I am thinking about providing a free hosting sevice, what do you think about it? Do you thing there would be enough interest? What would you suggest so I can compete with current free service provider .. Tell me whatever comes to your mind about this, any suggestions and whatever you think might be useful. Also what script should I use, what kind and size of advert and so on.
First thing that comes to mind is you're going to have alot of "abuse" of your service... Yes there will be interest - especially if it's general hosting and not just blogging etc. Make the ads discreet or people will find ways to override them. But really, you have to look at your business plan and work out why you are doing it and what you hope to gain. Are you after a niche? or do you aspire to be another geocities?
I want to do something different, not relying on adsense and affiliate, something that attracts users on its own. Everything I have is based on search engine placement. Nobody ever comes back from favorites list or their memory. Adsense and affiliate is good, you don't need a customer service or anything but doesn't satisfy sense of security.
Whoever sells you your reseller system will automatically have in there a management tool - probably cpanel but there are quite a few systems out there. What is the advert for? - I had assumed it would be on the pages of your clients: yahoo have the side bar, blogger has the top bar...
The only way to do this free hosting business right is to find a niche and only cater to that niche. EG...blog sites only, church sites only (big market there if you promote it right),.
I'd definitely say focus on a niche. Some examples: Host sites for designers to use for portfolios. Host sites for musicians to post their photos / mp3s, etc. Host sites for photographers' portfolios (not just an image hosting site) Host space as simply a place for people to store backups of their files. Host sites where models can post their portfolios / photos. Whatever niche you choose, try to offer some free site / portfolio templates. Or even do something like Myspace / Purevolume / etc. where you host "profiles" not really sites. It doesn't have to be that interactive or anything. Actually, think more like sonicbids.com (they host electronic press kits for bands). As far as I know there's nothing similar that's non-music-related. It might be a good service. Actually... I might even look into it as an add-on to my publicity firm. shhhh. j/k Jenn