Moonfruit Lounge - Website builder

Cool shops on Moonfruit using the HTML widget

Joe — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 13:37:00 +0000

Well, we told you the HTML widget would open up new possibilities for e-commerce. And it looks like a few of our cutting edge users have started to integrate full-blown Amazon stores into their Moonfruit websites. Clever them ;-)

Of course this won't stop us working on our own e-commerce upgrade which is due out mid next year, but it certainly gives you something to get on with.

The Strictly Swimming home page with large shop link

So how have they done this?

The secret lies in the HTML Snippet widget and the Amazon widgets, specifically the aStore.

You can find the HTML Snippet widget in the File Manager, or on the New Toolbar, by using: 'Insert' menu -> 'Smart widgets' (side bar) there is a specific HTML widget for the 'Amazon Widgets'. Once you've added an HTML snippet to your page, the 'Setup' tab on the Editor provides a place to paste in your HTML code and in some cases a link to where to get the code from. Remember these will only work correctly for visitors with FlashPlayer 10 (about 90% market penetration and rising), so some users will not see them correctly, but that number will fall over the coming months.

So how does this look for Strictly Swimming? Well, by inserting the Amazon aStore, they can produce a full product display page as below.

Strictly Swimming product list

And finally you can see the individual product display page, which includes all the cool things from Amazon like user ratings.

Strictly Swimming product page

Check out the full site at www.strictly-swimming.com

And just to show you that there are others doing this too, check out the same from this cool website by The Food Bible.

The Food Bible homepage

The Food Bible shop page

The Food Bible product page

Check it out at www.thefoodbible.net.

Moonfruit goes global - your site served from 14 locations around the world

Joe — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:57:00 +0000

Moonfruit.com and every site hosted by us are now served from 14 locations around the world.

To celebrate the launch of this new service we are offering five (5) pairs of return tickets from wherever you are in the world to any of the 14 locations that Moonfruit sites are now served from. And we'll offset the carbon footprint of your flight so you can still look all your green friends in the eyes - or will that be green eyed friends ;-) - with a clear conscience.

To find out more read on...

What does this mean for you?

Moonfruit (and every site we host) is now running on a CDN (Content Delivery Network) which means your sites and all their contents are now being served from a distributed network of servers located in 14 different places around the world. Using clever routing and caching, visitors to your site get the content served up to their computer from the closest location to them, which means they get your sites faster!

What do I have to do to get on this?

Most of you will already be on the CDN following changes in our domain name configurations that have been taking place over the last couple of weeks, but for some of you, who have your domain name hosted or managed elsewhere, you will need to take some action. So here are the different cases:

You have a site with one of our subdomain e.g. site.moonfruit.com (also t83.net, kk5.org, sm4.biz) - do nothing, you're already running on the CDN
You have a domain name which you bought from moonfruit.com, e.g. www.yourdomain.com - in most cases do nothing, you're already running on the CDN for the 'www' part of your domain, e.g. if you use www.yourdomain.com you're on the CDN, if you use yourdomain.com (without the www) you're not. This is because you can't set CNAME records on the root of your domain. So to get on the CDN you need to use the www version of your domain. (Instructions on how to do this will be provided.
You have a domain name hosted or managed by someone else (e.g. another domain name provider, not us) - in this case you'll need to change your DNS Zone file and create a CNAME record on the www part and set that CNAME to use your canonical address which is the original subdomain you got when you started your site, e.g. probably something.moonfruit.com. This doesn't mean that address will be displayed, it just means your domain name will copy the settings from this. Your domain provider will be able to help you with this (or you can always transfer it to us ;-) ).

Why did we do this?

More and more of our customers are located outside of the UK and have a global audience. This was really brought to a head following our last Twitter campaign in July which received an enormous amount of international attention. So that got us thinking, how could we improve the global delivery of our awesome website builder and improve the quality of service for everyone? The CDN was our answer.

