Looks like another flash-based web content management system for churches is here: Bridge Element.
Obviously this competes directly with Clover Sites and their CMS system.
Biggest difference? Price.
CloverSites Price:
Bridge Element Price:
$500 for Bridge Element as compared to $1,000 for CloverSites.
Let the battle begin!
Justin @ BeDeviant says
Weird. I wrote a post today that *kind of* hits on this topic.
Both of these companies desire to be successful, yes? They want to make money, yes? Well … Let’s see who provides the best service!
Even St. Paul said in 1 or 2 Corinthians, “Let there be disagreements among you in order that one person would be proved right!”
Competition isn’t to be avoided, it’s to be embraced! It makes us all better. Good note
Lauren Hunter says
I helped my church redesign their website, and we looked at Clover, but ended up going with Radium 3 from Element Fusion (www.elementfusion.com) because flash-based sites have trouble integrating with church management systems. Our church moved over to Church Community Builder, and we wanted the registration and online giving pages to open up within our website, not bring up a pop up box, which flash sites do. My pop up blocker won’t allow pop ups, so we thought this would be one more step that would deter people from giving and registering online.
What do you say about flash sites for churches, John? Love to hear your thoughts as it related to ChMS.
John Saddington says
as related to chMS, do whatever is best, right?
most chms’s are the data-layer, so the backend. integration can be a lot or as little as needed (or possible).
Brian Barela says
i’m just not understanding flash based websites john.
they don’t work on mobile, can load slowly on machines connected via low bandwith, and seem to take a look of initial set up time.
am i missing something?
Elijah says
Not just slow connections because I have a 10Mbps download and 1.5Mbps upload and the average clover site I’ve used takes about 6-10 second before anything appears.
TW says
Very true. There’s a weird 6-8 second delay before anything loads.
Anthony Bliss says
We have a Clover site and there is nothing out there that combines looks with ease of use the way they do. I’ve checked out Bridge Elements’ site editor and it is just nowhere as slick as Clover’s Greenhouse. In my opinion a website is important enough to splurge the extra $500 for an easier to use option.
@Brian – when you buy a Clover site, you get a free mobile version of your site that automatically updates when you edit your site. it’s not as great as their full sites, but it does the trick. And as far as set up time goes. I had our site ready to go within a day. Clover did all the hard flash work and coding for you.
Brian Barela says
good to know. thanks anthony. i’ve had lots of people ask me about them but have not been able to give them a qualified answer.
TW says
Anthony, the problem is your website visitors do not use the Clover’s Greenhouse. If you’re really considering your visitors, Clover is, by far, not the best choice here. Your visitors need to be a primary concern. The main website’s front-end usability needs to be a primary concern. It’s really an afterthought with Clover sites. This ranges from the very small scrolling areas to the Flash interface itself to launching multiple windows to open up media players and calendars in an age of popup blockers.
As for their mobile sites, even their own customers are clamoring for a better/fuller mobile experience as seen in their blogs and on twitter.
The Greehouse should be the last of your concerns. You want to build a website. That’s good. But, you want your visitors, in the end, to be able to use it without a frustrating experience. Else, what is it good for?
Cameron Smith says
I’m not sure the ONLY difference is price… IMO, quality there’s a pretty big drop in quality from Clover to Bridge Element. Clover seems to have a few extra features; ie, mobile version. It will be interesting to see how these 2 companies compete though.
John Saddington says
definitely.
TW says
I’m not from Bridge, but the quality drop is partly due to Bridge giving up Flash and going HTML, like they have. Clover is going HTML5 too. When that happens, what will users be left with? What will the Greenhouse look like? What will their sites look like? I imagine more like Bridge’s. I imagine the experience is going to be far more ordinary, and they have a lot of work to do just to get there. They’re basically starting from scratch again, except they have a large customer base who didn’t know Flash was going to have so many problems in today’s mobile world.
Jared Erickson says
Blah…
Chris Loach says
is there a company like this that deals with wordpress and not flash???
Bridge Element says
Wow guys!
Thanks for the mention. We have received several emails, phone calls and even a few new clients stating they heard about us from ChurchCrunch.com
First we want to say that Clover is a great company. While we do have similarities we are also very different. Here are just a few of those differences.
1. We only partner with gospel centered churches and ministries.
2. Unlimited Hosting – Yes that’s right, unlimited media storage and bandwidth.
3. Customizations -Maybe you want a custom page layout to better fit your content or a completely unique background image to better match your branding, we can do just about anything.
4. Email accounts – We will host and setup all your email accounts.
5. Graphic and Logo Design – Not only do we provide awesome ministry websites but we also offer custom graphic design.
6. Printing – Recently we have launched a sister company that offers full commercial printing with free shipping. All websites clients get exclusive discounts and offers for promotions.
7. Photo Gallery – We have an amazing photo gallery with the ability to have unlimited sub galleries and unlimited photo storage.
8. Additional Page Layouts – We are constantly adding more page layouts for you to choose from. So in 6 months you might have 3 or 4 more page layouts to use with your site in addition to the 10+ that come with each site.
8. Staff Page Layout – Our staff pages are very unique, each team member has their own contact form, photo and bio section.
