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Message # 20584.6

Subject: Re: question for the forum ... we need your input

Date: Tue 31/01/06 17:57:14 GMT

Name: bryce

Email: brycepunk1@earthlink.net

Website: http://brycepunk.grayhost.net/index-wam.html

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My wife and I use Grayhost (Graham's server) and I highly reccomend it. $100 a year for something like 10gb a month, which we've never used up (with something like 800 pictures posted.) I write all my own html code, but I think there are templates and such available for free if you don't want to be bothered. I enjoy the tech-aspect, the tweaking, and the utterly basic presentation

As for the cost... we just suck it up. It's $100 a year ($10 a month or so) to make a lot of people very happy and get lots of really great e-mails from people telling us they are so happy we're sharing with the world. So worth the cost. If you can't swing the cost set up a pay-pal thing until you reach your goal. Do a fund drive or raffle. Have fun with it.

Just please don't start charging money. It won't effect me any, but it really seems to change the mood of a site once money is involved. Now it's an obligation, a buisness venture... instead of being a good time. Want to take a few weeks off? Tough, you have updates to do. Want to experiment? Tough, you've got regulars and paying customers to make happy. Want to just enjoy it? Tough, now you feel the need to advertise and sell your product. But hey, you might make an extra $400 a year for new clothing and equipment, so maybe it's a good idea.

I dunno. I'd never charge for this sort of thing, but I'm also a hippie who wants people to be happy for free.

Check out the site to see how it works if you get bored:

http://brycepunk.grayhost.net/index-wam.html

In reply to Message (20584)

question for the forum ... we need your input

By Todd and Jennifer - tdouty@yahoo.com Tue 31/01/06 07:34:39 GMT

Website:

Jennifer and I have a question for the forum. We're not sure how long Webshots will let us keep creating new user accounts to store our pictures ... and maybe rightly so that they don't allow it. We like the idea of having all our pictures in one place so a website would really be nice. I have a site ready to put up, but there are fees involved with putting up a site. It would cost probably $200/year for the domain name and bandwidth (just a rough estimate). We could:

- just keep going with what we have been doing and use Webshots taking the chances that one day they'll shut us off

- set up a member site. To be quite honest, this is what we have been planning and have a few picture sets ready for it. We've discovered that ccbill will require a lot of money up front because of being a "high risk" business. A website would make us some money, but might take the fun out of the whole thing because regular updates are a must when you have paying members. This would be a full-fledged business, complete with tax write-offs and consequences.

- set up a "pay per picture set" site to offset the cost of the site. In this scenario, we'd post previews of the set and then take payments in the form of money orders or paypal. When we get payment, we'd email out a zip file of the pictures.

- set up a website and pay for the domain and bandwidth and ask for donations each year to cover the cost of the site. We'd keep pestering the community for money via paypal or money order payments until we got enough to cover the cost of keeping the site up. This wouldn't make us any money unless people wanted to make donations, but would keep the site up and running and have all our pictures in one place.

So, what are your thoughts? As we said, we have everything ready for a membership site, but it's beginning to look like it's much more than we'd like to get into. It involves setting up accounts with ccbill or some other ecommerce site, web hosting and domain name setup and keeping the busines separate from our other funds for tax purposes. When it gets to involved, the fun isn't there anymore because it's like a job where it has to be done to keep things running.

Oh by the way, we just received a nice dress last night from a friend of the forum and it's about to be dunked! Can't wait to see this one!! We'll let you know who you can thank in a few days.

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