And best of all, it will cost you nothing! We're paying for it, even for free sites. Consider it an early Xmas present. Enjoy!!

Where do I get the flights from?

That's our new Twitter comp to celebrate this launch. Check out www.moonfruit.com/flymeto.html.

So there you have it. Most of your sites are already running on the CDN, but for those that are not you can take the steps above and accelerate your site globally.

New release - 29 September 2009 - New interface, HTML widget, site copy and more...

Joe — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 10:00:00 +0100

Yeah, it's release time again! Believe it or not we get just as excited as you do at these times. The months of hard work all come together and we get to push new things out to the Moonfruit-osphere. And this one is a biggy too.

So first things first, the new interface. For those of you who didn't see our sneak preview, this is what it looks like.

General edit functions (click to enlarge image).

We're seeing the largest overhaul to the edit environment in the last 5 years as we drag SiteMaker kicking and screaming into the present and pave the way for the future. The long awaited HTML widget is now out of beta, works in all browsers (ooooohh), and opens up libraries of additional content. And you can now copy an entire site too...

New Toolbar (beta)
Some call it SiteMaker5, some call it Moonfruit+, all we know is we call it the New Toolbar. It's been launched as an opt-in beta version, which means it's fully functional, you can choose it, you can use it, but you're not forced to. We're looking for feedback - good and bad (constructive) - so that we can polish it off for a final release at a later stage. But it works and in our testing so far makes things far quicker and easier to do.

To get to it, login to your site and go to 'View' --> 'New Toolbar (beta)'. Your site will reload in the new environment but you can revert to the old style toolbars at any time. The advantages of the new Toolbar are:

Use the full screen browser for editing - you can move edit tools outside the boundary of your site
Zoom in/out while editing - you make your site bigger/smaller to help 'see' it in full glory
Sticky edit tools - the Toolbar remains at the top and the Editor will remain on screen as you scroll up and down
Show off-screen objects - if you drag something off your site (outside the boundary), you can choose to hide or display off screen objects (new under 'view')
Detailed insert menu - more objects can be added in one click, including some new HTML snippets ('Insert' menu)
Quick pages menu - includes quick ways to add pages, copy pages and change page length, plus edit meta data (for search engines) more quickly (see 'Pages' menu)
Links to other services - Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools, AdSense can all be viewed without leaving your site (new 'Services' menu)

The major drive for this change was to better organise the features available and create the structure so that we can expand services further in the future. Moonfruit has grown to include so many features over the years, sometimes the most important ones get lost, so this is an opportunity to re-present them for how they are used today. When we started many years ago we built a 'Page editor' whereas today SiteMaker allows the management of your website over its whole lifecycle. From initial build -> monitoring traffic and performance -> developing community -> monetisation -> ongoing updates.

Copy/transfer site
Some new features in the 'Admin' section are the copy site and transfer site features. This allows you to create a copy of the design and structure of your site which you can use as the basis of a new site. Please note this isn't a complete copy like backup, as some data is not copied, e.g. individual posts in comment feeds or forums. But the text, images, design, structure, etc., are all applied to the new site.

The transfer site feature allows you to transfer an existing site (or a new copy) to another user of Moonfruit.

Both features have been asked for many times, both by customers that want to build more sites themselves and by resellers who find they want to build similar sites for clients in similar industries over and over. These new features will help make that easier to achieve.

The HTML widget
You can't add HTML to a Flash site, don't be ridiculous! Or can you ;-) ? Some of you will have been using the Beta version of this widget for some time now, but for others this will be new. The HTML snippet widget allows you to paste in HTML code (or markup for the purists out there) that you might find elsewhere (Amazon affiliates, Youtube videos, Twitter feeds, etc.) into your Moonfruit website and use it seamlessly with our other features. The changes/improvements for this release are:

The widget now works in all major browsers - Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari and on PC and Mac
Works with all HTML snippets (probably - we can't find any yet it doesn't work with, but I'm sure you will ;-)
Some regularly used services (Youtube player, Twitter feed, etc.) have some preconfigured widgets (snippets) available to help you get started (use the 'Setup' tab to get the HTML code)

So this new feature makes available all Google Gadgets, all Widgetbox widgets, all Amazon widgets and more. Happy hunting!!

