The recent big update that affected all Jimdo pages that were created BEFORE January 2, 2009 was finished a few weeks ago. Now we want to take the opportunity to introduce you again to the new "emotion" header interface. Since the update, it's been available to all Jimdo users, even those with older sites. Exciting, right? Keep reading to learn everything about the new options it offers...

New Possibilities!

We don't want to speak too poorly of the old header tool, but the new one can do so many more things, it's way better. A site's header really makes it individual and distinctive. We already offer a gallery of headers for you to choose from -- a gorgeous variety of choices, if we do say so ourselves. If you want to upload your own picture, that's a great way to add a unique touch to your Jimdo page.

When you're editing the header, click on "Settings" on the new toolbar. You'll see the new menu (see right). Depending on the size of your photo, you can change the height of the header area, zoom into a particular section, and even shift the image horizontally or vertically. Just try it out, and click "apply" when you're happy.

We've got an example ready for you and more detailed information about the new header in our header help article. There's also a short video below the two example images that shows everything the header can do!

Enjoy!

Before & After: Get the Full Effect of Your Photograph

Video of New Header Features

Jimdo's Nominations

Your favorite web site creator has been nominated in two categories. The two links below take you right to the voting page. You only have until Thursday, July 2nd to choose, so do it now!

• Best Web Application or Service
• Best Design

Jimdo needs your help! Vote for Jimdo so that everyone can see what a great service we are :) Tell your friends, ask them to tell their friends. Every vote counts (and think about the Jimdo founders, who would love to go to London for the award ceremony!)

We're really honored to be considered for the Europas and the chance to prove how great Jimdo is. Thanks for your support!

Server Updates

The Jimdo developers (see them on our team page) have been working really hard the last few months to create new features & all sorts of improvements for Jimdo users. In order to make these future changes go more quickly and smoothly, we're doing a system-wide update. It started over the weekend (at the end of May) with a server in China, and it will, in total, last around 2 weeks.

Not to worry -- your site will still be online for everyone to see. The editing function will be temporarily disabled for the duration of the update. In fact, it's only when our migration team is working on the specific server that your site lives on, that you won't be able to make changes. We're estimating that can be anywhere from 24-36 hours.

The first servers with English-language Jimdo sites are getting their code tune-up as I'm writing this post. We're keeping a thread in the forum updated, click through below for the latest information.

Forum Topic with latest updates:

Important System Updates [May 27 - June 10, 2009]

Statistics Downtime

Jimdo has grown very quickly, and we've got so many amazing Jimdo sites that are attracting a ton of visitors.
This is great and you all deserve a huge congratulations, but it also means that our statistics system is overloaded and can't handle the traffic right now.

At this time, visitor statistics are not being updated anymore. Our engineers and developers are already trying their very best to get the stats up and running again. You are not going to lose any stats or counts, not even from the time period (right now) when the statistics aren't being shown. Phew! What a relief!

If you don't want to miss out on using a statistics system, you can add a free statistics tool to your Jimdo Page: Google Analytics. We explain how to add it to your site in our Google Analytics help article.

As soon as our tech crew has fixed this problem we will notify you in the forum topic on the statistics module!

To all the Jimdo users, thanks so very much for your incredible patience during our growing pains!

But first, get a personal impression on Spencer and his mission:

Interview with the founder of 6:8 Ministries Spencer Boulter

Can you describe 6:8 Ministries in three sentences?

6:8 Ministries exist to provide affordable life-changing mission experiences. We want to allow interested individuals to use their skills, talents, gifts and passions to bring hope to the hopeless, food to the hungry, and to love the unlovable.

Who came up with the original idea for 6:8 Ministries and motivated you to start the organization?

I'm the founder and now the executive director. The idea was to provide affordable mission opportunities for those who are looking to make a difference.

What do you personally do at 6:8 Ministries?

I oversee the daily operations in Costa Rica and Guatemala.

How many children do 6:8 Ministries support with the donations and what do you use the money for?

We currently provide educational sponsorships for over 100 children. The money is used to provide the necessary items for children to succeed in school (uniforms, books, registration, etc...).

We believe that education is a key element to these children escaping the grips of poverty.

Why should someone support 6:8 Ministries instead of the many other charitable organizations that exist? What do I "get" out of sponsoring a child?

None really. We are not trying to develop a big child sponsorship program. Our focus is more about providing our participants the opportunity to keep giving and helping after their experience ends.

You live in Costa Rica; we don't have many users there yet.

I live in Alajuelita, Costa Rica with my wife and four children.

How did you find out about Jimdo?

