Leafletter is a revolutionary Flash-powered Flash-website designer. It allows people to make mini websites in the style of a leaflet (the widget it produces), which can then be embedded (as Flash files) into nearly any website includin social networking sites such as MySpace.

The site aims to provide an interface which will please both businesses and standard users. For example, a photographer could place his portfolio on his MySpace profile, personal website and blog at the same time. You can comprise your leaflets of links, images and texts. There are 36 layouts you can choose from, and it is very flexible of what you can put in certain blocks. Blocks are simply the way a page on a leaflet is split. A leaflet can be comprised of multiple pages, each with different layouts.

A nifty feature of the site is that you can upload an image to it, transload it from a standard URL or transload it from Flickr, which is integrated into it. Annoyingly, you cannot select Flickr images which aren’t in sets. Also, no previews are given.

The tool is a good idea, although I’d much prefer it to be Ajax powered. However, this would, I imagine, make it harder to integrate into many sites.

Below is a leaflet someone created:

I asked the site’s founder, Michael Patrick, a couple of questions. Below are a few (lengthy!) excerpts from his response:

What was your inspiration?

I decided that I wanted to provide an elegant and inexpensive way for artists and creative professionals to present themselves on the web. A “Do It Yourself” tool that would be specifically geared to their needs. I found that there were a lot of options out there but that, by and large, they were rudimentary and not designed out of a meaningful understanding of the users’ needs and objectives.

Initially Leafletter was intended to serve as a tool for the creation of standalone web sites with an “artist’s portfolio” bent. However I quickly began to see the market demand transforming away from the traditional personal standalone web site and toward having a powerful presence on blogs and social networks.

It’s been just a few days since we released the Beta and already I’ve seen Leaflets used for a press release by a UK hardware manufacturer, a story pitch by a team of graphic novelists, and a wedding photo album composed by a professional photographer

How will you make revenue?

Leafletter was designed for use by professionals to promote their work, sell their merchandise, get the word out on products and services, this kind of thing.

We believe that if you are using a tool for commercial purposes, or you are quite serious about a personal pursuit of some kind, you will be willing to pay a reasonable sum for the use of a service like Leafletter.

So our revenue model will wind up being a tiered service — one for personal and one for professional users.

I am curious if this service will make a profit, and personally I’d have expect a simpler ethod such as displaying a small ad in each leaflet.

Tags: flash, leafletter, interview, web2.0, web 2.0, web2, web 2, design, web design, social networking, widgets