Weebly

Weebly
Weebly's page and website editor
Type of site
Web hosting service
FoundedMarch 29, 2006; 18 years ago (2006-03-29) (Beta)
Founder(s)
  • David Rusenko
  • Dan Veltri
  • Chris Fanini[1]
ParentBlock, Inc.
URLweebly.com

Weebly, a subsidiary of Block, Inc., is an American web hosting and web development company based in San Francisco, California. Founded in 2006 by David Rusenko, Chris Fanini, and Dan Veltri, the company has grown to provide user-friendly website creation tools and services. David Rusenko served as the Chief Executive Officer, Chris Fanini as the Chief Technology Officer, and Dan Veltri as the Chief Product Officer.

History

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The company was established to simplify the process of building personal websites. Development of the platform began in January 2006. By June 2006, an invitational beta version was introduced, followed by the official launch of a private beta in September 2006. Weebly has received funding from a range of investors, including angel investors and venture capital firms. In 2018, co-founder Dan Veltri departed from the company.

Features

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In March 2007, Weebly re-launched with its "WYSIWYG" editing interface,[2] "Pro" accounts and Google AdSense monetization features, as well as compatibility with Google Chrome and Safari.[3] In 2010, the company added French, Italian, Spanish, and Chinese languages[4] followed by integrated JotForm software into its services.[5] On October 1, 2015, Weebly Carbon was released to allow plugin integration among other features. In 2016, Weebly began focusing on its e-commerce offerings with the release of Weebly 4 and Weebly Promote, an integrated marketing tool.[6]

As more sellers began using the company, the company created features for doing taxes, integrations with Shippo, a Facebook Ad creator, email marketing and lead capture, abandoned cart features, the release of Mobile 5.0 to help sellers run their store from anywhere, and deep integrations with Square payment processing.

Weebly initially faced criticism for its lack of CSS/HTML editing support, but this functionality was added in 2009.

Offices

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The company expanded its offices, including a 36,000 square feet warehouse in San Francisco, to accommodate its growing team. Additionally, Weebly opened a Berlin office in 2015/2016 to offer European-based support and marketing.

Acquisition by Square

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In 2018, Weebly was acquired by Square, Inc. (now known as Block, Inc.[7]) for approximately $365 million in cash and stock. At the time of the acquisition on June 4, 2018.,[8] Weebly had millions of customers and over 625,000 paid subscribers.

Product

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Weebly's website creator operates in a web browser, using a widget-based site builder with drag-and-drop[9][10] functionality. Storage is unlimited, but the service restricts individual file sizes.[11] It automatically generates a mobile version of each website, supports blogging and e-commerce. Users can have various domain endings, including .weebly.com, .com, .net, .org, .co, .info, or .us.

Weebly also provides Android and iPhone apps for monitoring website traffic, updating blog posts, managing e-Commerce stores, and more.[12][13] Users can incorporate advertisements on their websites and track visitor statistics through Weebly's tracking tool or Google Analytics. The platform also offers integrated newsletter marketing features and supports multiple languages: English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Portuguese, Polish, Norwegian, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and Turkish (as of 2020).[14]

Awards and recognition

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Weebly has received recognition for its contributions to web development, including being listed among TIME'S 50 Best Websites of 2007 and receiving mentions in Forbes and Business Insider.[9][15] However, it has faced censorship in some countries and has implemented geo-blocking in several regions.

Censorship

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In December 2014, the Indian government blocked Weebly in India, due to fears that ISIS propaganda was being spread through the site.[16] On December 31, the site was again made available throughout India.[17]

Weebly also applies censorship to its availability with a wide selection of geo-blocked countries where Weebly is unavailable to internet users. Site owners are unable to log in from these geo-blocked locations to administer the site just as internet users cannot reach the site. According to Weebly's official support forum, the exact list of blocked countries is secret, but the employees confirmed the blocking of Côte d'Ivoire, Iran, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, as well as much of the Middle East, West and Central Africa.[18]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Ha, Anthony (April 26, 2018). "Square is acquiring website builder Weebly for $365M". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on February 21, 2020. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
  2. ^ Robinson, Blake (May 9, 2007). "Weebly Launches blog Platform, Closes $650K Investment". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on September 30, 2012. Retrieved September 24, 2012.
  3. ^ Adewumi, David (June 10, 2008). "Weebly, a Simple web page creator, launches Adsense feature and pro accounts". Venture Beat. Archived from the original on June 23, 2012. Retrieved September 24, 2012.
  4. ^ Ha, Anthony (February 24, 2010). "Simple website builder Weebly goes international". VentureBeat. Archived from the original on October 24, 2021. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
  5. ^ Roy, Rohit (1 April 2016). "Weebly Users Gain Access to Easy-to-use Form-Creator JotForm". Martech Advisor. Archived from the original on 10 November 2016. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  6. ^ "How Weebly 4 Is Leading An E-commerce Revolution". www.forbes.com. Archived from the original on 2018-01-26. Retrieved 2018-04-25.
  7. ^ "Jack Dorsey's Square changes corporate name to Block". CNBC. Archived from the original on 2023-01-02. Retrieved 2023-01-02.
  8. ^ "Square Updates Second Quarter and Full Year 2018 Guidance". Square. Archived from the original on 2021-05-21. Retrieved 2021-05-20.
  9. ^ a b Mary Murray Buner (July 8, 2007). "50 Best Websites 2007". TIME Specials. Archived from the original on July 12, 2007. Retrieved September 12, 2012.
  10. ^ Russell, Kate (February 15, 2008). "Webscape". BBC News. Archived from the original on November 9, 2020. Retrieved September 24, 2012.
  11. ^ Weebly, Inc (September 19, 2012). "Weebly". iTunes Store. Archived from the original on July 7, 2012. Retrieved September 24, 2012.
  12. ^ "12 Best Free Website Builders". Archived from the original on 10 August 2018. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  13. ^ "iPhone and Android Apps". Weebly. Archived from the original on 26 April 2014. Retrieved 27 April 2014.
  14. ^ "Company Info". Weebly. Archived from the original on March 27, 2019. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
  15. ^ "30 Under 30:Social/Mobile". Forbes. 2011. Archived from the original on February 2, 2019. Retrieved January 18, 2020.
  16. ^ Stone, Jeff (31 December 2014). "Vimeo, DailyMotion, Pastebin Among Sites Blocked In India For 'Anti-India' Content From ISIS". International Business Times. Archived from the original on 2015-01-02. Retrieved 2015-01-03.
  17. ^ Sharma, Ravi (January 2, 2015). "Indian government unblocks Vimeo, Dailymotion, 2 other websites". The Times of India. Archived from the original on February 8, 2015. Retrieved January 3, 2015.
  18. ^ "Weebly doesn't work in Russia". 15 April 2019.
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