MegabyteStored (Remember ?)

[alphaneutrino]

Hi FWS posters,

I'm sure some of you remember me from about a year and a half back with my attempt at starting a FWP called MegabyteStored. Of course I know you same people are disappointed in me for not actually following through with all those goals I set for MegabyteStored. I just wanted to appologize to anyone who had an account with MegabyteStored or were thinking of getting one. Let me quickly explain what happened and why MegabyteStored went down the drain.

Some years ago I had a few FWP accounts for personal pages but was always disappointed with the service I was getting in return for the enormous ad on my pages. I decided that I wanted to change all that by starting my own FWP. I did some research here in the forums and created a pretty revolutionary idea for a FWP. Basically it was Diablo in a FWP. My idea was to allow members complete control over their accounts. A member could fine-tune his account for bandwidth, server space, etc. This was my ultimate goal for the first step. I first considered doing the whole thing on my own computer over a consumer grade DSL line but decided against it on the basis of only 128Kbs of Upload bandwidth. So instead I invested in a dedicated Linux server at SkyNetWeb. Over the course of this project I shelled out about $3000 in about 4 months. At the time I had a part-time job while attending college so I was able to keep up with the cost (mostly). As I was writing the code for the control panel I began to see that the features I wanted to implement would take at least a month of full-time work (although I only had a few hours a day to work on the project). This realization bogged me down to accomplishing quite little and at about the time that I accepted 200 applications for an account I decided to close the service (which was quite incomplete).

I'm sorry for disappointing my multitude of members and would-be members. It has been quite a long time since I've come onto the forums here because I was quite ashamed of myself after making such lofty promises and then failing to follow through with them.

Besides heartily appologizing to anyone who deserves an apology I would like to discuss something else. MegabyteStored (the idea) has yet to be done by anyone (to my knowledge). I still desperately want to complete the project and offer the FWS.net community an awesome place to store their sites. My time frame is much more conservative now because I don't want my reach to exceed my grasp because a repeat of the previous fiasco is not something I want to occur. In any case, I just wanted to tell everyone that one day soon, there will be a home for you; one that doesn't disappear one day. The reason I say this with conviction is that now instead of acting I am planning my business, how to maintain a cash flow while providing free services, how to implement revolutionary FWP features in MegabyteStored, and much more.

Take care all, I'm now browsing the forums constantly so if you want to flame me, question me, or talk to me don't hesitate to.

To everyone that supported me and my ideas in the past, thank you and I won't disappoint you again! :classic2:

-- alphaneutrino

 

[striker]

You should never have to apologize for offering an amazing free service and not being able to afford it.

I can name tonnes of hosts who offer 1/10th of that and went belly up in no time.

Good to see there are still people willing to give for respect and not money.

Props to you man.

 

[notnamed]

That's a very mature statement...I don't know many FWP's that would out and say stuff like that, self included. If I could help in some way - except, sadly, by donating money, I'm dead broke - please PM me :classic2:

Like striker said, props to you man. Whatever that means.

 

[alphaneutrino]

Thanx notnamed and striker,

Your support means a lot to me. I plan on proving myself to the entire FWS.net community soon so that my words and your support are not in vain. If you guys or anyone else has any recommendations for me regarding MegabyteStored I would love to hear them. Let me just remind you about the original idea so you have something to work off.

MegabyteStored is basically a free web host that allows complete dynamic control of the hosting experience for its members. A member can alter any and all of his hosting options regularly to fit his changing hosting needs. For example if I only need 10 MB of server space and 5 GB of bandwidth one month and CGI and PHP the next month and I can just adjust my options to allow less bandwidth (3 GB) and and more options (CGI and PHP). These options are changeable at regular intervals like weekly, bi-monthly, or monthly (that hasn't been decided and may be changeable as well).

The whole concept allows the member complete and utter control of his hosting options and also allows for some security for me as a web host. For example, with a limited number of points there won't be abuse of bandwidth for warez because if one allocates too many points to bandwidth there are few points for server space (which defeats the need for bandwidth). On the other hand if too many points are allocated for server space there won't be enough bandwidth to serve the files to enough people. This system therefore allows the host to have a little bit of security from abuse (it's not much but its a bit).

