If you are a member of the I.B.M., you can get a set of free web pages. Go to:

http://www.magician.org/member/all

This is a public page, with a growing number of sites since this was announced a couple of days ago. There is a simple web authoring program that creates pages for you once you have logged in. If you have a slick site you can direct people there. You may also put in links to other sites; I added a link to The Magic Café.

The authoring program permits HTML in addition to plain text, so you can pull in images, audio, or video from another site.

It's not bad for free! I see a couple of familiar Magic Café people there already.

Yours,

Paul

I saw this too. Would this be a good place to start a website for customers. I don't have the budget for a website, and I don't know any other free websites.

KIDabra has been doing that since last fall 2005
http://www.kidabra.org/members.html

Hmmm I wonder where IBM got the Idea? Event the format looks familiar!
http://www.kidabra.org/member/webpagedesignform.html


I even designed the format for our local SAM group back in 2001.
http://www.sam4.org/members.html

Now IBM is doing it.

That's the beautiful difference between organizations that are traditional and settled in their ways and new, hungry organizations with fresh energies and ideas. KIDabra leads the way. Congrats, Dennis!

This may also explain the thriving camaraderie and ego-free mutual support found on the KIDabra and Magic Café forums and sorely missing from the IBM Ring 2100 online forum. Hmmmmm.

you can create a free website on http://www.piczo.com
Mine is a piczo site. I don't like piczo much tho. Its too common and every kid has one. Noone takes it seriously.

This is the kind of stuff you get from a piczo site. Kids make stupid sites that everything is spelled wrong. "SiGnE my HGH boook Himies!!
My name Ids coRy anD I catn SpEll."

It is very annoying...

This is the same problem with magicians using email AOL, Hotmail, Yahoo and similar .com addresses. If you want to present the impession of a pro you should address the small issues, as well.

I have set one up for the Treasure Valley Magic Club. The only down side is that each member only gets one web site. I gave mine up for the club, but I have a link to my home page once you get to the club site.

Ken, I noticed you have a kidabra site there. Looks good.

This is really cool people. All it takes is being a current I.B.M. member, and about one hour in front of your computer.

You build the whole thing pretty much point and click, the page is automatically built for you.

The is no cost to put a page up, and there is no annual cost to keep it up.

You are only throwing away good publicity if you fail to take advantage of I.B.M.'s free offer.

If you are a member then you can build your site by going to:
http://www.magician.org/member/

Kipp Sherry

I should add that in addition to linking to your personal website, it's easy to link to the website for your I.B.M. Ring, and to The Magic Café, which I do.

You can't beat free, folks. I am glad that the I.B.M. stole this idea from you KIDabra people. At least they know a good idea once they trip over it!

Yours,

Paul

http://www.magician.org/member/drwilson

Hi Peeps,

You can check out the website I made... http://www.magician.org/member/chubbyflores

Is there a way to add your own html stuff?

This is basically a "fill in the blanks" template site. It's divided up into several sections. If you know the html code you can try adding it in the text boxes. If the code is valid, and it doesn't break something else, it should work but most likely only within that particular frame.

This was designed for the several thousand members who don't have the need (or knowledge) to write their own html sites. If you know how to make your own, you're probably above the level of this already.

I see it as an online "directory" that you can use as a single page promo site, with links to your "real" site, assuming you have one.

I don't know if I could afford to buy a domain site and stuff. I would definitely make an html website with flash and all that jazz.

Here are a couple of thoughts about web sites and e-mail addresses.

Domains are very inexpensive to register. For example DirectNIC will register a domain for you for $15.00 a year. They will try to sell you a two year registration, but you can do a one year registration if you wish. You can host it free, but there will be a banner at the top of the page and the bottom of the page advertising DirectNIC. Or, for $15.00 a year, you can use bannerless hosting. You are limited to the kinds of scripts you can run, though. On their bannerless hosting, you can't use front page, for example.

Some people who travel very extensively use aol, hotmail, gmail and yahoo accounts because you can access them from ANY computer in the world. You may not want to access your regular e-mail account from an internet Café in Stuttgart, for example, where you might accidentally leave some of your information on someone else's machine. I have a webmail service that works for me, and that's what I use when travelling. There are some big names who use aol when travelling -- names you won't see on this forum. So don't judge a person's stature in magic by his e-mail address. You may be embarrassed.

Bill,

I buy domains from GoDaddy.com

Currently they are $6.95 each/yr.

Bob

On 1 & 1... $5.99 a year, and I get some free with their inexpensive hosting, too.

I had hummed and haa'd a long time about a site, mainly because of the effort needed, with IBM it took 10 minutes to get the original up, since then I've refined it. Best thing since sliced bread. Links, publicity, pictures, contact, just about everything you need, but just being an IBM member is not enough, you have to be getting the Linking Ring as well, there are some members who do not get this magazine.

I used the free template on the IBM website to simply link to my own website.

I am a Graphic Designer and have my own webhosting so I have had a Magic website since I started magic semi-professionally.

I noticed above in one of the posts above that someone mentioned they did not have a budget and the free website for members to promote yourself is most helpful. For an example here is mine: https://www.magician.org/member/billragsdale. If you have a low budget to operate with this is very positive plus for becoming a member of IBM.

Mine is at

http://magician.org/member/drlaugh4u

Some I.B.M. members sites went down for a while.

Mine did, and is now up and running.

All I had to do was to add photos which had vanished. It was a blessing in disguise, as I needed to update them, and it is easy.