Hello

[strebel]

Just saying Hello for my first post...

edit: doh, "lobby" was one forum up from this.

[Ryan]

Welcome to the forum :D

I'll move this over to the lobby for you :)

[wpmuguru]

Welcome to the forum :)

[GingerWench]

Welcome to the tavern :) {new here myself lol}

[strebel]

I guess I can be a bit more descriptive.

I have been hackin on WP since, well before it was wp. Mostly just using it for client sites under our client services brand. About 3 years ago we had an idea to automate wp installs for clients. The brand sucked and wp was only at v1.5 so it was a little ahead of it's time... it worked, just no market yet.

However this spring we revisited the idea and have relaunched our wordpress hosting service as http://page.ly. Which does work :)

I am PHX local. I helped get the ball rolling and sponsored the PHX Wordcamp we just had here. So in a nutshell: I make stuff on wp.

thanks.

[Jeffro]

You've been around a long while then if we're talking 1.5 days. How popular has Page.ly been so far considering the likes of Fantastico and all?

[strebel]

Well, page.ly is a very new brand. Launched about ~3 months ago is all. But it has been warmly received with clients coming aboard everyday. Our audience is more the casual consumer that knows WP is the shizz, just not sure how to set it up. WP pros that already have a dedicated hosting solution in place at say bluhost or mt, may not be our target audience. funny graphic that details this. We do have a reseller program though for small agencies, wp freelancers, etc.

However when speaking of Fantastico or other "1-click" installers here are the drawbacks as I see them:

1. Assumes you already went thru the domain/hosting setup purchase process.. do that on godaddy and you just lost 3 hours of your life clicking "no thank you" to the upsells, before you even get to the "1-click" option

2. After the 1-click installer what do you have? A bare bones wp install. The customer still needs to locate and install plugins and themes, basic permalinks settings, etc.

So maybe 2-4 hours later the typical web consumer can write their first blog post...

Page.ly: From signup to first post/page.. ~2 minutes. + wide choice of free and premium themes + pre-configured with popular plugins + email service + automatic nightly backups + automatic wp core upgrades ++

I think page.ly fits nicely between wp.com's ease of setup and wp.org's freedom of use. Best of both offerings.

Didn't mean to turn this response into a sales pitch..oh well :)

[andrea_r]

do that on godaddy and you just lost 3 hours of your life clicking "no thank you" to the upsells, before you even get to the "1-click" option

This made me laugh SO hard because it;s so true.

Just curious: do you know yet how you'll plan on handling a merged codebase when users want to turn on multiple blogs?

[strebel]

Been thinking about it.. but have not made any determination about it.

[Len]

Page.ly may be only 3 months old but I've heard of it. (word travels fast 'round these parts)