I've created a monster. The monthly allocation of bandwidth (12.5 gigabytes) was exceeded in the first day of the month. Now I have to decide if I want to step up and pay for even more bandwidth or just let the site sit there dormant for the remainder of the month. I guess it's time to step up or step down. Stepping up would entail giving the site a better look with the use of some professional web site design software and doing something to make it more self supporting. I'm not sure what that would be, maybe T-shirt sales or making portions of it for subscription. The CD sales aren't doing it. Stepping down would mean leaving the projects up but drastically curtailing the event coverage or ditching the whole site. I've met a lot of cool people because of the site and it's opened a lot of doors for me so, in some respects I can't imagine ending it but on the other hand the time, effort and cost get to be a real drain sometimes. I'm open to any constructive ideas or comments that any of you may have.
Don, as cool as your site is I'd hate to see it go away. What about deleting some of the "old stuff"? Perhaps have a "best of" instead of everything from certain shows. T-shirts might be cool with the web address on 'em. Do you sell the CDs on Ebay?
On Don Ewalds "Fuel Dragsters, We Did It For Love" site he started selling memberships. I enjoyed the deal so much he's got my cash every month. If that's what it takes and it would be easier for you I'd be glad to subscribe.
I keep the total amount of stuff accessible down to just the recent year's events. Data storage isn't the issue. It's just that there are so many people that hit the site after every event that the bandwidth usage is enormous. The web host used to just automatically charge me for the additional bandwidth and sometimes the monthly charge would be almost $300. Now they just shut the site down after I use $50 worth of bandwidth. Change in policy, I guess. I haven't offered to CD's on Ebay.
You can set up a better site and on it set up a cafepress.com store and paypal donation link. I used http://www.internetsitescheap.com/ for a site for a year.
Hey Don! I'll buy a T-Shirt, the CDs, Playing cards, what ever!! I hope you can keep it alive. I'd sure miss it. Phil
Don, you just have way too many pictures on your site -I wish I had an answer for you- maybe post less pictures? and have a link deal to get more on CD? I know I need to get last years CD- you have a good picture of me on the Early Times Mid winter run on the Ortega Highway
I haven't been to your site(and right now it's down) but do you charge advertising? I'm sure you do, but if your getting enough hits that your bandwidth is that high, maybe more ads?(not the cheasy ones, but legit businesses). Sounds like you do event coverage? See if the promotors can kick in a little. You are helping them as well. Membership is prolly the best answer though. Throw a few teasers out there on the home page, but you have to be a member to see all of it.(then you can pimp out all the member info for $$ ). Unfortunately now you would be getting into more costly web design as you stated.
Don, dude, have you forgot about me. I am a paying customer so keep that in mind. Did you ever post my stuff from the NATS. email me and we can talk about things. Carter House of Kolor Digitial Paint Booth
I'd shop around for another web hotel. The one I am using costs the equivalent of $13.00/month with free traffic and 250mb of disk space. Your site is one of my absolute favorite sites, Don. It is a constant source of inspiration and I'd be so sad if you would have to take it down. However, I'm not sure subscriptions are the way to go as I believe it would make it harder for new visitors to discover the greatness of your site. T-shirts, mugs, kan koozies etc. are ok with me, but I'd rather just send you the money without getting nothing but your photos in return. Maybe we can stage an occasional DRD57 auction here at the HAMB, if that is OK with Ryan.
I've been meaning to buy a CD for a few years now... Whatever happens, don't lose the Caddy build up pages. I'm using that as a how-to guide for my Cad.
Whoa, your site is part of my regular internet cruising for kool cars and event coverage. I didn't realize ya had CD sales of any kind to support it. I would gladly purchase CD's or T-shirts to help support the site. A "support" shirt might help, hell it works for everyone else. Keep us posted Don on how we can help. Joel
No, I didn't forget about you. You're business is what has kept the site up and running so far this year. I appreciate the support. I'll send an email regarding the next batch of pictures.
There is currently no advertising on the site other than my own blurb offering CD's of pictures for $15 to help defray the cost of maintaining the site.
Too bad we didn't have a section of the HAMB dedicated to pictures... would that drive the cost way up for Ryan if we had an "event coverage" section of the HAMB? Sam.
Don, It is Don, right? I'm relatively new to the board, but I do web development and marketing for a living. If you are serious about investigating some avenues to generate some revenue to pay for the site, drop me a PM. With some investment of time, I think you could work out relationships with show promoters to advertise your site at their events, and possibly offer items for sale after the fact (like photos from the show, etc) on CD for people who may want a record. Unfortunately I have never seen your site, and can't get access to it at the moment--but I might also be able to help you find more affordable hosting depending on the amount of storage space you need to use. Like I said. Drop me a PM. I would love to help out. -Scott
Oh, and if anybody wants to see Don's site, here is an archvied copy: http://web.archive.org/web/20040103053237/http://drd57.hypermart.net/ Nice photos -S
Don, welcome to my world... Cold and lonely place, ain't it? We average about 500 gig a month now and about every 6 months I have to decide how much deeper into this I want to get. Thank god a lot of HAMBers help me out or this place would never be here. Whatever happened to the trend of bandwidth getting cheaper and cheaper? Damn those hosting companies. In all seriousness, try www.cyberwurx.com and tell them I sent you... They have great rates and could prolly help you out a lot.
