This seems something interesting and since I have some spare space on my server I was thinking of embarking on it. I was wondering if there is money to be made in this, after accounting for bandwidth cost, advertisement and such? There seems to be quite a number of people offering both free and paid image hosting. Not sure if I should embark in it or not.
I put up an image and file hosting site. Went through a few scripts, some were crappy, some were buggy, and one script just plain hated me. The present script seems to be the best of the bunch (cost 27 bucks). It has a paid option, so I figure with promotion and getting traffic that enough people will take the paid option to make it pay it's way on the net. Plus of course, the ads on the site should pay out over time. My research on this subject was interesting. Quite a few sites of course. And a heck of a lot of people want and need a place to host images and files. Get one and join me!
Thanks for the feedback. Maybe I will. It isn't to cost me too much, just the domain name and the script since I have the resources to boot.
Best of luck Eddy. I haven't started a image site as of yet, so I am speaking from a consumer's point of view. There are quite a few image and file hosting sites, and some of them are pretty well entrenched in the market. To capture their share won't be easy rite, cos this one works on brand loyalty and " first impression is the last impression" formula. This will need quite some time to break even and start making profits rite. Hows your site doing, joe??? How long has it been up and running??
I am thinking the same thing too but I guess if I never tried it, I will never know how it goes. I am looking to see if I can find a niche for this. As I am a shareware developer and my main product are image processors, it can actually be a value-added service which I can offer my customer base. I am always up for new things as I am always in the process of lifelong learning. If it doesn't work out in a year's time, I'll just sell the site off, by then, there should be some PR to speak off.
So, do some people really make money with image hosting ? If so, how much? That doesn't look very lucrative...
It seems like they would get most of their money by advertising partner sites. They get a hella lot of back links though.
Yes, but it seems that the ad clicks don't cover the cost to me. Many people post the photo directly to the forums where it's displayed inline, in other words the only person who sees the ads is the poster when he uploads his photo. The people who view the photo in the forum don't see any ad. What do you think?