But remember, this still only works if you have the Flash 10 player!! Currently FP10 has around 86% penetration according to Adobe but growing by 3-4% per month.

Product selling page templates
There are now some new product selling page templates with suggested layouts for creating easy to use product pages on Moonfruit. You can do this in the 'Add page' option in the 'pages' menu.

For those of you waiting, these are not the long awaited e-commerce updates, so apologies about that, but we are still working towards that goal and the interface lays yet further foundations for the e-commerce tools that will require these new technologies to work as well as they can.

Anyway, so that's about it. We hope you enjoy it and let us know what you think! Enjoy!

Known issues with new beta toolbar (keyboard shortcuts)

Keyboard shortcuts, such as copy, paste and delete among others, do not work in the beta toolbar
The Ctrl key does not work, e.g for multiple select and for drag select or for forcing links to work in edit mode
In Firefox, keyboard nudge, enter and tab keys do not work and the cursor will not flash in any text field

New release - 20th July 2009 - Membership tweaks

Joe — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:47:00 +0100

Following the successful release of the Membership features in May, we had some requests for a few tweaks and additional options. So being the friendly and agile guys we are, we thought we'd do them (while continuing with the other things we're working on).

So today we published a few minor adjustments to the Membership settings to allow you to:

Set a redirect page after login
Disable Facebook Connect login

The first of these changes was much requested, allowing you to send your members to a specified 'success' page after they have logged in to your site. This is great for redirecting them to the 'members home page' or whatever page you want to send them to. You can set the 'post login page' on the Settings tab of the 'People' section when editing your site.

The second change allows you to disable the Facebook Connect login options for members. Facebook Connect allows new or existing members of your site to login using their Facebook credentials, so there is no need to create a new user account on your site. This streamlines the join process and makes it easier for you to attract new members. It also ties together with the ability to post out a note to your Facebook wall from the 'Send a message' section of 'People', which is a great way to invite people to join your site. However, the new setting allows you to turn this off, which some customers (particularly businesses users) had requested. Again you can change the settings to disable Facebook Connect on the 'Settings' tab in the 'People' section.

Things we're working on now are the final delivery of the HTML widget (currently available in beta, but now that Firefox 3.5 is out we can release fully), and some changes to the edit environment to integrate new technology on the path to the new e-commerce features.

We hope you like the changes!

Final creative prize for a Macbook Pro

Joe — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:46:00 +0100

Thank you all for making this competition so special. The creative entries have really blown us away and we'll be continuing to pick through them all, post up the best and create a gallery to pay our respects for all those who have entered. (And maybe a few discretionary prizes too ending Friday 10th July 3pm BST).

But we thought we'd end this crazy Twitter promotion with one more Macbook Pro prize. And this will go to the creator of the best website on Moonfruit.com. Anyone can enter from new or old customers, friends or foes, and you certainly don't have to enter if you don't want to ;-).

The website contest will run until 17th July (next Friday 3pm BST) at which point we'll pick and announce the winner.

Judging a website is going to be tricky, so when you enter your website we want you to tell us why it's special or innovative and why you think it should win. All entries should be as comments on this blog and we'll pick the winner from there. We'll pick the site that is most true to its stated objective and inspires us as a great example of what a website can do. Build it about something you're passionate about and are interested in.

Thanks again for all your support and may the Fruit be with you. Always.

Rules

Create a website on www.moonfruit.com
Post it on this blog with your reasons for why it should be picked
One website entry per person (and one post please!)
Winner will be posted to this blog on 17th July at 3pm BST (GMT+1)
Good luck!

