As you may have noticed we’ve had a very busy summer here at Wix instituting a number of big features such as: comments, the matrix gallery, eCommerce, upload/download documents and many more. However there are still significant updates ahead that we’re planning and we’d like to share with you.

Based on feedback you’ve supplied via the Wix forum and support calls we’ve spent a lot of time thinking of updates that will considerably improve your sites.

So what’s coming up?

Server Side Performance

Performance is the biggest issue for a rapidly growing internet company and Wix is no exception to the rule. This is our top priority. We’ve made many improvements during the last 6 months and are tackling it on all fronts: during the last couple of months we’ve added global CDN, tripled our servers and are now using 24 top dell servers for Wix backend infrastructure with more being added on a weekly basis. During the next couple of months we will be doing the following:

• Reducing the size of the viewer.swf – this is the Wix flash program that loads the Wix website, today it is 450K, we are now working on reducing the size to 280K.
• Better compression of PNG
• A major upgrade to our hosting software, which will reduce the amount of calls needed to load your sites
• Remove wix.monitor and static.wix.com

Once we’ve achieved these goals, we will be adding the following:

HTML Component

Adding HTML has been tricky due to security, flash, Java script, browser and OS version compatibility issues, we’ve been working on it on and off for the better part of the last 6 months. So far we’ve completed 3 rounds of pioneers “beta” testing which helped iron out the bugs and tweak the offering. I’d like to thank our fantastic Wix pioneers group for all their great input. Follow the Wix pioneers forum here.

On that note, we’re still experiencing a key problem with Flash technology being incompatible with HTML and non English keyboards at the same time (the infamous opaque/transparent mode bug by Adobe for you ‘techies’).

Password Private pages/sites

Allowing Wix members to define private websites and private pages.
We’re going to be implementing this towards the end of Q1 2010.

SEO for pages

Wix is the only flash platform that is fully compatible with Google and the other main search engines.

To prove our point and ‘put our money where our mouth is’ – Wix.com is built using the Wix editor just like your sites are. We have some new ideas on how to make your website rank even higher. These features are expected to roll out early 2010.

Changing premium documents & cancellations of premium accounts.

We are adding a premium control panel which will allow you to manage your premium documents without contacting support. This feature is well over due and we apologize to those inconvenienced. Naturally, you’ll still be able to contact our support team for special requests.

Flash Side Performance

Our Flash team’s top priority is elevating the quality of your Wix site. Sleeker graphics, faster performance & better all around quality. As a result your website will look and feel even more professional.

Better performance to the editor and to your sites. Faster editing, and improved loading speeds.

Visual loading of Wix documents.

Yes, the notorious blue bar! We’re working on a solution to give you the ability to choose how it will look. In addition premium members will be able to create their own customized loader.
We are also working on having the HTML background look better while the site is loading (Eliminating the current “jumps” in certain browsers).

Menu, Buttons & Languages.

More options for the menu and better graphics with a lot of new ways to customize them.

Improved selection in the Editor

New ways for selecting objects in the editor: editing objects behind objects, easier grouping and ungrouping and a better ability to manage galleries and mini pages.

Editor Liquidity

The editor is optimized for Hi Resolution. We are now making it liquid – meaning, it will work better on all resolutions, especially on Laptops.

Picture Galleries

We’re revisiting all our galleries to give them a better look and smoother movement. In addition we will be adding lots of new and exciting galleries which we’re sure you’ll love.

Mini page and Slideshow Transitions

We are fixing several bugs and improving overall performance. In addition we are working on the ability to add your own graphics to the transition – a great improvement for branded sites.

Shopping Cart

The shopping cart will be upgraded soon, more currencies, more options for your products (size, colors, etc), visual indication of when an item is added to the cart and more…We won’t be adding all features at once, but improvements will start being introduced soon.

For those of you who’ve been asking about inventory management, that will take much longer. Inventory management is complex, so we’ll probably be adding a 3rd party product in the future, which will take a while to choose and integrate into Wix.

