How much support would there be for...

[John]

Just wondering how much support you guys would think that there would be for a hosted solution - we would host you boards on our server, maintaining upgrades and everything. Obviously the people who have already bought it will not want anything like this, but what about new users and people without the know-how and technology to install and run it?

Please let me know what you think here.

Thanks,
John

[Martin]

You would definitely need a couple more (and beefier) servers to offer something like this, so you're looking at a huge outlay to begin with. You will definitely need a dedicated mySQL server.
You would defintely want something that would generate the boards for people when they sign up, which means a huge redesign of the system. If you don't offer it like that, then you're going to spend a *lot* of time creating boards for people.

Then, you would have to decide whether to charge for the hosting or rely on ad revenue. Ad revenue can be a real bitch. For 1.5 mil pv's last month we made a little over $1,000.
If you charge, then you're going to face the stiff competition of places that are already established and split revenue with users, such as Delphi or Everyone.net. You would also lose a lot of people to places that don't charge, like EZBoards.
If you rely on ad revenue, then you're going to have to come up with a decent deal, like they have at Delphi or everyone.net, which will cut more into your limited revenue from ads.

I think there would be demand for it, though it may be somehwat limited and I don't know if there would be a lot of profit in it for you.

[evoir]

I thought the whole reason you wrote this program was to create a non-remotly hosted board?

If you do this, I'd hope that you'll still keep it available for folks who want to install on their own server.

Are many folks having installation issues? I thought the install was going smoothly except for dreamcharger's?

[James]

Rest assured we'll still offer the product for use on any server... the hosting service will be an option for customers who either don't have the required software installed (MySQL, PHP) or would like a totally managed solution.

Martin - we're not planning to have a totally advertising supported service. We'll probably more likely charged a monthly fee based on the amount of traffic the forum receives.

Keep the feedback coming - we're interested in every possible viewpoint :)

All the best,

James

[Martin]

I think there's a market there for it, but there's already stiff competition offering it for free or paying their clients to use it, so I would be careful b4 jumping in with both feet.

[doron]

what would be cool would be a everyone.net thing - have say users be able to have their own domain or subdomain.username.com point to the board, and not the ezboards ugly url or everyone.net's useless forums.

Another way would be to allow 3rd parties to create domain names that offer web boards, like Northsky, which does it with web pages.

However, all these will cost money..lots

[Troy Roberts]

I like the idea of a hosted solution. What I don't like is the $1 (or more for the EE) cpm that Infopop wants. I can host it myself for a fraction of that cost.

I'd be willing to pay more than I do today for the ease of a hosted solution, but not as much as they want.

[John]

I think that this idea has been put on the backburner for now. The hardware and time required would place serious stress on our resources.

John

[Troy Roberts]

If that's the case then I'd much rather have you working on the software. :)

Have you thought about bringing in investors and building a complete community solution? e-mail me if it's something you want to talk about. troy@corvetteforum.com