Free Hosting for what would you call it?

[EccentrixDotCom]

Was wondering if there was an interest for hosting sites with non-nude content<but maybe really close?>
I have the means, the hardware, the connection and what not to do the service, and want to know if there would be interest in it. What would you want.
50 MB, 100MB, more? sorry, can't do unlimited, not smart in a business model I think.
Cgi, php, wouldn't be included either unless you could prove that with sites like these it would be needed, then maybe I would consider it.
Form Mail, Web Boards, I am open to suggestions. If I go with it, you can expect it to be up within a couple of weeks since our servers already run freeweb hosting services.
I could use promotion material to allow many sites to be Featured on the main site through some sort top sites, or rotation of submitted sites.

Since I would be hosting people like you, I would like any constructive feedback you may offer.

Thank you,
Cliff
cliff@eccentrix.com
Owner - Eccentrix Dot Com

[EccentrixDotCom]

Also, would there be any interest in email?
Thanks,
Cliff
cliff@eccentrix.com

[Cracker]

Originally posted by EccentrixDotCom
can't do unlimited, not smart in a business model I think.

But some people's sites may have lots of files, are constantly growing, and the person may never know when he/she is going to run out of space! What would he/she do in that situation? "Illegally" obtain another account!?

[EccentrixDotCom]

Cracker Said:
But some people's sites may have lots of files, are constantly growing, and the person may never know when he/she is going to run out of space! What would he/she do in that situation? "Illegally" obtain another account!?

Well, you are right, they might run out of space. But this would happen anywhere. Hard drives have limits, servers have limits. I don't want to decieve anyone by saying unlimited and then in small print saying 100 MB. I haven't decided whether I am going to run it or not. If there iss interest I am gonna do it.
Come on people, Ideas.
I left some obviopus ones open FTP, maybe a zip upload feature in the file manager that would unzip your site in your directory? hmmm, what else........

[Akito tenkawa]

Cracker:

Unlimited web space? How large a site are you creating that requires unlimited web space?

But some people's sites may have lots of files, are constantly growing, and the person may never know when he/she is going to
run out of space! What would he/she do in that situation? "Illegally" obtain another account!?

The majority of users of free web space probably use less than 15-20 megs. Sure free web hosting companies can lure members in with the promise of unlimited space, but someone has to pay for all of the servers, disk space, bandwidth, etc.

EccentrixDotCom:

Ftp access is a must for most users, but I like the idea of the "zip upload". It would probably help the users that are still out there with slower connections.

other than that, site statistics (some people get a real kick out of it), photo galleries (set up certain folders which will automatically create thumbnailed image galleries for use on thier web site).

How will you be earning revenue? (banner ads, newsleters...)

[Cracker]

Originally posted by Akito tenkawa
Sure free web hosting companies can lure members in with the promise of unlimited space, but someone has to pay for all of the servers, disk space, bandwidth, etc.

Sounds like the words of a CHICKEN FWP! Anyway, I just thought of something; be like Stas.net and offer 1 gigabyte of free storage space or something; according to Stas.net, NOBODY on their server has ever used that much space for one site.
By the way, Crosswinds has been getting away with offering real "unlimited" web space for three years (they were the first to do it, too), and they've never, ever run out (except on temporary drives, but that doesn't count). Disk space is cheap! As for bandwidth, have the ads pay for it; as a site uses more bandwidth, ad revenue will increase.
Spaceports also offers real "unlimited" web space (although not all at once).

[Nick]

Originally posted by Cracker
By the way, Crosswinds has been getting away with offering real "unlimited" web space for three years (they were the first to do it, too), and they've never, ever run out (except on temporary drives, but that doesn't count).

Do you ever get tired of mindlessly promoting CrossWinds?

