosting and it’s possible to create websites by doing nothing more than pointing and clicking. You can then easily upload this site to your own hosting account, or host it for free on their servers. The whole system and process is very easy to use, you don’t need to know how to build websites, all you need to do is point, click and drag objects around to create your site. There’s no need to use expensive tools, or spend time learning complicated programming languages.
How does the application look and feel to use?
Yola has a very attractive design, the design is very clean and it’s very easy to find out where you need to click to do various things. Creating a website with Yola is very easy; all you need to do is name it, then select one of the many templates. You can also customize some of the templates by selecting different color pallets. The site is a little slow at times, but this is to be expected as what it is doing is actually fairly complex. As soon as you have chosen your template you can then set to work dragging various components onto the screen. There is a toolbox at the right hand side that contains all of the different types of content. It also incorporates with PayPal for online shopping cart functions.
How does the registration process work?
Registering for an account with Yola doesn’t take very long; you just need to fill out the form on the main page. After you have done this you will be able to start building your own site, you are walked through a number of different options to set your site up exactly how you want it.
What does it cost to use the application?
Everything is free on the site except for domain names. Every account comes with free hosting and free website design tools. You also get a sub domain to access your sites through (xxx.yola.com), however if you want a domain name then you will have to buy one. Buying a domain name from yola will cost $19.95 per year; however you can get a domain name from anywhere else if you want to at a much lower price.
Who would you recommend the application to?
Yola is a fantastic application which is ideal for anyone who wants to build websites but lacks the time or inclination to build their own sites from scratch. Because there are so many templates on offer it’s pretty easy to build unique sites even though you’re using templates. It’s also possible to create sites that look professional and are very high quality.
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