The whole system is point based. For members with free accounts there are enough points allowed to run a decent site that doesn't seriously stress the server but allows the majority of personal sites to do a great deal. People with forums will be allowed to reside on the server with free accounts but they will obviously be limited in their amount of forum activity due to the lack of points allocatable to bandwidth when enabling the forum option. Lets face it, people with popular forums need to contribute a fair share to keep the servers running because that application is often quite resource intensive. Anyone who wants PHP, PERL, and MySQL will be allowed those options with proper point allocations but won't get much bandwidth or server space. This will allow anyone with school projects or other uses the ability to build their applications but not abuse server resources (intentionally or unintentionally). The point system is designed to help the members and the host simultaneously.

Let's face it, any server offering unlimited server space or bandwidth doesn't really expect a member to use infinite amounts. I'm telling my members straight out that server resources are limited but if you want to use up a great deal of server space or bandwidth, just allocate the points to it and I will know through logs what's happening and prepare for upgrades as they are required.

Now let's get to the staying afloat part for me as a web host. With about 200 active members (which I know is quite little but is a start) I have estimated bandwidth and server costs at approximately $200-$250 per month (all startup costs are included over a 12 month period in the monthly cost). This amount includes symmetric business DSL at 192 Kbps (scalable to 1.5 Mbps if needed) and about a $600 server which will be approximately the following:

• Athlox XP 2000+
• 120 GB WD 8MB Cache Hard Drive x2
• ABIT Motherboard (w/IDE RAID)
• Basic Vid Card
• 10/100 3Com NIC
• Basic Case
• Basic CD-ROM

The server will run a copy of Linux with Apache, MySQL, PHP, PERL, Qmail, etc. The majority of control panel software (custom) will be written in PHP with a MySQL backend. So with regard to the revenue part I believe (as before) that some revenue can be made off additional point purchases. The advantage for free members is that any time they need to purchase a few extra points they will be able to do this easily. For example, I am a free member with 10 free points and need double that for the forum I plan on running on the site. I go into my control panel and purchase 10 Long Term points (12 months) for $10 (cost is not set yet). So for the next 12 months I get to use my 10 extra points for whatever point allocation I want (i.e., bandwidth, PHP, server space, less file size restriction, etc.). Short term point options will be for people that need points for only a few months and therefore want to pay less but still get their points.

This system of buying extra points when needed should allow me to cover about 10% of my costs for a 200 member base (estimated) for 12 months. The more members I get, the more costs can be covered (and my costs should go down as well). So for about 1000 member base I should be able to cover 50% of my costs. Of course these estimates are based on active members (which I shall endeavor to keep and weed out any unused accounts using up resources). Truthfully though I don't know how many people would be willing to purchase extra points even if I do offer a multitude of payment options. I plan to offer PayPal (bank transfer or credit card), Checks, Money Orders. Also, I plan to offer discounts on large point purchases

Other revenue options are donations, branded merchandise (shirts, hats, keychains, etc.), and home page advertising. Of course MegabyteStored will never force ads onto members pages because that defeats the purpose of starting this web host in the first place. Yet I have considered the option of allowing members to host banners for MegabyteStored in exchange for additional points. This will kill two birds with one stone. The member gets his extra points with no payment (for those youngsters with no credit cards or bank accounts) and I get some revenue from advertising on his page. Tell me what you think of all these options.

That's about it for this post. I would appreciate any and all feedback regarding my current early plans. If those members who have already started their own web hosts have any experiences they'd like to share, I would appreciate it. Positive and negative feedback is appreciated, thanx!

-- alphaneutrino

 

[alphaneutrino]

Dedicated server solutions?

I've been considering my above plans for MegabyteStored and am reconsidering running the server locally due to bandwidth constraints (192 Kbps). Instead I am now thinking of using a dedicated server solution. What do you guys think of Rackshack.net servers? They seem to be quite affordable and don't seem to have any serious reliability issues. Give me some comments and criticisms about this and the above MegabyteStored ideas. Thanx!