[Cracker]

What's the matter, Nick? Did Crosswinds rip you off? [/sarcasm]

[Nick]

Originally posted by Cracker
What's the matter, Nick? Did Crosswinds rip you off? [/sarcasm]

Their only decent aspect is their pop3 email which I have stopped using about a year ago. Yes, I do think their services are ----ty out of personal prefrence, but I haven't been "ripped off" in anyway what-so-ever. Do you think that everyone who doesn't like CW thinks they've been ripped off? Ha! What a stupid way of looking at things. I just find it mildly amusing that you can sit there and mindlessly promote them constantly. Just like I find it mildly amusing when people try to make insults in the form of sarcastic remarks, and then I switch it on them and they look stupid.

[Gayowulf]

I like the zipping idea, and webstats are fun even if they arent accurate.

I also think the idea of starting out cautiously is a good idea too.

[neon]

The problem I see with your offering is the statement "non-nude content<but maybe really close?>" as that leaves a very very big door open as to what "you VS visitor" consider as "non-nude content but maybe really close"

As far as offering cgi that would not be a biggie as what most people would want is a way to protect their private/member directories so if you offered something like .htaccess it should be fine and even more so since you are offering the basic stuff like fourms, form-mail and stuff like that anyway.

As far as space goes I think 100mb should be fine because if the person wants to have a successful site they will want to remove old content on a regular basis anyway. If they wanted to store it somewhere so that it can still be accessed by the web then they could always get an account with a free disk space provider and store it on there.

Bandwidth would more then likely be your biggest issue as alot of free adult hosting providers tend to offer unlimited bandwidth these days. You could just set it up so that when a person first signs up you give them like 5gb a month for the site and then every month you could add a gig or 2 to their site. Doing it this way would increse you members loyalty because they know next month they will be gettig more bandwith for their site and IMHO would not want to leave.

Offering paid services or upgrade services would be a must but I am sure you have already thought about that.

Anyway that is my 2 cents so take it for what it's worth.

[LeX]

EccentrixDotCom:

Forget the "non-nude but maybe really close" idea, I wouldn't want my site hosted with a FWP that allows pages with adult-related material, although non-nude. Heck, I'm betting that people will take advantage of that and start putting up pics of nearly-exposed pics of models and real nasty words.

Offer your members "unlimited" space the other way. Give 'em say, 20~30MB of space, then if there is the need, all they need to do is email you or something and ask for more (with some kind of reason), and you just give 'em what they ask for - more space!

Free CGI and FTP should be offered too. Most people search around for the same "basic" stuff: No ads, lotsa space, FTP and CGI. If people were satisfied with a FWP without CGI and FTP, then I'm sure RedRival etc. would've been sufficient, there wouldn't be the need for more FWPs I guess. Oh, yeah... SSI's important too. You should offer that as well.

Personally, I don't use PHP and ASP and stuff like that, so I won't suggest you offer those.

For people who don't want to mess around with CGI, you can offer free pre-installed scripts too. Polls, guestbooks, forums, counters, email forms... these kinda junk. The UnZip option in file manager would be great, it would be a lot easier to simply upload one file at a time consisting of your whole website instead of selecting a large quantity of files and uploading it one at a time. I HATE using browser upload because you have to "Browse" your harddisk and find the SINGLE file of all the files you want to upload, always starting from My Documents.

For your revenue, I suppose you can do what emeisp does, a script that loads a background popup ad or a page with your ads once a visitor leaves the user's page. Of course, this may mess up the code, and I'm sure nobody would like it... and I'm not encouraging you to do so. Still, it's better than forcing ads on people's pages anyways, and at least you'll be getting some money, right?

I've also been wondering. What's the point of placing ads and putting popups on people's pages if nobody clicks on 'em? I mean, I'm sure that nearly all visitors won't even glance at the ad, not to mention clicking on it! Or, is there a way to earn money just by placing ads without having to click on it???

[Michael]

If you are going to host adult sites be prepared to have a *huge* bandwidth bill.

