Help us reach 2,000,000 websites, have a Xmas bonus
By Joe on Friday, November 28 2008, 16:53 - General chat - Permalink
Who'd have thought it but we're rapidly approaching 2,000,000 websites built using SiteMaker. We are of course very proud of this achievement and it goes to show how many people have been touched by Moonfruit SiteMaker and how many customers have been able to create a website beyond their expectations using our award winning website builder. But enough about us, this is about you. You're the ones building the sites, so we wanted to give something back, like a Xmas bonus...
We've decided to run a competition in the run up to reaching 2,000,000 websites with a prize of £1000 cash (that's roughly $1,500 or €1,250 in your money!). We thought this might be helpful during these crunchy times to pay for or pay off your Xmas shopping (depending on when we pass the 2,000,000 site mark).
The rules are simple: anyone who builds a website on Moonfruit.com between 1 Dec 2008 and the day that we hit the magic 2,000,000 number will be entered into the prize draw. We've had roughly 1.97m websites built as of today, so that's roughly 30,000 people who will be in the draw. We will then select the winner randomly from this group of people once we hit 2,000,000 websites.
But hold your horses, not just any website will do, it has to be a 'real' website. So don't just start creating new trial sites and hope to hit that magic number. If we find a 'welcome to your website' site, you won't win it. By 'real' we mean a website that's actually being created for a specific purpose or is being used for something, and not just created in the hope of winning this competition. It must have real content and a real purpose. And you can't just duplicate an existing site many times over. We'll check!
So there you go. Now's the time to tell your friends to start building websites. Or build that site you've always wanted to build. Or both.
Good luck to you all and be careful you don't spend the money before you get it ;-)
Comments
I think the money your giving away would be better spent on making your support service better. IMO.
Lea.
Thanks Lea. If you have any specific issues that you've had with support please submit them to us and we'll be sure to investigate the cause. Or if it's more general feedback, then please let us know.
I'm afraid that the £1000 we would save by pulling the competition would not be enough to make any real difference to our support processes. We offered it because we wanted to celebrate a milestone in our company's achievements, and share this with our customers.
I'm sorry that our gesture does not resonate with you. Many thanks,
Joe
It is good to know you are on course but then again how many of these sites are actually free sites or by paying members ? I wonder if paying members now are just paying for free members and hey have you seen some of the free websites people have and are making some are just abuse and slagging about people they know others have never been finished I reckon if you went through some of these free sites you would be suprised just how many are just pure junk and a waiste of time maybe if you deleted some then you would need a lot more websites to make your silly target !
I am sorry to winge but targets mean nothing to me but a service that offers for all including the paying members who are your main target not free sites and the money your given maybe a discount for your paying members would be more a better way or even to a real charity there my winge is over happy humbug
Great idea! 2,000,000 is an amazing milestone!! Congrats.
Unrelated question - is it possible to duplicate a site? I have wanted to do that but didn't know it was possible.
Thanks,
Bobbie
Hi Drew, thanks for your comments. You're quite right that many of the sites are free, and many are not used. There are also those that did pay, run their site for a few years, then move on, or build another one, or two.
The 2,000,000 will be made up of all these groups, and really signifies all the people who have been touched by Moonfruit in one way or another. We do clear out unused sites btw, so we try to make sure even free sites are used a certain amount to reduce the amount of junk we host.
As for our paying customers, this year alone we've added domain name vouchers, google adwords vouchers and increased the disk space limits on accounts, all for free and with no price increases. Plus all the product improvements, which are again free.
We've actually not increased any prices since 2003 and have no plans to do so. So in real terms (as economists like saying ;-) you're paying 2-3% less each year for your site as prices do not rise in line with inflation.
So we like to think that we do continue to offer our paying customers new things and value for money. If we spread the £1000 over all our paying customers, I'm afraid you would be very disappointed with your rebate.
Instead we thought we'd try to make a difference to one person's Xmas. I hope that makes sense. Thanks,
Joe
I'm sorry, but those come over as a couple of very miserable and bitter postings. Some will always complain I suppose.
Anyway, congrats Moonfruit, and a great idea both to boost site numbers and to give someone an early Christmas present! By the way .... Gone via Support many times, and have no complaints whatsoever ........... so far! Merry Christmas MF!
Bobbie ... Careful now! You could become a prime suspect if a copied site is
detected. :-)
Good point Lavendar. No evil copying here! I will often make a spec site for a client for see - and then if they like the concept - I will build them one under their own name. Would be nice if I could just copy the draft. Thats what I was asking. Perhaps there is an easier way than my current process.
Hi Bobbie,
Sorry I missed your question. I'm afraid there is no easy way to copy a site. It's a long story, but basically the way the database was originall designed makes this unreliable, so we don't offer it as a user feature. If you submit a support request asking them to copy a site, we can try this, but we don't guarantee it will work in all cases. I hope that helps,
Joe
Great idea!! Question? Shopping cart, what will the tools consist of and when will we see it? As you know if it has the right look and feel, take you guys to the next level.