-- alphaneutrino

 

[notnamed]

The member gets his extra points with no payment (for those youngsters with no credit cards or bank accounts) and I get some revenue from advertising on his page.

You're a godsend :classic2:

I think all your plans are great, especially the rackshack server idea. Many people won't sign up for a free host if they know it's in someone's bedroom. Rackshack is very trusted, many major sites run Rackshack servers as well as (I believe) quite a few hosts.

Here's another idea: sell the control panel. Indeed. Exactly. Then hosts can advertise that they use the 'Official [enter kudos] MegabyteStored Points System and control panel'. More revenue for you, link backs to people who want to try you out direct...what do you think?

 

[belladonna]

Its nice to know that there are some FWP webmasters who are concerned about their reputations and are willing to follow through on their projects...

The best way to build back trust and your reputation will be when you get your service up, just becarefull of what you offer to start off with. Dont overextend yourself and handle what you can.

Good luck

BD

 

[alphaneutrino]

belladonna,

Thanx for your support. I agree with what you mentioned about not biting off more than I can chew. I have a tendency to do that when I get excited about something and rarely can contain my urges to promise the world to myself and others. This time I'm exhibiting some self-control and plan to actually have a product built before I release it to the public. I hope I do business with you someday soon :classic2:

With regard to some thoughts I've been having, I would love to ask the FWS.net community a question. What kind of website do you have? The reason I ask this is because as I've browsed the Free Webspace forums I've noticed that there are certain FWP requests that just don't make sense. There are some who ask for unlimited everything and others who ask for PHP, PERL, CGI (not knowing that they really want PERL), ASP, JSP, XML, SGML, and everything in between. These requests make very little sense to me because from the 100 or so freely hosted web sites that I've ever seen, 80% were abandoned from the start, 15% had either WAREZ or PORN, and the last 5% actually seemed legitimate and interesting to peruse. Is this really the way the free web site community is made up (of mostly junk?)? I just want anyone who has a web site on a FWP to show me what they've got so I know what kinds of monthly bandwidth, server space, and other features they use. Also I want to see what variations of content is out there from your creative minds. And one more thing, I would like to get a reply from someone that actually thinks they need unlimited server space and unlimited bandwidth and to explain to me the reason why (I only want legitimate legal reasons). For example, if you run a shareware repository and need server space and bandwidth to host and server your shareware, why is your repository better than Download.com? Thats all for now, ttyl!

-- alphaneutrino

 

[belladonna]

For my sites, I have a personal website and a planned fansite. I have yet to fill up 5 megs, but I'm still moving in.

I think most people just sign up for the space because they can, to grab up as many 'o's in their quotas for the hell of it. Or they think they're getting away with something either sneaky or cool because they are hosting warez, hacks, or illegial content. Kinda kills the web for those who want to creation something different.
I guess in order to make a stable host you have to keep an eye like a hawk on your users or limit what they can have on your service. Those that ask for unlimited anything really dont stop to think about what they need or will be needing in the near future. No one needs every feature, no one NEEDS 500mb or more of space unless its a very unique case.

 

[notnamed]

This post was not meant to offend, but to point out the kinds of people that have been signing up to my FWP

alpha, I agree with you. Let me tell you a bit about what has been coming to me...
about 75%-80% of the signups have been Asian users. Asian users are okay, but not when they have Asian sites, which I can't check for illegal material because I cannot read them. 1% had pr0n. 10% had downloads (something that I disallowed.) The other 8% had unique, interesting content or designs but still had to be warned gently for minor TOS mishaps. I have found that as long as you are nice to the sites that aren't blatently breaking the TOS they're going to be nice to you.

 

[alphaneutrino]

Originally posted by notnamed
You're a godsend :classic2:

I think all your plans are great, especially the rackshack server idea. Many people won't sign up for a free host if they know it's in someone's bedroom. Rackshack is very trusted, many major sites run Rackshack servers as well as (I believe) quite a few hosts.

