Product Review: Infinite.ly At Play

A week ago, I received an email invitation to try out a new service sponsored by TapBlogs / Infinite.ly. So since the service is about website building, I grabbed that chance to feed my curiosity.


Infinite.ly is a Philippine-based start-up founded by Luis Buenaventura. It was built on Ruby on Rails, Javascript and MongoDB. It is a page builder that helps you create your own blog/website and you can get your own domain name in just 60 seconds. It also offers you an automatic mobile version of your site and a custom Facebook Page Tab.


When I went to the site to sign-up, I was offered the following plans to choose from: 

I chose the Free Plan so I can immediately check things out, while I wait for an email confirmation that will give me access to the Small Biz Plan. I was also asked what kind of blog/website I want to start with, if it will be a Personal, Small Business, Events, etc kind-of-blog. I decided to choose the Blogger option and I got directed to a pre-made layout. I think it was helpful because it saved me time to think what I wanted to include on my blog.

When I started my exploration, I first got a Quick Tour of Infinite.ly:

                         

After that Quick Tour, I was on my own to explore the features that Inifinte.ly has to offer. 

I played with the admin toolbar and widgets in customizing my blog. The widgets were easy to use because I just needed to drag and drop the elements where I want them to be. It was also easy to look for photos to design the header image of my pages since stock photos were available from the gallery.

Learning about Infinite.ly and its features were really easy because it does not require a user to have all the technical knowledge and skills just to make a perfect website. 

I customized my blog and played with the features for almost a week to try what the service can offer, and in the process I encountered some limitations with Infinite.ly:

1. Sections

At the left side of the blog is the admin toolbar which has the Sections. I hope there was a function to re-arrange the pages. I wanted to move the About page before the Blog page but I cannot seem to move and drag it. I wish that the pages can be re-arranged so that even I am already finish with one page, I don't have to delete a page and re-do it.

2. Gallery Photos

When I was about to upload a photo, I cannot find an option for bulk uploads. I wish there was one so it will be faster to arrange the photos for my Gallery. It would also be nice if after uploading a photo, there is a capability to edit (e.g. crop feature) the photo before uploading the final image as a header image or background image, and to have an option to align the photos (e.g. left, right, center, justify) when you have them in a Gallery.

3. Back-Up/Reset Site

I think it would be better if there is an option to back-up the blog. While I was playing with Reset Your Page, I accidentally clicked on one of the options and it changed everything on my site. It happened even I did not confirmed using the Update Site Settings button. Good thing that I did not yet Publish the blog, so I have a copy of the original blog. Unfortunately, I still lost the old blog files, so I have to re-do everything. I also think the Update Site Settings button should also be clicked on after choosing the Reset Your Site Button, so that if a user just accidentally clicked on any of the options, the user won't make any unnecessary changes to his website.

So there, even though I encountered some limitations in using Infinite.ly, I still give it a 7 out  of 10, which 10 is the highest, since it still serves its purpose as an easy way to make a website either for personal or business use. I would really recommend this for beginners especially to those who do not have the technical knowledge and skills in building a website, and that a custom domain name, a mobile-version of the site and a Facebook page are already available for a user.