http://orgu.com<p>We have just launched a website creation tool for group-based websites. A few student organizations have been using it since alpha (you'll see them at the bottom of the homepage) and they really like it so far.<p>It utilizes the Blogger XML template language (and can use any template of this type), so the sites look a lot like blogs. However, you might say they are suped-up blogs, with added features like calendar and photos.<p>We are 2 people, we have recently graduated in the Chicago area, we hope to pursue this as a startup. The webapp is still very much in beta (and there are many half-baked features), but we just wanted valuable feedback from the YC community to help us in future iterations. Thanks so much!
It's nice work, congratulations! As someone else said, leveraging Blogger templates is a great idea.<p>All PHP + MySQL?<p>Curious to know if 'orgu' indicative of the target market, university groups? Or am I reading too much into those four letters? :)<p>I think your greatest challenge will be breaking out of the huge array of similar and seemingly-similar products out there. This is a battle more likely won by marketing than technology. Find that niche, attack it, dominate it, and you'll do well.
Looks very nice. Few thoughts:
1. Why does it ask for my first and last name when signing up? I expected that field to want a screenname, given the pretty standard signup box requiring sn, email, password, password again you find everywhere.
2. Do you have to use a java uploader for pics? I'd rather just upload one at a time manually than have to have java on my PC. Can that at least be an alternative?
The middle box where you have references to Calendar, Easy Photos, Member Directory and Group Blog should be clickable to sample pages. People want to see sample pages before creating their own websites.<p>It would be great if you let people create websites without having to signup. Once they are ready to save then you can ask them to signup.
Looks nice. Being compatible with Blogger themes is a smart move. How do you plan to compete with Google Pages, Weebly, and all the other site builders? A calendar and a member directory might not be a big enough differentiator.
It's nice, but for rock-bottom low-friction signup and easy (Markdown-based) formatting you might want to consider emulating jottit.com.<p>It's also possibly worthwhile to add a "dump entire site as a bunch of text" button; to bring people back, send them away, or whatever the aphorism is.<p>Nice demo.
I like the demos. I can see lots of fraternities and sororities using it. Is there any plan to do marketing/pr? Is there also a paid version (to use your own domain)?
this looks incredible! it is exactly the type of webapp i've been looking for. many of the other sites are too cluttered, orgu is simple and easy to use. thanks for creating such a great tool.<p>will you eventually have a way to completely customize my own template and not be limited to the ones offered? also- will you eventually be charging to use the site? how are you planning on making money??
Nice site.<p>One question - How do you handle the auto-creation of user-specified subdomains ? (I ask as I'd like to do something similar)<p>Do you run your own DNS or do you update records at your DNS provider ? (If the latter how do you automate that process ?)
oh yeah... we are aware of a possible naming conflict with orgoo.com, so we're thinking about rebranding. any suggestions for new names would be appreciated.