Real people get creative with #moonfruit

Joe — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 22:24:00 +0100

Well we never expected this! Songs, pictures, stories - all about Moonfruit. This crazy thing is getting out of control! We love the things you're doing. You guys have turned this Twitter campaign into a Creative Moonfruit Movement.

NB: Will add as fast as we can. We are using the searches below and a database of tweets to look at entries. Please add to this blog if you think your entries are missing. Thankyou!

Creative responses on YouTube
Creative responses on Flickr
Our 'Thank You' compilation of responses

Here's selection of some we've picked up, sorry we haven't got to everyone yet there are so many:

@sutuma http://bit.ly/Z6IoR (first winner)

@tear96 http://bit.ly/19snmq (2nd winner)

@chadwelch http://bit.ly/w73zF (3rd winner)

@bramketting #Moonfruit didn't comply to my demands so I set the bird free: http://pic.gd/de8f5 It's over: http://bit.ly/1VxxCh (4th winner)

@Felorah http://bit.ly/tKZVX (robot cartoon animation)

@awessendorf http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vckPscOt7Y (cartoon song)

@usebombs http://twitpic.com/9695y (Moonfruit picture quiz)

@topitzman http://bit.ly/krfq6 cool Moonfruit song

@pauldz http://twitpic.com/947yr (moonfruit comic strip)

@ChosenPredator http://bit.ly/VqI8O (moonfruit puppet story)

@sloorp http://bit.ly/143TzF (moonfruit animated story)

@MasterWayne http://twitpic.com/975wm (mathematical fruit)

@eagleascent http://bit.ly/ir3UE (US kid talks to himself)

@pauldz http://bit.ly/UqJSF (picture story)

@fabulouscess http://bit.ly/U1XMa (two sisters singing)

@JorjLim http://bit.ly/17mJNI (so bad it's great)

@aurelienlewin http://twitpic.com/94r44 (radio active moonfruit)

@tgundred http://twitpic.com/991n9 (apple moonfruit)

@kelsiwaslike http://twitpic.com/992ja (another apple moonfruit)

@mayasud http://twitpic.com/994c4 (nice picture nursery rhyme)

@essexgourmet http://twitpic.com/9dzms

@rockstarsharks http://bit.ly/bc4uT (video shows real dedication!)

@lintster http://twitpic.com/9p1sp (cute illustration]

@yashiyama http://twitpic.com/9ff4q (adorable!)

And there's more to come. If you've seen some that you think are great post them here too. Enjoy!

Celebrate 10 years of Moonfruit and win a MacBook Pro

Joe — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:47:00 +0100

To celebrate Moonfruit's 10th birthday we are giving away 10 new Macbook Pro's, one each day for 10 days! If you've never seen one of these in real life, they are just as svelte and beautifully crafted as they look in the pictures, we can't keep our hands off them! (I'm using on now, but not one of the competition ones obviously ;-) )

Check the full details of the competition at http://www.moonfruit.com/macbook-pro.html and follow us @moontweet to find out who the winners are each day.

We wouldn't be here today without all you wonderful people building websites with us and allowing us to support you in your online adventures. So a special thanks to the 2m+ of you who've built a site with us!

Happy tweeting!

"You actually cannot tell this isn't professionally built"

Joe — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 09:57:00 +0100

Now that's the kind of customer review we like to read about Moonfruit and our website builder! Have a read for yourself:

http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/internet-sites/moonfruit-com-1/1226440/#rev

It's great to get this kind of feedback (actually both positive or negative) as it helps us keep in touch with what people want. And with the power of the social web nowadays getting reviews in public forums is always a boost.

So thank you mysterious reviewer "CokaCola" whoever you are ;-)

How to create members only/client only pages of your website

Joe — Fri, 29 May 2009 15:13:00 +0100

Members only areas or client only areas can be useful ways of providing privileged information to a select group of your site visitors. This can allow you to create better relationships with these people and use your website to present or distribute information privately with a guest list that you directly control. It’s one of the features that makes Moonfruit unique among other website builders, and extremely powerful.