Help Shape the Future of Wix

We get tons of great suggestions daily and we’ll gladly take more. To make it as simple as possible for you, we’ve launched a dedicated wishlist page for you to jump in and share your ideas and suggestions. Some of our best ideas are inspired by member feedback.

Thank you for your cooperation, assistance and perhaps most importantly, your participation!

Gig,  Avishai & Nadav

Wix Founders

We have a feeling you will be online tomorrow (Thursday, April 23), so why don’t you visit Dave Graveline’s website and hear a live interview with our CEO, Allon Bloch?

Allon will be a guest on Graveline’s “Into Tomorrow” online radio show and will discuss a few interesting topics related to Wix and web design.

The interview is scheduled for 04.30 PM, ET. You can visit Dave’s website and check out who else is on the lineup. The amazing image below will take you straight there:

P.S. Just claiming the Wix blog on technorati
Technorati Profile
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We love that design is a universal language and that the web crosses boundaries – and we’re passionate about making Wix accessible to everyone in the world…

We’d like to introduce Ileana the manager of Wix Italiano & Español forums. Thanks Ileana!!

Thanks also to Sebastian for the Wix France forum.

And because we love sharing what you’re making, you’ll also find a range of awesome Wix websites being created by people from, well, Italy and Spain of course!

The Wix Forums

Forum Italiano:

“Ciao a tutti gli users di Wix, buona notizie: lo sapevate che il forum di Wix è anche in italiano?? :O Io sono Ileana, mi occupo dell’assistenza per l’Italia, e sono a vostra disposizione sul forum o via mail all’indirizzo ileana@wix.com.

Nel forum potrete trovare già alcuni tra i temi più discussi su Wix, informazioni utili, e anche alcune traduzioni importanti, ma attendo le vostre domande ed i vostri commenti!
Ricordatevi che siete voi a far crescere il programma con le vostre richieste, e che potete aiutare gli altri users, per cui il vostro contributo è fondamentale! :) A presto!!”

Foro Español
“Hola a todos los usuarios de Wix: buenas noticias: sabíais que el foro de Wix habla castellano también?? :OYo soy Ileana, soy vuestra ayuda  para España y Paises Latinos, y estoy a vuestra disposición en el foro o via e-mail a la dirección Ileana@wix.com.

En el foro ya podéis encontrar algunos de los temas más importantes de Wix, informaciones, y varias traducciones, pero estoy a la espera de vuestras preguntas y comentarios!
Recordad que sois vosotros los que hacen crecer al programa con vuestros requerimientos, y que podéis ayudar los demás usuarios, así que vuestra presencia es fundamental!:) Hasta pronto!!”

Wix Sites from Spain and Italy

Proud we speak your language!!

Looking forward to seeing more Spanish, Latin American, Italian and international Flash websites made with Wix.com!

Over the last few weeks, in response to events happening in global markets and the web,
we’ve had a lot of emails from Wix users asking us if Wix will continue to offer a free account.

The answer is a big resounding YES.

We believe in our current business model. We love that we can give you all the opportunity to create a free account, access to our flash platform, and the ability to publish your creations anywhere on the web – for free.

And of course, if you want more features you can choose to add them using our premium upgrade plans.

We trust our business model, we love offering the Wix platform for free – and yes, we’re here to stay!

Co-CEOs Avishai & Allon and the Wix Team

We didn’t quite break the 200 meters sprint world record, but it’s been a big week at Wix. We just uploaded a new version of the Wix editor and over the next week you’ll find a stack of cool new features!

Finally, *cue drum roll* Wix offers you… UNDO (& redo)

What’s more, our latest version means Wix is now twice as fast! Check out your Wix creations online to see the difference

Of course, we’re still in Open Beta so there may be some hiccups over the weekend. If you discover a bug, please let us know: support@wix.com we’ll be working around the clock to solve it.

