Hosting Request Suggestions
We are about a third through our current request submission window and have received about 50 requests so far.
We don’t seem to be getting the same quality of requests that we are accustomed to and that we require to grant accounts. The main problem most requests have is that they only give 1-2 word responses to the questions asked. Often people skip questions or write a response that does not answer the question (maybe people spent too much time watching political debates).
Charities and other non-profits don’t have quite as much to prove (though you still need to do better than 1-2 word responses), but everyone else needs to sell us on hosting you. We want to know a little bit about you and the site you want to host with us. Every account we grant costs us money. We are a genuine non-profit, our free hosting is actually free to you, and actually costs us money. We don’t take in any money for hosting you, no sponsorships, no ad revenue, nothing. We do this solely out of the goodness of our hearts. So, when you write your responses please take the time to carefully consider your response and give us enough information to convince us that hosting your website will help people. Toot your horns a bit people, try to get us as excited about your website as you should be about it yourself.
The sites we currently host are extremely diverse: cancer charities, train photographers, cartographers, unicycle clubs, tech bloggers, graphic artists, family photo sites, and many more things sometimes generous, mundane, or bizarre. The single thing common to all the groups is that they made us want to host them. They showed us that they knew what they were doing, and that they were excited enough about it to make us excited for them.
Capture our interest.
January 31st, 2009 at 11:02 pm
Hi Gregg, I have a question. I am currently volunterring for an NGO which caters to educating unprivileged children. I am in the process of making their website, however we don’t have a domain name yet. Is it still possible for me to apply for an account at AL?
I have been more than satisfied with my hosting.. and considering the situation described above, I was hoping that AL would best suited for such a project.
February 1st, 2009 at 12:45 am
Most sites we host don’t actually have their own domain names. We freely give out xxxx.ambitiouslemon.com style subdomains to anyone who needs them. The name ends up being rather long, so it isn’t ideal, but it works.
February 18th, 2009 at 8:11 am
Any idea when we’ll start to hear back about hosting requests? I sent my idea in – and I hope that I did a good enough job explaining it to get people excited an interested. Just wondering if there is a time frame that you’re going for to get the new members chosen and set up.
February 18th, 2009 at 8:24 am
We have started the review process, but have been focusing on the denied requests first since we ran into a snag with the approvals (a bug in the auto-creation script). As soon as we correct the bug we’ll begin approving accounts.
February 23rd, 2009 at 9:48 pm
Another idea perhaps – one school I’m working for out here in Mongolia would benefit from Google Apps but requires a domain to use it. That’s an almost-impossible requirement in terms of feasibility and funding here. What about setting up ambitiouslemon with google apps so that orgs with sites here could (maybe) leverage those document and account features?
April 3rd, 2009 at 8:18 pm
I feel for you guys about this. Same things happen here when I offer my voluntary service.
Just keep up the good work. Don’t let them bring us down.