We've also been asked about 'paid membership'. By using Groups to create a set of VIP members it is possible to charge a fee before adding a member to that group, though this has to be done manually. So here’s how to do all of these things.

Members only pages

Creating members only areas is reasonably easy and very powerful. It also means that anyone who joins your site will immediately get access to that page so there is no manual work to update the permissions with each new member.

Once again I'll be using my favourite and highly ranked taxi website www.joeslondontaxis.com. (some of you will remember this from our series of SEO articles).

To create a members only area first click on ‘People’ in the Toolbar and then the ‘Permissions’ tab. Here you will see a list of all your pages on the left, and the permissions settings of the selected page (or pages) on the right.

Every page can have its permissions set individually, or you can change the permissions for multiple pages as once (use the ‘control’ or ‘shift’ keys while selecting pages to select several at once).

I've created a page called 'members welcome page' which allows me to give a special welcome to my members. If I position this top of my pages list, then this will actually replace the normal 'welcome' page for members when they visit the site. Clever eh.

To make the page members only select the page from the list on the left, then change the ‘view’ settings for that page to ‘members only'. And that's it.

Image: creating a members only page

Client only areas

Creating and managing Groups is the key to client only areas. Groups can have permissions set as a whole, and any member who is part of that group will get those permissions. You can add or remove members from Groups at any time.

If you don’t have any Groups you will need to go to the ‘group’ tab first and set one up. I've created two groups, one called 'Clients' and one called 'Drivers'.

Image: adding groups

Next go back to the 'Permissions' tab and select the page that you wish to edit from the list on the left, then change the ‘view’ settings for that page to ‘Group’ and you can then choose which Group can see that page, e.g. Clients. I've done this for my 'clients' page, and also my 'drivers' page.

Image: assign view to Client Group

You can then add or remove individual members from that Group to control which ones can see that page. Here I have added 2 of my clients into the 'Clients' group, and selected the third in preparation to add him too (or her ;-). This would be the same process if you were creating a VIP section of selected members only.

Image: adding members to groups

You can also create members directly for clients by going to the ‘members’ tab and clicking ‘create member’. You can then define a username, password and email for the this client when you create the member. Once the member is created you can add them to a Group on your site so they have the correct permissions. Finally you can email your client with their username and password and a link to the login page. The ‘create member’ function makes it easy to setup client only areas without the client having to do anything themselves.

Image: creating members

There are numerous ways you can use this kind of functionality, so have a go and let us know what you think!

Why are members good for growing my site?

Joe — Fri, 22 May 2009 10:43:00 +0100

Members are people that have a relationship with your site, including their own login. They are users who have taken the step from being a visitor to signing up and creating their own account with you. Members can be advocates of your site and your services, along with helping you grow your site by telling other people about you (although they can also be detractors, so make sure you treat them nice!).

Your challenge is turning members into advocates. Members need to feel special and valued, so there should be good reasons why joining your site creates additional benefits for them. This might be access to members-only pages containing unique content, editing privileges allowing members to edit part of your site or being able to join in on certain discussions. It might be regular newsletters that offer them interesting or useful information on the same subject as your site.

To turn members into advocates you need to excite them and arm them with useful information. For most websites that do this well it will be about their content or services. If your site can offer them something they cannot get elsewhere, they will tell others about it. Remember you cannot force people to be advocates and trying too hard may annoy or alienate your members.

The simple rules are:

Focus on content and give your members things that they cannot get elsewhere
Make sure there is something extra for members, e.g. members-only content, discounts or communities
Communicate with your members via newsletters, Facebook/Twitter, etc.
Listen to them and give them a forum for their feedback. This helps them feel valued.

Some Moonfruit sites have already created large and successful membership bases, which support their site and business. Check out some of these.

http://extraicingonthecake.com/
1800+ members

http://extremekidrock.moonfruit.com
6500+ members

http://whitleybridge.moonfruit.com/
800+ members

http://simsgogogo.moonfruit.com/
2000+ members