New Features Already Online:

• Make your own background from your pics, set any media item as Background
• Rulers & Transform you can easily design with precision
• Update your Account settings: change your password and user name
• Import Contact Lists from gmail, yahoo, hotmail & AOL
• Now you can apply effects and behaviors to groups
• Embed Videos from Metacafe & 5min as well as YouTube

Thanks for being part of the Wix evolution, and stayed tuned for more new features in the coming weeks!

Happy Creating,

Wix Team

Wix.com graphic design user, Michelle, shares her experiences using Wix.com with the Canadian TV show “HomePage”

And more:

In TWS2008 we presented Wix.com. To watch our presentation and see some of the team, click here and select “Wix” – you can also see all the convention via this link if you really want :-) )

Wix.com in tradevibes.com

Have you met Planet Wix? It’s always fun to see interesting sites made by users…

Globes closing the list for today, here

As i can quote from the post in Mashable:

“Europe’s new Internet conference, TWS2008, is an exciting conference that takes place in July 1st in Tel Aviv, Israel. The conference is organized by the Israeli popular blog the.co.ils and aims to find and present the 10 most promising Internet startups in Israel”

So, we spend all day by the stand, listen to panels (”the future of TV, is it gonna happen?” or something like that :-) ) and talking with people about Wix, good time.

Thanks to Yaron and Yami from the.co.ils

After all that we run back to the office, to publish the first Wix Magazine (and newsletter) BY:YOU

check it out….

1. On 25.6.2008 the tech blog Techcrunch wrote about Wix going to open beta

2. On 25.6.2008 the tech blog Centernetworks wrote about Wix going to open beta

3. On 25.6.2008 the COOL WEB 2.0 APPS FOR EVERYONE – Webware wrote about wix: Stunning site maker Wix now open to all

Read more:

Isragood: here
Download squad: here
Webdev 2.0: here
Website Magazine: here

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…: here
NEW MEDIA: here
The Earth Times: here
Animaltech: (Hebrew) here
killerstartups: here

LocalLab : foire aux infos: here

So, as I promise, this is the Wix Evolution.

(And the truth is that we are still at the beginning of our way..)

(this is the actual version)

Yup: Big news – our new version is up and running…(you can read a review about us at Techcrunch).It’s our belief that community is out there in the wider world, not centered here at Wix headquarters. As we see it, Web communities grow and change organically, with content generated by users from all over the world. That puts you, the user, at the center–you own the content, you decide when and where to publish it, you embed it anywhere–and, of course, we’re happy with any creative way you choose to do it!

Did you see our new cool features? (I guess some of you already use it, and as we can see, use it well!)
Now, you can:
• Add mini-pages that allow you to make small changes rather than major overhauls to your designs.(We also added a ton of new content)
• Animate your content, simply by using the “animation” feature; you can now decide when and where your content will appear and how it will look (how about fading in smoothly?)
• Draw from your own collection of visual content and present it in a photo album, carousel, or other creative layout.
• Control the editor and HTML background of your published Wix. When you publish or edit your Wix, you can change the background color from the default blue to any color you’d like. Just click the multi-colored square that you can find in “settings” (in the “info” section inside it) and both your editor background and your published Wix background will be changed.

In the meantime, you can see some of our favorite designs created by Wix users in the ‘Explore’ section of the site (if you’d like your work featured on Wix, email me at Amit@wix.com)On the same note, as you can see from our Artists’ Blog, we warmly welcome (and are seeking!) any content you’d like to contribute to Wix. If you’re an artist, musician, or graphic designer, we’d be more than happy to add your content to the system, allowing other users to see, use and enjoy it (you’ll retain credit for your work). Content submissions should come to me: Amit@wix.com As always, you can find us at our twitter: http://twitter.com/Wix (check it out, we’re friendly to strangers…), or be our friend on MySpace (www.myspace.com/wixmypage) (or, if you are an Artist: http://www.myspace.com/wixart ) or Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=528459119).