SitePoint
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| SitePoint Pty Ltd | |
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| Type of Company | Private company |
|---|---|
| Founded | Melbourne (Jan 1, 2000) |
| Headquarters | Melbourne, Australia |
| Key people | Mark Harbottle, Co-founder & Managing Director Matt Mickiewicz, Co-founder & Sales Manager |
| Industry | Publishing Web development Computer software |
| Website | www.sitepoint.com |
SitePoint is a publishing and web solutions company based in Melbourne, Australia.
Contents |
[edit] Current Business Activities
SitePoint is composed of three divisions:
- SitePoint Media produces and sells advertising and educational publications (kits, books & videos) for web professionals, through its online presence sitepoint.com.
- SitePoint Solutions produces customised web-based solutions for small to medium-sized companies
- SitePoint Software currently sells one product – Editize, a WYSIWYG editing tool for Content Management Systems.
[edit] History
[edit] 1997-1999: Building the community
In early 1997, Canadian Matt Mickiewicz launched a resource site for web masters on xoom.com, at the time a free web page hosting service. The service soon became popular and was moved to the Webmaster-Resources.com domain, where it gained considerable media coverage in the LA Times, USA Today, The Washington Times and Windows magazine.
In 1999 Webmaster-Resources.com was expanded to include the Community Forums, which experienced rapid growth. At the end of 1999 Mickiewicz teamed up with Melbourne-based entrepreneur Mark Harbottle to relaunch the site under the SitePoint name.
[edit] 2000-2003: Publishing, software and web standards
The launch of sitepoint.com saw the company expand to include several technical and design staff. In 2001 Kevin Yank (another Canadian) also joined the company, and authored the first SitePoint book Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP & MySQL, based on a popular tutorial that appeared on sitepoint.com.
In 2002 the first software product was launched (Editize) and over 10,000 sales of the first book were registered through sitepoint.com. Following this success, production began on more technical books and business-related kits. In addition, SitePoint began distributing several newsletters covering business, technical and design issues affecting web professionals.
In 2003 sitepoint.com switched to a pure CSS layout[1]; it was one of the first high-traffic sites to do so and paved the way for other big sites such as wired.com and espn.com. SitePoint articles and books have since had a focus of web standards and best practice approaches to web development.
[edit] 2004-2006: Retail and recognition
In 2004 SitePoint began distributing its books through O'Reilly Media in the USA and Canada. SitePoint was recognized in the 2004 BRW Fast 100, Deloitte Technology Fast 50, and the Deloitte Asia Pacific Fast 500.
At the beginning of 2006, SitePoint had published 11 books and 2 kits. The forums had grown to include over 100,000 members, and more than 350,000 people were subscribed to SitePoint’s newsletters. According to Alexa, sitepoint.com currently receives over 70,000 unique visitors, placing it in the top 700 sites in the world.
[edit] SitePoint Solutions
SitePoint’s web services division has a portfolio of around 30 sites from within Australia and internationally. Notable sites developed by SitePoint include:
[edit] SitePoint Software
SitePoint’s flagship software product is Editize, a WYSIWYG text box replacement for Content Management Systems. It has sold well due to it being one of only a number of cross-browser solutions available.
SitePoint have also developed a number of other products in response to client needs, including:
- gazette (a Content Management System)
- depot (Intranet/Extranet Document Management) and
- maxim (eCommerce).
[edit] SitePoint Forums
[edit] Webmaster Community
The SitePoint Forums are host to an active community for people looking to learn about web design or web development, and are regarded as one of the most authoritative webmaster community sites on the Web.
[edit] SitePoint Marketplace
The SitePoint Marketplace has evolved from the forums as an active online trading hub for the web design and development community. Activity is focussed in two main areas:
- Site Sales: people selling sites that they have developed and established regular traffic and advertising for.
- Contests: people requesting a logo or site design by announcing a competition (and the prize money to be awarded) and selecting the best submission. Because of the number of entries a contest receives, it is a popular way for people to obtain graphic design services, and is in contrast to the traditional approach of engaging one graphic designer for the job.
[edit] External links
[edit] SitePoint Books
A list of SitePoint titles (reverse chronological order, as at late 2006):
- The Usability Kit
- The Photoshop Anthology: 101 Web Design Tips, Tricks & Techniques
- Deliver First Class Web Sites: 101 Essential Checklists
- Build Your Own AJAX Web Applications
- Build Your Own Web Site The Right Way Using HTML & CSS
- The JavaScript Anthology
- Run Your Own Web Server Using Linux & Apache
- Build Your Own Standards-Compliant Website Using Dreamweaver 8
- No Nonsense XML Web Development With PHP
- Firefox Secrets
- The Search Engine Marketing Kit
- DHTML Utopia: Modern Web Design Using JavaScript & DOM
- The CSS Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks
- The Flash Anthology: Cool Effects & Practical ActionScript
- The Web Design Business Kit
- The PHP Anthology: Oriented PHP Solutions
- Build Your Own ASP.NET Website Using C# & VB.NET
- HTML Utopia: Designing Without Tables Using CSS
- Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP & MySQL
