Free Hosting /wout Banners or Popups.

[tee]

A friend of mine opened up a free webhosting domain.

I think its really generous of her and I think it would help alot of you who don't have your own domains. You can have a site /wout Banners or Popups. Doesn't get better then that!

http://host-me.org

[Vestirse]

Well, I guess that's not self-promotion. Good luck with your biz. Hope it doesn't fall into one of the many pitfalls.

[interactive]

Hello,
I don't want to start a flame war, but just so you know there are alot of web hosts here (my self EXCLUDED atm), so you'll probably get alot of flakc as it does in a way hurt their business. But just so your friend knows, she has to come up with some sort of a income to atleast pay bills, because overtime it probably will get too big for a reseller account or whatever she has now. None the less good luck!

[Chicken]

I don't feel that free hosts hurt nor affect paid hosts' business all that much, even ad-free ones. On FWS, these types of offers aren't sustainable and they sort of come and go. That isn't to take anything away from tee's friend's offer, however people who need dependable hosting tend to go for dependable, paid hosting.

[tee]

Lana (my friend) has a very good job and she really doesn't need the money. It's kinda sad that when someone does something to help others out people think it either wont last or its bad in some way.

[Lana]

I do have some sort of income coming in to pay my bills. I hold a full time job that pays me very well. Host-me.org is a hobby of mine. I do this free of charge its not like I'm taking business away from geocities, angelfire etc., I've got a whole 50 members signed up, in the month that I've had the domain, WOW. its just for fun and to occupy my time when I'm not working or doing something else.

[Chicken]

My point was just that the "free model" only goes so far. Like Lana said, it is a hobby of hers. None of this is bad, just that she already has 50 people signed up and once people know about it, she could get 200 or 300 or 1,000 requests or more a day, and there's just a limit to what she will provide (thus, not a threat to paid hosts). I didn't mean anything in a bad way.

Free hosting is great, and that's how I and many others started many moons ago. Later found a paid host, and then a dedicated provider, etc.

[James]

yep,
i remember my frist website(page?) that was off of my dialup provider for a while then went to google. then i made a web site that was hosting related about 3 years ago and started on the route of payed hosting ever sence.

good luck
James

[interactive]

Originally posted by tee
Lana (my friend) has a very good job and she really doesn't need the money. It's kinda sad that when someone does something to help others out people think it either wont last or its bad in some way.

I wasn't trying to be rude, more power to your friend. I was just simply stating some things. Didn't mean to offend you. I wish you and your friend the best luck. And hey I'm for anything that's free (Well almost anything).

[David]

The "free model", yeah it takes some work.

We have been going through figuring out what a workable "model" really is. Our competition places ads on the forums they host and from day one we said we didn't want to do this. This left us in a tight spot since customers not paying + no income from adds = red. What we ended up doing is keeping the normal free forums with no ads but also adding our "Flagship" service. We designed it so that the limiter was space, just as the limiter else where is ads. So Flagship offers more space and features thus hopefully generating income. Over this next month we will see if this tweaked "free model" will work.

[Chicken]

yeah, to be honest, I don't know how you guys do it. I've never felt that a free forum host would make it, as the scripts and server resources would just kill things, but you've managed to survive, and seem to do it well. I must say though, you seem to be the exception in this field. Unless I'm mistaken, invision's free hosting died a bit ago, etc. Certainly something is needed to generate income eventually, be it upgraded paid features or added services and products (such as selling domains, or whatever, some added source of income).

[allan]

Originally posted by Chicken:

yeah, to be honest, I don't know how you guys do it. I've never felt that a free forum host would make it, as the scripts and server resources would just kill things, but you've managed to survive, and seem to do it well.


ezboard is able to do it somehow (http://www.ezboard.com/)

[interactive]

I thought that Ezboard charged?

[allan]

Originally posted by interactive:

I thought that Ezboard charged?

I don't think so, I am pretty sure you can setup a board for free -- but I could be wrong :(

[suppleSupport]

Originally posted by interactive:

I thought that Ezboard charged?

Last I checked it was free :)

[David]

Originally posted by allan:

ezboard is able to do it somehow (http://www.ezboard.com/)
They have ads and like ProBoards you can pay to remove them.

[Robert]

Maybe we should go free hosting rather than paid? Naaaah