Here's another idea: sell the control panel. Indeed. Exactly. Then hosts can advertise that they use the 'Official [enter kudos] MegabyteStored Points System and control panel'. More revenue for you, link backs to people who want to try you out direct...what do you think?

Thanx notnamed,

I'd like to see a link to your hosting site if you have one and any member sites that you wouldn't mind me looking at.

Rackshack seems to be a good place to start out from the research I've done but I'm looking some around some more to see what else is available. With regard to the control panel: selling it will be an option if it is worthy of purchase by anyone. After I've completed building it, I will consider that option. Time will tell!

Also, about the demographics of the free web site members, I've also noticed that people outside the U.S. are more likely to want to host with free providers. This isn't necessarily bad but on MegabyteStored they will be checked out regularly for illegal content. I plan on using software translators for this job. I know that I can require foreign sites to have a copy of their site up in english but that seems to put an unneeded burden on the members who actually don't know english and don't have a good grasp of a software translator. And I agree from experience that if you treat people kindly and fairly they will often return the respect!

belladonna,

I would appreciate a link to your website so I can check it out and see what you've got. If you'd rather not post it on the forum, just PM me with it. Regarding your thoughts on other peoples tendency to grab tons of space and features, I agree, this seems to be the case in most situations. I used to think that way myself until I realized that I take up about a megabyte of space and about 20 megabytes of bandwidth on an average personal site. The only people that I've seen that need lots of space or bandwidth are illegal or legal software hosts. I can deal with the legal ones but definitely wnat to watch out for the illegal ones.

 

[notnamed]

I know that I can require foreign sites to have a copy of their site up in english but that seems to put an unneeded burden on the members who actually don't know english and don't have a good grasp of a software translator.

I consider myself more to be for English users. There are hosts that allow foriegn and especially asian content AFAIK (correct me if I'm wrong) but I don't plan to be one of them...too much hassle IMO.

As to my service itself, it's AntiGoneHost (which to those looking for hosting is Not At The Moment Accepting New Sign-Ups )
And I've contacted one of my members, two if I can find the e-mail address of the other, who are working on getting wholly English versions of their site up.

 

[trenzterra]

First of all, your plans are great.

You have great planning before opening a free web host, which other hosts usually don't do.

I wish good luck to you.

Just to help you here, my site may be a little *too* intense for the server.

I use up about 25MB of webspace, I run a site providing downloads of my mIRC Script, which consumes about 1-2GB transfer/month.

I have another personal website, uses up a little of space, almost no transfer, and isn't worth mentioning.

 

[alphaneutrino]

Originally posted by trenzterra
First of all, your plans are great.

You have great planning before opening a free web host, which other hosts usually don't do.

I wish good luck to you.

Just to help you here, my site may be a little *too* intense for the server.

I use up about 25MB of webspace, I run a site providing downloads of my mIRC Script, which consumes about 1-2GB transfer/month.

I have another personal website, uses up a little of space, almost no transfer, and isn't worth mentioning.

trenzterra,

Thanx for your support and info about your own site. Your needs of 25 Megabytes of server space and up to 2 GB of transfer/month are not "too intense" in my opinion. You seem to have a valid use for your server space and bandwidth, which is something I am happy to see for a change. In relating your requirements to MegabyteStored, I don't think you would need to buy extra points to be able to run your website from my host but only allocate your free points mainly to server space and bandwidth. Unless you needed a multitude of scripting languages like PHP and PERL or other extra features, you wouldn't need to buy any extra points. I'm curious though, what host is currently providing services for you? You seem to have files over 2 MB up for download which is rarely allowed on free hosts.

-- alphaneutrino

 

[awayfromforum]

I remember these plans from you. It has been a while since you have been here, since that plan came out when i was looking for my free hosting =), i had been anxiously waiting. But after a while i gave up, and went on. Now i have paid hosting so its all good.

in those packages, add domain hosting, quite a lot of people need it.