I wouldn't worry about cgi/php... FTP is always a plus.... and I wouldn't offer more than 10-30 megs of space.... because people will try to put big movies on your host. Imagine you have a 5 mb MPEG that gets downoaded 10,000 times.... and chances are they will have more than just one.

Unless you have a big budget adult hosting is not the way to go. Even if they aren't naked it will still get tons of visitors.

[Cracker]

If I were you, I wouldn't offer adult hosting because then nobody would host with you unless his/her site had adult content.
Also, somebody mentioned nobody clicking on banners/pop-up ads. Why should they? I wouldn't want all of my site's traffic to go to advertisers. People come to my site for content, not ads. The only reason ads are on my site is so that I never have to pay for it. I'm tired of seeing ads with lies beneath them saying, "Click here or this site cannot exist," or something like that. Everyone knows that if it's hosted for free, it will stay up regardless of whether or not you click on it.

[Nick]

Originally posted by Cracker
I'm tired of seeing ads with lies beneath them saying, "Click here or this site cannot exist,"

My favorite one was when some guy on SpacePorts put "CLICK HERE TO SAVE THOSE STARVIN CILDRED IN GUATAMALA". The funny part was, it was spelled that way :p.

[EccentrixDotCom]

Well, What we will probably do is, FTP, Webstats, Banners<sorry, no choice on a high volume as this would be>, Adult material <Without nudity>, no Cgi, php, or mysql, would be allowed except the things we have preinstalled. We would have a TOS that described what is and waht isn't allowed, so hopefully that would keep things in the clear.
Paid services are a def. and would allow people to have such things as custom 404 pages, no ads, and other things, but wouldn't be available immediatly, as those scripts would take a while for me to write.
Would payment through paypal be choice or would some other method? I know a lot of people don't trust FWP's with their credit card numbers, so what would be ya'lls choice of payment?

Will try to get the zipping feature installed into it as soon as possible, but no def. on the initial release.

I don't want to offer unlimited, just seems to much of a gimmick. Maybe I will go to crosswinds and upload 3 gigs of data, Think they will let me? I do have 3 gigs of valid content, whether it gets traffic or not is another story.
How does 50-75 MB sound?


Well, be looking for it in a couple of weeks, I don't want to give the domain yet as I haven't even put it in my dns yet.
Thanks for all the ideas, look forward to maybe hosting some of you in the near future.

Cliff
Eccentrix Dot Com

[Cracker]

Yes, eccentrixdotcom, Crosswinds will let you upload 3 gigs of data, as long as it's all PUBLICLY ACCESSABLE. Don't try using them as an online hard drive, that's against the TOS.

[LeX]

Well, if you're planning on doing what you said you are going to do, then I'm sure a lot of people WON'T sign up for your service as a sort of lifetime home, you know? 'cause there are many greedy people out other, like me, who are looking for the best fwp that offers everything for free and most importantly, without ads. I'm pretty sure you'll lose a lot of users who probably would have signed up if you didn't force ads, but then again, maybe that'll save lots of bandwidth and disk space for others.

I really think you shouldn't allow near-nude pages.

Anyways, good luck... and don't expect me to sign up! :p

[Canuckkev]

I think that if you want to be a succesful host, you can't put banners/pop ups on members pages. Maybe have an exit code so when someone leaves your domain (and the users site) page will pop up. I think someone mentioned this, and I don't think it's a bad idea. It would be a bit annoying for the user, but if they left your page, who really cares about them anymore? (unless your site gets lots of returns) . Besides the no banners/pop ups, you would need FTP. And as for space, I agree that you should start out with 20-30 MB, and allow users to request more if they need it. And to stop people hosting warez, maybe have a limit of one request per 2 weeks or something like that. CGI would be a nice addition too. PHP, mysql, asp are good to have, but I doubt a high enough percent of users would use these functions to make them worthwhile. That would be a pretty ideal FWP. But if you're not gonna pay for it, you can't expect the best.