Happy Holidays
BJoe
www.GoDummy.com www.JoeAmerica.org www.JoeThePlunger.com www.LegalBeach.com www.BikiniJoe.com www.WigPros.com www.BoyJoe.com www.FakeNYTimes.com www.BritneyBikinis.com plus over 75 others
My penny's-worth...
...a well-intentioned, light-hearted gesture of thanks, from a company who have proven commitment to their customers and their service.
Thanks Moonfruit Team - and good luck to all!
Arif
Well done Moonfruit! I love working with your site - I have even made one for my mother's business - and now her friend's want me to do theirs too- all with Moonfruit! With the added incentive on top I want to make another one of my own! Its all too exciting being this near Christmas. Good luck and have a great festive season,
Katy x
Well done Moonfruit :-) as a long serving member (2001) I am really pleased that a company I believe and do support in proves yet again why they are BEST Andy :--)
Great idea- but my site doesn't really have a specific purpose as of yet- it's just there to give random information and just to mess around on. Would it still be entered? (Not that I have any chance of winning, lol.)
=D
Will
Congratulations, this is a tremendous achievement even in the context of the mega figures associated with the WWW! I was going to say ignore the whingers, but you have done better than that by giving fair and measured responses. I for one as a 'non techie' have been grateful for your services (including customer support) enabling me to put up my first site. (I have no plans to complete another this month so I am not after 'brownie points' in your draw!!)
Keep up the good work
Tony & Louise
hi
how though if you forgot youre psssword do you lisen to the complants and get more websites
Wow, 2,000,000... Good deal, I love Moonfruit, you guys have the best service and hitting this milestone just proves it even more.
my sitemap has not worked since yesterday. whats the issue?
Hi Vale,
If you submit a support request along with your website URL we can take a look for you. Thanks,
Joe
That 1000$ should go to adding an HTML code insert on the maker (or me lol).
Thanks,
~Mk
MK,
SiteMaker produces Flash websites, it is IMPOSSIBLE to insert HTML within the flash content of the site. Let me break it down: Your SiteMaker site sits within an outer HTML casing and nothing within the Flash can contain anything else but more flash and flash only. So even if Moonfruit wanted to give us "HTML" as we always shout for it, they can't, it's an impossibility. If you really want a feature that you want the HTML for, then post on the forum wishlist what you want and the guys at Moonfruit may make a "Flash" widget out of it.
Mega
Congratulations on your success. Discovering Moonfruit has ruined my life tho - I am addicted. Missed 'I'm a Celebrity', 'Strictly Come Dancing', 'X Factor' - too busy moonfruiting. Have been very happy with the service. No complaints apart from too simple to use - must dash - got another site to start. Anon.
I love moonfruit, and i think its great they are going to the bother in doing this competition! Don't know why people moan all the time! Ive got a few more sites that need building, but I doubt it would be finished by the time moonfruit hits the target! Might give it ago anyway! Happy new year everyone & moonfruit. Great product, great service... cant knock it at all!
does this contest include website made using your resellers or white labled companys "webeden"?
we love your website design software
Brilliant idea. Don't think I will be adding another site though. Quite enough to do on the ones I have. Just wanted to say Moonfruit is the best website builder there can possibly be!
Further to our earlier post (14) we have just realised that our Moonfruit site (The first site we have ever tried to put up!) www.musicforhealth.mfbiz.com is at Google No. 31 out of so many million on a search on the keywords - music for health. On "music for health" it is at No. 9 - just squeezing in the first page! So even without adwords or links, Flash site or not, there must be something right in the SEO area, well done Moonfruit, our own contribution is more by luck than skill, methinks!! Certainly helps with gaining confidence to try another site, - which we are about to do.
With many thanks,
Tony & Louise
Has the winner been picked yet for the XMAS bonus?
Hi John,
Not yet. We'll pick the site in the next week or so and make an announcement. Thanks,
Joe
how do we know who wins
I cant create another website im happy with my old one so how can i get a chance to win
if i create a new site people wont look at my old one:www.gogocrazy.moonfruit.com what do i do
Hi is there any development on being able to duplicate a site?
Hi,
Development on Template duplication is well under way. While you won't be able to fully copy a site - and all data on it - you will be able to use an existing site as a template for a new site. That means that style, background, menu, fonts, colour schemes, menu, page structure, links, images and many objects will be copied across.
It won't be an exact duplication of a site but it will be a very useful addition to anyone who wishes to replicate their creativity from an existing site. And its not too far away.
Thanks - Comdot.
Hi, the xml site maps are not accessable from any of my MF sitesbeen like this for a few days whats going on?
Thanks for letting us know web design. It is a bug that appears to have escaped in our last release - we did a lot of refactoring. Our dev team are looking at it now and we hope to have it fixed shortly. Having it disappear for a short period should not affect your page rankings on Google, but if it does then your rankings should return promptly once the bug is fixed and your sitemap.xml is visible again to the search engine bots.
Walt
All sitemaps seem to be working again now fast work!
Well, we do try our best ;-)
Walt