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Both DotGov Communications and Pixel Head promise to create congressional Web sites that look professional, offer advanced features and save staff time.

DotGov President Adam Solomon said he soon hopes to have members of Congress conducting town meetings via their Web sites.

Pixel Head enables its clients to send automatic announcements via e-mail, fax or prerecorded phone messages.

Both companies say the sites they create are simple enough that nontechnical congressional staff members can add, delete, update, edit and reorganize site content instantly.

DotGov builds congressional sites around "programming templates" so staff members can simply paste text into a template and it is ready to be posted on the Web. They don't need to know HTML.

Pixel Head, using similar technology, promises that "even the least tech-savvy member of your staff" can post updates directly to the Web.

— William Matthews