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Small scale free hosting, can it work?

Kaliber

Kaliber

Kaliber
NLC
I am thinking of starting a new business venture, with the prime target to provide hosting for clients with established sites, in exchange for ads. Although this is not a new concept I believe it could be much more successful on a person to person level. There are a few key defining differences which in my mind, would contribute to a better hosting service.

Some of the downfalls of free hosting now is that it is too impersonal, too quick, a high degree of anonymity is maintained, and these current hosts seem to target raw numbers of people, instead separating the good from the bad

Some differences which I think would help are:
  1. More of an interview based registration process, with sites must being having to prove site stats, space and bandwidth usage
  2. Individual project (site) consideration, projects which have a possible niche market and therefore a greater chance of becoming bigger and more successful
  3. Some sort of relationship formed with site owners
  4. The design and ad placement is up to the site owner, however consideration should be made in the interests of the host
  5. Mature, owners of established sites would be preferred.

Anyway, what are your thoughts, are there any hosts like this? Would anyone consider an offer like this?

Cheers,
Chris
 
Kaliber said:
I am thinking of starting a new business venture, with the prime target to provide hosting for clients with established sites, in exchange for ads. Although this is not a new concept I believe it could be much more successful on a person to person level. There are a few key defining differences which in my mind, would contribute to a better hosting service.

Some of the downfalls of free hosting now is that it is too impersonal, too quick, a high degree of anonymity is maintained, and these current hosts seem to target raw numbers of people, instead separating the good from the bad

Some differences which I think would help are:
  1. More of an interview based registration process, with sites must being having to prove site stats, space and bandwidth usage
  2. Individual project (site) consideration, projects which have a possible niche market and therefore a greater chance of becoming bigger and more successful
  3. Some sort of relationship formed with site owners
  4. The design and ad placement is up to the site owner, however consideration should be made in the interests of the host
  5. Mature, owners of established sites would be preferred.

Anyway, what are your thoughts, are there any hosts like this? Would anyone consider an offer like this?

Cheers,
Chris
Click to expand...

My personal opinion is that yeah, it's a good idea for a host but hardly anyone will use it. People like to keep their hidden presence.
 
This is what I do and it works quite well. Almost every client I host has me on their messenger list and we talk from time to time about nothing important or hosting related. Its important, in my opinion, to establish that kind of relationship.

It also reduces, greatly, the amount of abuse you have to put up with as a host. I can sit back and do little to no managing most days because I know people aren't using my service to screw up the net.

The only things I do different are no ads and I don't require an established site to take the hosting. However, this is likely to change, as i get a lot of people who get the space, and never use it, which is horribly annoying
 
Matt8 said:
...i get a lot of people who get the space, and never use it, which is horribly annoying
Click to expand...
+11111111111one1111one111111 I agree. I started my host with this style, but it grew too slow. Now I let it have instant account creation and now I get abuse complaints too often. I have now shut down the instant account creator and have thrown in the towel. I am going to keep the server running (the ads pay 1/10 of of the server bill) for the current clients and switch back to how you are suggesting above.
Chris
 
The service would be marketed at people who currently have established sites, and not those who are starting up. The idea is that the hostee and host have a co-dependant relationship, thus benefiting both.

The hostee would get high quality, full features hosting with the ability to expand, for free. The host would get guaranteed ad placement on sites with traffic.

Hopefully this could lessen the abuse which free hosts experience.

Any more thoughts?

Cheers,
Chris (nice name tfwh.net :p)
 
Kaliber said:
The service would be marketed at people who currently have established sites, and not those who are starting up. The idea is that the hostee and host have a co-dependant relationship, thus benefiting both.

The hostee would get high quality, full features hosting with the ability to expand, for free. The host would get guaranteed ad placement on sites with traffic.

Hopefully this could lessen the abuse which free hosts experience.

Any more thoughts?

Cheers,
Chris (nice name tfwh.net :p)
Click to expand...
That would be nice, like above, people who ask for mass space then don't use it annoys me. I mean most of my clients add me and we chat about other things. It's nice to have that relationship with your client, even though it's a free website. They build up trust in you and you do with them.
 
Your model reminds me very much of moved.in in terms of interviewing and picking niche sites that look like they'll succeed
 
Is that like webwosting.com from memory they used to offer free vps plans if you could prove that your site was gaining a certain amount of traffic each day/month.

You got highquality etc... for free, its like a partnership
 
For my oppinion more and more people would like to own a host weather free or not with no ads in their site.
 
Recently we have decided to offer hosting for free to established sites only who display our ads.
Although you won't get as many signups as you would if you were offering it to those starting out, you are guaranteed ad placement, which will generate revenue.
 
Chris, my gut feeling is that you will hardly find any signups with such an approval process. I tried this awhile ago, and even those who are serious and mature were not interested.
 
Originally Posted by Matt8 View Post
...i get a lot of people who get the space, and never use it, which is horribly annoying
Click to expand...
It ticks me off no end when I see somebody who thinks they're better than me because their tiny personal site has 5gb of free storage, that's why I wrote this web space calculator, so that noobs could get a little more realistic (over) estimate of what they'd actually need.

Is there any system that can dynamically reallocate space to those who need it? I bet it could save terabytes if all the free hosts used it, but first we need to dispell the myth that everybody's crappy site needs 1800megs of space to "grow".
 
That's a neat calculator. You should include a link to that in your signature here - it would be visited by a lot of folks, I'm sure!

A system like that would be great, indeed. Anyone here have the ability to set one up?
 
Will it work?

It works pretty well for me. I started a small business from my home and just focused on people in my city and county. I have a few personal websites that are outside my area but they are word of mouth. I know I cannot compete with the Large scale companies but for a small doctors office and a few city offices I have made a small dent in the area here. I do this for fun more than profit but if I make a 1 or 2 hundred profit a year , I'm happy. I never set my goals to host the world so there is no let down.


:beer:
 
It works pretty well for me. I started a small business from my home and just focused on people in my city and county. I have a few personal websites that are outside my area but they are word of mouth. I know I cannot compete with the Large scale companies but for a small doctors office and a few city offices I have made a small dent in the area here. I do this for fun more than profit but if I make a 1 or 2 hundred profit a year , I'm happy. I never set my goals to host the world so there is no let down.
Click to expand...

Wow, that's awesome. I've always liked the smaller hosts better because it's easier to get to know the community and to get help and support in my experience. Your paid plans actually look very well priced also!
 
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