Andover.Net, the Boston, Massachusetts-based company that runs web sites offering a combination of free on-line applications and IT news, yesterday launched its GifWorks software tool, a web- based only application that enables users to work on-line to select, process and create new animations for web sites. Visitors to GifWorks see the application interface on their PC screen but all the work is done over the internet, not on their computer’s hard drive, where downloading graphic files can be a slow and tedious process. GifWorks provides a collection of free on-line tools – including the Gifoptimizer (to optimize the quality of the image), 3-D animated text, a facility to make web banners and buttonmaker (which turns Gif images into beveled buttons) – for web designers, ad agencies and graphic artists. The resulting images are stored on Andover.Net’s web site for 24 hours, after which they will have to be downloaded to the user’s hard drive or storage device.
Although there are other firms that offer these so called e-Tools, the company’s president and CEO Bruce Twickler says GifWorks is different because it allows users to integrate content from other parts of the internet as well as having a Windows-like interface so people will feel like they’re working on their desktops, but the internet is actually the computing platform, he said. The main benefit of this, he adds, is that there’s no application installation time or cost, and every time you go to the web site you’re guaranteed to get the latest version of the software. But it’s also much faster, says Twickler, since you don’t have to waste time downloading the images before you start working on them. And when you come to store the file locally, the images can be compressed for download.
In addition, Twickler said sites like GifWorks present an enormous opportunity for advertisers. There’s no comparable opportunity, he said. On TV, an ad can last for 20 to 30 seconds, for radio it’s roughly a minute, but our research has shown that users typically spend around ten to fifteen minutes on the GifWorks site at one time. This means that advertisers can not only display the typical banner ads, they can also add columns of text and images. Twickler added that the company plans to announce two more web-based applications, the first of which focuses on web page design and measurement (how fast the pages are loading, how long it takes to get to linked pages and so on) and the second on web site design and measurement.
