cpanel + fantastico + no ads + limited features will be good for free hosting. you can offer unlimited features on paid service.
Well Layered Panel is great because you are able to customise all of it, Which is why it is so popular Thanks for all the feedback
With cpanel (costing money) + fantastico (costing money) + no ads (not making money) what exactly would you 'limit'? Bandwidth? Diskspace? Cannot do those; you won't get members. So what do you limit, pray tell? Note that all the huge ones have ads on the user pages and no cpanel or other features you mention. And still they grow with thousands of users per day; why? Because 'non internet fahig' internet users (90% and growing fast) doesn't give a crap about the 'panel software' used; they want 'a blog', 'a forum' , etc. Simply because of this hosts like freewebs (with ads, >15 million users and growing fast) and 110mb (no ads, > 1million of users and growing fast) and panels like layeredpanel are successful ; people here care, the rest of the world doesn't (about cpanel).
doesn't matter the panel as long you have the features , Cpanel is more used i think but not a "must" . still prefer uptime , speed and things like that, but without ads on my site, because is ugly
Oh but you are wrong.... It doesn't matter when you are small but it make all the difference when you grow. For example LP is the only one that has custom build services in it which allows it to stand huge loads (>40K users) which most others simply can't stand. Features are nice but at the end the robustness and strength of the core engine is what makes or breaks a free host provider. Check out the big ones - 110mb, Zymic, Quotaless - All use LP and for a reason. You can always customize, make it cooler but you have to be sure the engine is scalable.
Depends Most people (and even quite a few companies) will not 'evolve' over it as they made the right choice and took a stable one (mentioned a lot here before already) ; if you don't need extensive features and the uptime it doesn't matter You need good backup and that's all.
Take a look at the business models already out there on free hosting. Its a market for the Googles and the like (i.e. Blogger). Even paid hosting is a tough market to crash...you have to have the numbers ... and then there's the issue of support. If you ever manage clients in numbers, you'll see it only takes a few to drain your time and eat your profits. Good luck to you, but I'm thinking there's an easier model out there to consider if you're a one man web business. ND
yes but 110Mb has a good strategy , now they have a lot of users ( 12 boxes ) and paid options too, for example Mysql is around 9$ / account , php mail 5 $ + the new version of LP will have more options with the time
Your trusted users (mods) will manage mostly everything. It is hard for a little while, although most people understand that free does not mean that you get everything. The ones that do can bugger off. The thing with free other than with paid is that you can just tell people to go for paid if they have any more complaints/support/whatever; with paid services you actually have SLA's and law etc; people *paid* for something. With free, you have 0 rights. That is an advantage and it works. Ask the freewebs.com owner He can sit in the sun the rest of his life...
Kwaku, That is a great point, Because the 'product' is free customers have very little ground to stand on if they are unhappy with the service etc. Like you said freewebs.com owner can have a happy rest of his life!
Just to let you guys know, there will also be a forum under the same name of the free host, it will be both a webmaster forum and also a forum for users of the free host to talk. What would be the best script for that? Is vBulletin the best in the market? Thanks Jon
Haha! Should be logical; a) people do it and make money (some a lot of money; those who stick with it) b) anything can be made into a business; even selling pictures of your fecal output (sold as art) As I say in my article ; you just need some creativity and you can beat anyone and anything. Funny enough ; anyone here will tell you that a lot of members (and here that is > 10.000) will make you money, but not if they are freehost members? Come on... Because of some unlucky people here it got a bad rap. That happens. Nothing to worry
Hey Kwaku, Your exactly right, anyone and anything can make money despite negative critics. Damien Hirst the british artist is a great example! He made art out of dead sheep! Now he is worth 100+ million! Kwaku, It would be great to talk to you some more, do you have messenger?
Hey Guys, Thanks for all the great information. We are currently getting some more funding for the project, and also some more employees Thanks Jon
We are now looking for partners and investors for the website. It is still in its early development stages and we have had a number of templates designed. If you are interested in joining our team then please post here or PM me Thanks Jon