What kind of linux hosting would be hot now days?

[enoughhosting]

I am interested to start a free linux, php, mysql hosting service. It would be able to host both domains and subdomains.

I am wondering how to make it runnable. I mean if I put a banner ad on all new sites would people sign up? If so, whoose banner can I use. I know google adsense is not allowed in such a way. Secondly it would have an option to upgrade to paid account anytime and get rid of the banners.

Any ideas? Suggestions? Demands about what is cool.

[deeplist]

Suggestions? My suggestion is to stay out of the free hosting business. It's overwhelming and you're doomed to fail prior to even starting. Many people on here would disagree with me, but I have been around here for nearly a decade and EVERY free host that I have ever known (aside from a few giants) has failed within a year or two, and most fail within months.

[enoughhosting]

Yes, I agree with you. Mainly they fail as they compete with unrealistic offers. Like banner ad free hosting. As a result they dont have enough money to pay for their costs. On the other hand users dont want to sign up for a host that is putting and ad on their pages. Its a difficult situation.

Only other option that remains open is to have a host that is forum post based.

[[SRVLYR] Ivan]

Suggestions? My suggestion is to stay out of the free hosting business. It's overwhelming and you're doomed to fail prior to even starting. Many people on here would disagree with me, but I have been around here for nearly a decade and EVERY free host that I have ever known (aside from a few giants) has failed within a year or two, and most fail within months.

I agree to this statement.

Yes, I agree with you. Mainly they fail as they compete with unrealistic offers. Like banner ad free hosting. As a result they dont have enough money to pay for their costs. On the other hand users dont want to sign up for a host that is putting and ad on their pages. Its a difficult situation.

Only other option that remains open is to have a host that is forum post based.

Forum posting doesn't get you any cash. What you spend is what your going to regret. Try to start off with post2host with at least 1-2 paid plans on the side. Limit them all perhaps. Though it's your decision to what you want to do with your services, but i suggest you stay off the "free" market.

[enoughhosting]

Ok, if I take your advise then its good to stay away from free hosting. On the other hand situation are worse with paid hosting. Because big brand companies are offering paid hosting so cheap that its tough to get clients for small hosters.

Then what should we hosters do? Run away from servers or innovate to start some thing new! A revolution in hosting industry.

What could that be. Any ideas?

[AboutWeb]

I think you need to come with something new.

[deeplist]

You will NOT make it big with an "online only" presense. These folks online just look for the most space for the least amount of money... or no money. It's just too competitive. We market to local businesses around town and around the area where we're located. How many other "web hosting" companies are there here? None. Businesses around here are more than happy to pay $10 per month for quality hosting services. They also like the face to face interaction.

[enoughhosting]

Yes true, getting local clients still works. That the best way we are getting clients now days. Still we are on this forum looking for global clients too.

However the hot question is why this situation happened. In my view facebook and other social media are to blame. Please have stopped using free hosting and using social sites for image and video hosting. As for important documents they are using their gig space on email accounts. I have seen many people doing that with their gmail or hotmail account. In that way they can get good backup as those mails never loose data and their docs are readily available and can be sent to other mails as they wish.

So why would anyone need free hosting? One reason is for learning purposes. And then again free hosting services are degrading due to all these factors.

[AboutWeb]

You can't host a web site on email.

[deeplist]

Most "people" simply do not care about hosting anymore. They don't care to start up sites or blogs because there's simply no point in doing so anymore. As pointed out above, the Internet has changed over the last few years, primarily because of social networking. We used to run an extremely popular Invision forum that was online for about 6 or 7 years. Around 2006, we noticed the popularity of it declining rapidly and then around 2008, it was completely dead. We finally just took it offline. Will the Internet change? Yeah probably. Look at MySpace, it was all the rage around 06 and then FaceBook slowly took over after they started allowing everybody to join. Now MySpace is practically worthless. (I know I don't use it anymore, and most of the people that I know do not use it anymore either.) FaceBook is the new thing. I have been a member on FaceBook long before they opened it up to the world. In my opinion, it's on a fast track for failure too as bots and spam are beginning to increase more and more. But for now, it's hot. I guess we'll see over the next few years how it pans out.

Being a host in this business for over 10 years now, I have saw this market flourish and also trough. Another problem (at least I think it's a problem) is that the cost of technology has dropped so sharply over the last decade, that now virtually anybody can get their hands on a VPS or Dedi and become a "host" pretty much overnight. Is that bad? It depends on who you talk to. In the late 90s and the early part of 2000s, people would give their left arm for 100 MB of free space on the Internet. Back then if your server had a 800MHz processor, 256MB of RAM and a 40 GB hard drive, you were top of the line. You could lease out 500MB chunks of that server and make really decent money. Now you have every Tom, Bob, and Harry on here giving out 15 and 20 GB of space for nothing.

Don't get me wrong, you can still extend your services globally and pick up a few clients online, or offer some free hosting to your buddies on here, but the only way to make money in this markey, the way it stands right now, is to market locally or dip into specialized markets. Believe me, I've tried it all.

[enoughhosting]

Most "people" simply do not care about hosting anymore. They don't care to start up sites or blogs because there's simply no point in doing so anymore. As pointed out above, the Internet has changed over the last few years, primarily because of social networking. We used to run an extremely popular Invision forum that was online for about 6 or 7 years. Around 2006, we noticed the popularity of it declining rapidly and then around 2008, it was completely dead. We finally just took it offline. Will the Internet change? Yeah probably. Look at MySpace, it was all the rage around 06 and then FaceBook slowly took over after they started allowing everybody to join. Now MySpace is practically worthless. (I know I don't use it anymore, and most of the people that I know do not use it anymore either.) FaceBook is the new thing. I have been a member on FaceBook long before they opened it up to the world. In my opinion, it's on a fast track for failure too as bots and spam are beginning to increase more and more. But for now, it's hot. I guess we'll see over the next few years how it pans out.

Being a host in this business for over 10 years now, I have saw this market flourish and also trough. Another problem (at least I think it's a problem) is that the cost of technology has dropped so sharply over the last decade, that now virtually anybody can get their hands on a VPS or Dedi and become a "host" pretty much overnight. Is that bad? It depends on who you talk to. In the late 90s and the early part of 2000s, people would give their left arm for 100 MB of free space on the Internet. Back then if your server had a 800MHz processor, 256MB of RAM and a 40 GB hard drive, you were top of the line. You could lease out 500MB chunks of that server and make really decent money. Now you have every Tom, Bob, and Harry on here giving out 15 and 20 GB of space for nothing.

Don't get me wrong, you can still extend your services globally and pick up a few clients online, or offer some free hosting to your buddies on here, but the only way to make money in this markey, the way it stands right now, is to market locally or dip into specialized markets. Believe me, I've tried it all.

Thanks for your valuable comments. I have also been through similar experiences (hosted and toasted) over the last decade. Things are always changing with the internet. Very fast, too fast to keep up with. Luck is a factor, trend is a factor. Right now facebook is the latest factor after few years of myspace battering.

Surprisingly more people are reading webhosting talk than this or other free hosting forums that we are on. That means the paid market is still there but we lost those clients who were looking for a personal space. Now mostly business clients are looking for the best and reliable hosting.

But the store does not end there. We can always fight back. Just need some innovations. An idea can change the hosting world once again.