Clover Sites has been continually providing effective low-cost solutions for many ministries that find their service and offering appropriate for where they are as a ministry, and they continue to pump out new templates on a very regular basis.
They just announced three new templates available for purchase and use as well as a low-cost switch for a small fee.
Check out these three new looks:
Vetica:
Woodland:
Brighton:
And if you haven’t seen their slick video player, that’s a nice change-up as well:
Check out Clover Sites if you’re looking for a decent solution!
I got really excited for a second because I thought these were WordPress themes – and we happen to be hunting for a few good ones. Alas, these are templates for some proprietary CMS solution.
Why are we still telling churches and ministries they should be using closed, proprietary solutions when they SHOULD be using open, flexible and portal platforms?
Asides:
1) the entire site is done in Flash? In 2010? Really?
2) why can’t I break out of the churchcrunch.com/likes/ and go to the actual site so I can link to an actual page?
You have some valid points colin. I think clover does fit the bill for small churches who don’t have anyone who can manage a website for them nor the money to outsource. I would rather see these churches run something like clover rather than the ‘build your own’ site from GoDaddy
but yeah…flash is not cool
oh yeah…the layouts are sexy
Sorry Vince, Clover doesn’t get a pass just because they claim to be inexpensive – which they aren’t.
Locking anyone into a proprietary CMS is dishonest at any price.
Any church can spend less than $20 per year and get a WP.com site with a custom domain. For that little cost they get all the functionality and flexibility they could ever need – and it’s portable to any host should they decide they need even more flexibility.
There’s no excuse for companies like Clover to be hoodwinking unsuspecting churches into bad technology and ChurchCrunch should know better.
Any church can spend less than $20 per year and get a WP.com site that looks like crap. Churches wanting to create a web presence need to be able to create a good image. There are wayyyyy too many church sites out there that look horrid. They’re obviously a template OR they look as if the church was planted in the 90′s and failed to give any thought to their web presence. Whether we like it or not, the world that we live in, the society that we live in, requires us to be able to visually appeal to the people we are trying to reach. You can go on about proprietary CMS’s but honestly, what good is it to have an open CMS and not have any idea what to do with it?
I don’t personally care for 100% flash sites, but the ones that Clover provides are some of the best templates that I’ve ever seen. And with google beginning to be able to pull text out of Flash, it doesn’t hurt SEO as much. Like it or not, flash is going to be around for a while and that is why almost every computer in America has a Flash player installed. There are even work arounds being created (smokescreen) to be able to run .swf files on iPads and iPhones without the proprietary technology found in the standard Adobe Flash Player.
I use open software for predominantly everything that I do, but to bash proprietary technology seems unnecessary. As I said above, these churches are being given an opportunity to have a site that visually and functionally appeals to the people that they are trying to reach and resources to be able to post their audio and video so that people (members or non-members) are being given an opportunity to hear the Word proclaimed. Clover isn’t hoodwinking anyone, it’s providing the tools and equipping churches with the ability to spread the Word of God and proclaim the Gospel in a way that appeals to the masses. That’s what we’re told and commanded to do, not to seek after open source software.
My apologies if this sounds blunt or rude. I assure you that that was not the intent. I’ve just grown irritated of so much focus being put on open source software that many other things are being sacrificed.
I pray that this finds you well Colin.
I can’t believe you say this is a low cost solution. Do you get some financial return for referrers? Clover sites is more than just expensive, it’s a rip-off.
hey zach. definitely understand your frustration, but i think you have to keep in mind that some people (and orgs) in certain contexts find this the “right” solution for them at the time. i think we need to be careful not to be dogmatic in our execution of web strategy necessarily but to seek the best solution in the context of that particular ministry. right?
and, this post was just reporting some updates on their product. we report on stuff like that because a lot of our readers are interested in the updates of ministry businesses!
thanks for your thoughts though!
You didn’t answer my question…do you get some any form of compensation from Clover?
zach,
what does it look like? do your research (look at the sidebar). you’re good at that.
… got it? the answer is “yes”.
Thanks for answering, I asked because sometimes sites will use a third party ad service and are not directly compensated by the advertisers.
The problem as I’ve said when discussing this with other people is not whether or not Clover has a good service, it’s the initial cost they charge and the hyperbole that fills their site. They take advantage of those who are ignorant and it’s a shame that you would suggest their $1,000 initial setup cost is anything but ridiculously expensive.
zach,
i think your perspective is limited. you have to understand that every situation is different and the context of their decisions can be much more complex than just pricing. sure, there are other alternatives but your decision to be dogmatic about a tool (or against one) is pretty arrogant.
if it’s the best choice for a ministry as they have defined their metrics of success then the more power to them, especially if it’s a step above their site baked back in 1995.
all that being said, i can understand and respect your opinion and perspective. i’m all for saving ministries money too.
also, i see you wrote a post about it on your blog. great stuff and a good perspective.
we also wrote about virb too:
http://churchcrunch.com/build-simple-websites-with-virb-on-the-cheap/