We were having web-site woes.We had a site professionally built using Dreamweaver. It looked great but wasn't very user friendly. It was hard to make changes and updates for a non-tech guy like me. We then tried to use GoDaddy, and Blue Voda, but they were very limited and complicated. Finally, I noticed a friend of mine (Brock Johnson - Deepstream Guatemala) had a great looking web site. I knew he wasn't a tech guy either so I asked him about his web-site. He then told me about how great Jimdo is...and he was right!

Best wishes to Spencer and his entire team!

We hope you will have lots of success with what you do and would like to say:

Thank you very much for this interview!

- Lisa

As the news that GeoCities made the rounds today, with stories on TechCrunch, Mashable, VentureBeat, ReadWriteWeb, and CNet, and as well a veritable tsunami of tweets, we here at Jimdo have been trying to figure out how to help rescue the people whose sites have been on GeoCities and are soon to be jettisoned.

We decided we're going to work on a way to help GeoCities users move their sites over to Jimdo -- free accounts of course, and a discount for JimdoPro if they want to do that. We're calling it...

The Jimdo Lifeboat

If you know of any friends or family who are affected by GeoCities shutting down, just point them over to the Jimdo Lifeboat (http://www.jimdo.com/geocities) and we'll help get everything straightened out.

Kelly Smith, founder of Inkd.com, recently dropped us a line to ask us to take a look at the site, which recently launched. Inkd calls itself the world's first market for original print design. Inkd is basically a marketplace for print materials like flyer templates, brochure templates, newsletter templates, etc.

Why is this interesting for Jimdo users?

I've noticed that a significant number of people are using Jimdo to create a website for their businesses and organizations. It ranges from small businesses just getting off the ground to long-standing stores to non-profit and community organizations want to get themselves online now. That really makes us happy, since our goal has always been to put the internet, web design, and making your own homepage in the hands of regular people.

Inkd is doing something very similar with print design! You can download fully editable design files like brochure templates, business cards, flyer templates, newsletter templates, which were uploaded by professional graphic designers. Each is unique and is examined by the Inkd team before ending up in the marketplace.

What's also useful is if you don't find what you're looking for, you can put out a request to Inkd or email graphic designers directly on the site.

Jimdo users out there who do marketing, design, and related creative work can submit material to the design collection. If you do so, you are paid a royalty fee on the total retail sale for each transaction that ensues, but in the future Inkd plans to debut an ‘exclusive’ membership with a higher commission fees.

Inkd print templates (of which 900 are already present) are made available for download immediately. There's quite a variety of designs in many different file formats -- page layout files such as Adobe Illustrator or Adobe InDesign along with photos and artwork. Everything is fully editable; you can customize it to go with your Jimdo page, no matter what kind it it.

You can get some free samples from the Inkd website (hover over the ‘Learn’ tab) to see what they're like:

Big in Japan!

Last Thursday Christian, Fridtjof, and Matthias left on a trip to Asia. They met the Jimdo Team in Shanghai, China and landed in Tokyo on Monday.

To see what they've been up to, take a look at the site that they've been "lifestreaming" with Twitter updates and lots of photos. It's a mix of German and English, but the pictures are worth more than a thousand words!

But that's not the big announcement today, this is:

the Japanese version of Jimdo is now online!

The launch took place today at a joint press conference with our Japanese partner KDDI Web Communications. KDDI Web Communications is a subsidiary of the second largest telecommunications company in Japan, and they've put together a great team in Tokyo that's going to take care of all the new Japanese users. Here's a big thank you to all the work that the Japan Jimdo team has done preparing for the launch. You guys are great!

We're really excited here about unveiling Jimdo in Japan and we're really looking forward to see how the Japanese users like it. Here's something fun -- "Japanese for Jimdonauts":

すべての人にホームぺージを

Pronounced like this: Subete no hito ni home page o. It's Japanese for "Pages to the People!" :)

One final treat before we wrap up this post -- here's an awesome video that the Jimdo team in Japan put together. Three cheers for Jimdo!

All the best from Hamburg and Tokyo :D

- the Jimdo team

Interview with jewelery designer Jolie Mack

Describe yourself in five words:
Neurotic, slightly (this word doesn't count) obsessive, melancholy, moody, awkward maybe? Five words aren't enough really, there's a lot more. And better ones too, like focused and then there's distracted easily, and chatty.

How old are you?
Old enough to know who the Smurfs, the Golden Girls, and The A Team are.

Was this your original choice of career or how did you end up designing jewelery?
Let's be fair and say that I have never actually chosen a career. It has never occurred to me to do that. I have been many things: a band member, a wedding planner, a waitress, a bartender, a makeup artist, an advertising hustler, a marketing developer, and over the last 8 years, a Mom of twins.
Having the steady hands of a veterinarian, making jewelery was a natural choice. It has allowed me to quit the bar job that I "loved" so much and keep my own hours.