[EccentrixDotCom]

Originally posted by LeX
Well, if you're planning on doing what you said you are going to do, then I'm sure a lot of people WON'T sign up for your service as a sort of lifetime home, you know? 'cause there are many greedy people out other, like me, who are looking for the best fwp that offers everything for free and most importantly, without ads. I'm pretty sure you'll lose a lot of users who probably would have signed up if you didn't force ads, but then again, maybe that'll save lots of bandwidth and disk space for others.

I really think you shouldn't allow near-nude pages.

Anyways, good luck... and don't expect me to sign up! :p
Near nude is the whole point of the service. Just can't be showing anything that they could per say show on TV. The rules will be more lenient than other servers.

[Nick]

Originally posted by Cracker
Yes, eccentrixdotcom, Crosswinds will let you upload 3 gigs of data, as long as it's all PUBLICLY ACCESSABLE. Don't try using them as an online hard drive, that's against the TOS.

[This is not directed toward Cracker]

Question: Since when is 3 GBs unlimited? I say we all upload all of our images, old sites, tutorials, and mp3s that we legally meade to one CrossWinds account and make it public. See how long it takes before they cut the "Unlimited" crap ;).

[LeX]

Oh,... well, since you're gonna be hosting partially-nude sites, then you might as well force big ugly "near-porn" banners that's suppose to generate a bunch of revenue. :p

Again, good luck~~~ :)

[EccentrixDotCom]

Not sure the advertising we would do, I doubt there would be anything to bad on it.. I have a couple of advertisers in mind, but not too many. The ads wouldn't be to large and in the way. What would people prefer, pop-up or static? Frame?
The site is in the design stages right now, and probably not much more time to gt the cosmetics done<which I don't do because no-one would even take the site seriously>. I have been working on the scripts and think that I am about 3 - 6 days from being done with what will be the first release.

One last question, would running a first 100 accounts get banner free for x amount of time be appealing? Or maybe even forever?
Thanks,
Cliff

[LeX]

I wuz just kidding... I know you won't be advertising AV VCD ads. ;)

I'm sure users would like it if they can choose where they want to place the ads. Some may not be pleased if it was forced at the top of their pages. I don't agree on doing adframes, they suck, and popups are seriously annoying, so don't do that either.

Sure, it'll be appealing, and you'll probably get lots of signups in a very short amount of time with people trying to snatch that offer. :)

[EccentrixDotCom]

Originally posted by LeX
I wuz just kidding... I know you won't be advertising AV VCD ads. ;)

I'm sure users would like it if they can choose where they want to place the ads. Some may not be pleased if it was forced at the top of their pages. I don't agree on doing adframes, they suck, and popups are seriously annoying, so don't do that either.

Sure, it'll be appealing, and you'll probably get lots of signups in a very short amount of time with people trying to snatch that offer. :)

Ad plaecment by users is usually a bad thing sinmce they will put it about 100 miles down after the bottom of the page. I don't see a way to guarantee it say to be in the top 1/3 of the page?
I could parse the banner in <How I do on angelcities.com> on the fly, and if they had a <!--<%BANNER%>--> tag replace it with the banner, otherwise, tag it to the top. Also, how I do angelcities is if they don't want the static banner they can put <!--<%POP-UP%>--> then they get a pop-up banner. So I will be offering options on the banners. Just not sure if user placement will be an option.

[Canuckkev]

If you were going to give the first 100 users banner free space, let the forum know well in advance!

[LeX]

True. Well, it was just my piece of advice.

[EccentrixDotCom]

I'll take any advise into consideration. Thanks for the input. Also, I will be posting on these forums about the first 100 Accounts being free when it comes time.
Thank you,
Cliff
Eccentrix Dot Com

[Michael]

People actually do click on the banners on adult sites... and adult sites get so much traffic its impossible to have it ad free.

You are talking about each site getting tens of thousands of hits.. which is not very hard todo with adult sites.