Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Running a Web Hosting Business : Image Hosts?

[smoove.]

I was wondering weather there are many members on the boards that have ran an image hosting service? I'm gearing towards re-opening my image host within the next few days.

Any pointers or advice would be greatly apprecaited.

[GideonX]

If you are re-opening, what kind of advice are you looking for? Seems you've already been there, unless you closed for a specific reason...

[smoove.]

We closed due to bad planning, basically I racked up huge ammount of bandwidth and really had to close it down to save my bank balance!
I'm just interested in a little discussion about the topic really.

[GideonX]

How much bandwidth is this huge amount?

[smoove.]

Enough to make me starve for the remainder of the month lol!

[ehsensiraj]

I advise you not to reopen your image host again. My hosting service simply kicked my ***. It consumes huge bandwidth each day. And i haven't get any advertisement order yet. Use google adsense but its a crap. Starting an image hosting service is really not a good move. Just wastage of money.

[Amish_Geek]

Running an image hosting service mainly depends on the hosting script you use. If you use a basic free-for-all uploader, then yes, your bandwidth will be raped and you'll go broke.

But if you invest a little into the back-end script, then you'll be better off.

I recently sold my image hosting site, mainly because I needed some extra cash. The site had over 800 users, with ~7000 files uploaded, and was only using about 10gb of bandwidth. The script I used limited each users bandwidth, and cut them off when they went over. This also forced power users (ebay auction people) to upgrade to the paid accounts. Which brought in more revenue than advertisements were making.

[smoove.]

Did you make much revenue from it Utaria?

[VolkNet]

Many have tried it and failed.

I guess you're better off in that you have failed once before so you know not to make that same mistake. However... I would make sure you have a complete business plan set out.

[Amish_Geek]

I made money from it, I had a handful of paid accounts that more than covered the amount of disk space/bandwidth the whole site was making.

I didn't market it much, so it grew organically. It ran perfectly fine off a shared account. And I credit all that to the script I used ($59).

[Ovid151]

Care to share what paid script this is?

[Amish_Geek]

I used the PHP Image host script. I don't believe the creator is still supporting/working on it.

[Mark L]

Go with a free file host. Much more $ in it. Trust me.

[smoove.]

Indeed, after my last failed attempt, with no business plan, poor server choice and a poor script, it left alot of room for improvement.
This time around I've corrected all them errors and increased my knowledge, in the hope that the same wont happen again.

[mythologen]

If you want to play it safe you could always go with an unmetered plan. That way you won't have to worry so much about the massive BW.

Backend script is important, but that doesn't mean you have to buy one. We created ours from the ground up as per our needs and I believe it was the best solution for us(of course if programming isn't your forte then a choosing a good script is quite important).

My advice is to minimize your risks. If you failed the first time, take the lessons you learned and make sure you have backup plans for a repeat experience.