User:Chadwickmeyer/Gutensite

Introduction
Gutensite is the name of Crate Media's website development service, powered by the proprietary Content Management System of the same name. Gutensite claims to build "powerful and elegant websites with brains, beauty and a great personality."

History
Development on Gutensite began in the Summer of 2006, under the working name "Crate Built". It was developed from the ground up to be a Content Management System that provided Crate Media with a framework for website development that gave users control over building and managing their websites while at the same time allowing developers to easily customize both design and functionality of an individual site. This ability for compartmentalized customization enabled advanced functionality to be developed for niche industries, and set the stage for quick, efficient and cost effective development and maintenance.

The Content Management System was officially named "Gutensite" in 2008, with the launch of a promotional website that sought to explain the merits of the product and service. Shortly thereafter Gutensite launched a Free Lite version of their service, allowing visitors to easily create their own websites using the tools available to professional clients. This coincided with Gutensite's desire to be a freemium web service, funded by professional clients and promoted by an army of loyal users (both free and paying) who could benefit from it's service while at the same time building global awareness of the powerful and elegant content management system.

Technical Information
Gutensite takes advantage of Open Source technologies. It is written in PHP, utilizes MySQL databases, and is hosted on a customized Apache environment running on a Linux server.

The framework was designed to function from a core codebase, with the ability to easily allow design and functionality basis on a client by client basis, for only the few elements that required customization. This flexibility distinguished it from other Content Management Systems or online website template systems, and allowed the framework to be used by a wide variety of clients from small to enterprise level businesses.