10. Contact Form – We also have a page layout dedicated to your “Contact Us” page with its own form so that visitors can message you directly from the site.
11. Non-flash Version – Any device that is not flash enabled would see a version of your site. Its not a generic version it actually matches the look and feel of your site. It also has a contact form.
12. Robust Text Editor – We have several fonts for you to choose from as well as the ability to change the size and color of your text.
Again Clover is a great company and we encourage you to keep looking around until you find the best fit your church or ministry.
God bless,
John H. says
TAG: I’m in….
Without trying to insult either of these companies (they both have some great looking designs), I feel that neither is useful for the church.
There is a serious problem with the mass majority of the turnkey church website companies out there (not just these two). Heck there is a serious issue with the majority of churches who purchase these products. The problem/issue is that the websites these companies offer produce no fruit.
I know this sounds like a bold statement, but let me explain.
Granted, they look great! No doubt about that.
And they are easy to use..
And the pastors a highly pleased with the backend functionality of these sites…
And the members are highly pleased about their sites too….
But they produce no fruit. They are like a beautiful uncharted island that no one has ever found. They are basically the church bulletin/pamphlet that is given to you when you walk through the door.
Hear me out on this, I am sure I already have some hairs raised on the backs of you necks.
Traditionally the church has jumped into using new technology before the rest of the world, in the intrest of spreading the word of God. Church tech pioneers used things like pipe organs, microphone, sound system,etc to bring new visitors. But when it came to the online world, they have seriously dropped the ball. Very few churches have used the online world [properly] as an outreach tool.
What most churches and users don’t realize is how having a Flash website will affect you in the search engines. Also, how many browsers crash regularly because of flash on pages (especially mac based). Yes, I know in 2008 google announced that they [can] index flash. I tested it quite extensively to see how it could be effectively used. It does not index well. But lets pretend google did index the flash website and your using one of the above company’s product. Now, you have another problem on your hand, and a serious one for SEO. Duplicate content. You have watered down your site’s content because you have two versions of it. One inside the flash, and one for non-flash (passing off as a mobile site). Now I have seen multiple sites (non-church) get penalized by Google because Google thought they were “Cloaking” using flash. Cloaking is when you show the google spider one thing, but show humans another. I haven’t seen any of the sites these companies did get banned, but then again, I have a hard time finding them in the search engines.
What churches need to do is change the way they use the web. It’s time for them to use it as an outreach tool. Consider this, Facebook now has over 500 Million active users. That is larger than the population of the United States. If Facebook was a country, it would knock the US out of position to take the third largest country spot. Are you doing missions in the 3rd largest and unreached country in the world?
What’s is your church’s facebook plan? Do you use it as an outreach tool, or do you see it just as a members communication tool. Do you have a specialized facebook page. Is it a business page? Do you have a custom facebook page that welcomes the user on their first visit to your facebook page or do you just send them to the wall?
Does your website interact with the social networks. Do you have your church website spattered with “Christianeese”. Do you use names and titles of things that only people at your church will know or do you consider what someone who has never been to your church would call it? Do you SEO your church website with just “Churchy Phrases” or do reach out with other phrases that have do not directly relate to church.
Do you actively track where visitors are coming from? Do you know where they are going on your site. For flash sites, this is quite a bit of work to track this. Do you know how to reach them. Have you tracked any growth.
Are you waiting for visitors to FIND you, or are you GOing where they are?
You see, neither of these companies will help your church grow. They and others produce beautiful brochures that you can give your members. But did the Lord call us to do that? I recall him calling us to “Go and reach”.
Sorry for my tangent. I feel passionately about this. I am not bashing these companies as individuals. I myself considered their route for my business before I felt the Lord was telling me otherwise. That’s why my company specializes in “Growing” the church. I feel so strongly about this that I left the corporate life to start my company. I have successfully managed $500+ million dollar online ad campaigns for fortune 500 companies. I have produced millions of dollars in sales online for the secular world. And have successfully dominated the search engines for these companies. I was blessed by the Lord everywhere I went and was contracted for. I had the midas touch! But I don’t think it was for my own gain. I now believe HE was preparing me for doing this for the Kingdom. I left all that (even my fat paycheck) to deliver the same results for the Kingdom of God. We as a company are just starting out, but already our clients are having great success in growth. Here is one small example; One church we did, went from 50-70 web visitors a month, to averaging 900-1000 new web visitors a month to their website. And they are experiencing great visitor and membership growth specifically from the website. This is a great amount of increase for a church of the size that it is. And I think this is what we as responsible church web companies should do.
Forgive me, I am not trying to toot my own horn. My point is that there needs to be a change in the church and church website providers on how they use their online presence.
TW says
Am I reading Bridge’s FAQ right at (http://bridgeelement.com/faq) that they give each customer a limit of “400 terabyts”? If we’re talking terrabytes, as I know them, and they use Amazon S3 for storage, what do you think the charge would be per month for filling up 400 terrabytes? At the cheapest rate, it’s over $29,200/month. So, if Bridge offers everyone 400TB per $20/month account, are they really offering that? Is that an acceptable gamble? Will someone test them on that? 🙂