[ QUOTE ] Where does one get 250mb of space with free bandwidth for $13.00 per month? [/ QUOTE ] The company is called crystone.se and I have used them for the last three years. They'll even let you register a domain address for free! drd57.com is available... I can help you set it up, just let me know.
Don, as you know, in addition to the number of times files are viewed, bandwidth is also determined by the sizes of the files. Minimizing the sizes of the files helps to minimize the amount of bandwidth. My site is more text-based than yours, and has images that are relatively small files. I just checked its statistics and found that in August it got 2,615,978 hits, and the bandwidth was 60,340,039 kilobytes. In your position, with a graphics-intensive site, I would minimize the file sizes. Here's how I do it: Using image manipulation software (I use GraphicConverter for the Macintosh), I do a color correction on every image by adjusting its color levels. Virtually all images are saved and uploaded as being no more than 400 pixels wide. (This size allows me to put text beside the images, and the pages can be printed out that way.) Save the edited image as a new file with a new name. This will strip away any of your editing work that was saved as part of the file. Those three steps reduce file sizes. It's also good policy to save any black and white images as 256-color grayscale images rather than as files with millions of colors. As far as generating revenue from the site goes, that can be a tough call. Putting my site together has cost me several thousand hours and several thousand dollars. And although hundreds of people have thanked me for having done it, there have also been a couple of them who seemed to think that the site shouldn't sell anything. (If somebody gets offended by my offering them the opportunity to sell them a T-shirt at a four-dollar profit that doesn't include my taking it to the post office, they are welcome to forget about my site and try using Yahoo instead.) The bottom line is that you can't please everybody, so don't even try. Just go ahead and do what you think is right. Dave Mann http://www.roadsters.com/
Don, Try Fotki. com $30 per year and unlimited space. That is what I am using now (as does SoCalCarCulture). hard to beat the price.. Not as friendly as a customer site but for storing pics its great
just publish a picture book of the last couple years, I'm sure it would be an instant collectible. Keep the first 500 so when the price gets to be about $200 you'll make an easy 100K and then free printing! no really! travis aka zibo
You could make sure that there were no images on your site that were bigger than 400 by 300 pixels, and ask those that want larger versions of them to buy CD-ROMs with 640 by 480s or 800 by 600s. And if you really want to sell those CDs, put a light gray "SAMPLE" across all of your free (small) images, giving everyone some motivation to cough up some cash for the CDs with the big, clear ones. You could use a CGI-based form for people to specify which images, up to a given number of them, that you would put on their CDs. It's a funny thing about being criticized for wanting to be paid for your work. My sense of it all so far is that people who have some experience in the business world understand completely, and that the ones who think that we should all being working for free live on food stamps anyway. Let them spend the rest of their lives listening to each other's Dead concert bootlegs. Dave http://www.roadsters.com/
Hi Mate, I work in web deveopment and I have some ideas: Short term: 1. as already suggested, reduce the size of the images. make sure your jpeg or gif setting are the best they can be and reduce the overall size of the image. offer only smaller images on the web, with the full size version being available via cd. 2. paypal donation. make it easy for people to give some money with a donation via paypal. on the splash page, put up a notice asking for a donation and explain why you need one. offer a "free" cd for donations over a certain amount. 3. sponsorship. ask your current isp or host for sponsorship. tell them that thier company name will be exposed to XXXXXXXX number of people every week. just ask them for either an increase in bandwidth or a reduced hosting fee. it doesnt cost them anything really compared to a $ advertising fee. put up a "proudly sponsored by XXXX" banner. Long term: 1. set up your own web server. dont be put of by it sounding expensive or difficult. i've worked in IT for many years and we run some of our web servers of 486 based systems. you dont need a massive quad cpu based server. an average budget system will do. make sure you get a big HDD and as much RAM as you can afford. Install linux..its free and steps you through the web server process. Go buy an unlimited internet plan with a static IP address. Hook it up. Walla, home server.
Nooooooo, say it an't so!!!!!!!!!! Don, a link on the top of every photo page- please help support Dons HotRod page- The link should get more people looking at the CD,s for sale, also have a donations link (paypal) Fotki - may be an option (although I just looked and its down) I hope you can keep it going in some form, it really is a great site.
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