Like most things, my business came to be by necessity and accident: I knew I needed to change careers but discovering my designing ability was a happy accident (kind of like my kids.) Putting the two things together seemed the thing to do at the time.

What makes Jolie Mack jewelery so special and why does the world need it?
Anything that is made with care and attention is very special. The technicality or finishing of a jewelery design is crucial - paying attention to the tiny details. I hand-file every wire end, I am very aware of the balance of the design, the way it hangs or lays, and the comfort of the piece. Proper assembly ensures that all of components stay together. The only way to achieve this kind of quality is to produce every design by hand, myself.
Although my designs are certainly unique, competitors are everywhere. There is a designer out there who can recreate my jewelery and perhaps even improve upon it! But because of the ethics I believe in, my business is a breath of fresh air to those who choose Jolie Mack Designs. Customer satisfaction, personalized communication and fair business practice are values that set my business apart from others. These philosophies make my clients feel special, keep them coming back and ultimately, add a bit more sparkle to the jewelery.

However, it's much more work!

Who are your customers?
Those who purchase are usually closer to home, here in Canada. My demographic leans toward the 30-something professional woman. Interestingly though, it seems that each individual design grabs its own micro-demographic, depending on its colour, shape, length, materials and price point.

How did you find out about Jimdo in the first place? Do you have a favorite Jimdo-feature?
Facebook is a very important tool for professional exposure and so I spend a lot of time on there. About a year ago I searched the Facebook applications for websites and Jimdo popped up. I was curious because the name was so perplexing (I always want to say Jimbo (...surprisingly enough, quite a few other people do too! Who would have known...?!)) and the little logo (I'm a logo junkie) was so...smiley. I committed myself to using what Jimdo offered and as I began to work with its abilities, I quickly realized that having my own website for only time and no money was a reality! Good news, considering I had a fancy website quoted for $8000!
Gosh a fave feature? I get along with them all! I like how easily it is to move things around, add and remove pages, build pretty picture galleries and edit my content.

What features would you like to see Jimdo develop next? What updates would help make your site better?

The only thing that I truly wish for every night when I go to bed is a Jimdo shopping cart! Oh yay, what a dream come true would that be!! The world would be my oyster if I could sell my jewelery like an internet gypsy through a Jimdo feature.

How has your Jimdo page helped you and/or your career so far?
Well, let me count the ways! First off, if Jimdo's templates, fonts, and ease of use weren't so delightful then I would be out a boat load of cash for a pro-designed website - cash that I need to keep the business running. Secondly, Jimdo allows me to present a beautiful site to my clients and world. My site is reliable, updated, and provides fabulous communication with potential customers through its forms, picture galleries and social networking. Third, through Jimdo's own marketing, Jolie Mack Designs receives plenty of European exposure with little effort! That's just one more thing off my busy mind. Jimdo has been instrumental in the success of my business and I say thank you.

Do you have a recommendation of another Jimdo page that you would like to share with us and our readers?
There are so many gorgeous Jimdo pages that I couldn't even go through and pick one. I am attracted to Jimdo pages that are heavy with photos though, because the galleries look great. I do suggest that all Jimdo users take some time now and then to explore the Jimdo environment. Browse the pages to see the other creative ideas used to construct Jimdo sites. The possibilities are endless and you'll likely be inspired to work further on your own special page.

Jolie, best wishes for your future and thank you very much for this interview!

Would you like to be in our next Jimdo User Spotlight? Leave us a note in the comments!

This blog post is a little bit delayed, but I still want to introduce myself and a few of the other new folks here at Jimdo.

Curious about who else "powers" Jimdo? See all of us on the team page.

We're celebrating our 2nd birthday at Jimdo. Is it the "terrible 2s"? We don't think so... Maybe the "terrific 2s"! There's a lot to celebrate, including a really delicious cake and some exciting news to share.

A lot of great things have happened in the last two years. In a nutshell: Jimdo's now available in 7 different languages, is used by people in over 140 countries, and just set up the 500,000th site! We're really happy and lucky to be working with the Samwer brothers and the European Founders Fund (read all about it in the blog post). Our team is expanding by leaps and bounds -- 25 Jimdo enthusiasts at the latest count -- and we're still on the lookout for more (in our Hamburg office).

It's incredible and amazing for us to think about how Jimdo has developed over the last two years. Without our users, of course, none of this would have been possible. That's why we'd like to give you a biggest THANK YOU on this special day. Thank you for your encouragement, your suggestions, your feedback, and all your support!

As always, we're always excited to see your comments. Please let us know what you've liked over the last two years (or however long you've been using Jimdo), what you haven't liked, or just tell us whatever is on your mind!

All the best,

The Jimdo team