good site, bad site?

February 27, 2006 2:36 PM

Is this website legit?

By which I mean, why would they offer me all this hosting and stuff for free for a cut of my (presumably puny) AdSense revenues? Are they just going to run off with my ideas, or try to scam me in some other way?

posted by reklaw to computers & internet (8 comments total)

i see no reason why this wouldn't be a profitable situation for both parties and would be eager to extend the same deal with people on my own server, the physical requirements of a blog are very minimal ( easily under 10 MB ) and the transfer rates only go up with increased popularity which would theoretically rise in conjunction with ad revenue
posted by BSummers at 2:44 PM on February 27, 2006

Well, google turns up exactly nothing on this website...

That said: Hosting a single blog and domain name is dirt cheap and won't really be any skin off of their back.

My concern would be more about the following questions than "is this a scam?":

- How long might this last? Can their business model really work?
- Who owns the intellectual property rights to my blog? Do they get a stake in it? All of it?
- Can they really really do a better job than I can to help my blog become popular?


Basically, they're giving you hosting you could easily get somewhere for pretty darn cheap (blogs are not high bandwidth unless you're hosting a ton of images and video and they get really high traffic) and in return, they want 50% of your adsense profits.

The question is: Are they really that good at making a blog popular that it'll be worth it?

My take is for someone totally new to things who doesn't want to invest a penny and isn't really out to make money, this is fine, but so is a livejournal or blogger account.

For someone serious about making money from blogging - plunk down the $10/month (or much less in many cases) for a year of hosting somewhere, install whatever blog software you want to run, and do it yourself. You won't have to split your profits 50/50 just to get free hosting.
posted by twiggy at 2:48 PM on February 27, 2006

This sounds like an absolutely terrible idea. You are locked into using their service (which includes their custom software, which you may not be able to modify in any way.) It looks like you will have little or no control over the functionality or appearance of the site, you are just a source of content. And you will have ads for which you have no control and whose revenues you only receive half. And who knows what happens with your content should you want to move. Do you even own the rights?

Running a blog takes essentially zero server resources. For probably a few dollars a month (or an upfront amount of perhaps $25 - $50 for a year) you could just buy standard hosting that will give you all the bandwidth and space you need for all but the most popular of blogs. Plus you will have complete control of the blog software and its configuration. And you can still run adsense if you want, and get the full payout instead of losing half.

Why on earth would you want to give up so much control for what amounts to not having to pay a trivially small hosting fee?
posted by Rhomboid at 3:09 PM on February 27, 2006

Rhomboid: Probably for the same reason that people flock to whatever service Google puts out. "Because it's there"
posted by drstein at 3:14 PM on February 27, 2006

on review i was looking at this from the providers POV not the writers because i am not a writer
posted by BSummers at 3:15 PM on February 27, 2006

Is there any information at all on who is running this business? The whois data is cloaked and I see nothing at all on the site identifying who's behind it.
posted by Nelson at 3:24 PM on February 27, 2006

"While it won't be a lot at first, we will work with you to make your blog the leader in its field and bring in enough visitors to make it well worth your while."

Talent will out. Do it yourself. I just got spam for smartpunters.com, which offers a similar service.

But what both of these services neglect to mention is where their current weblogs are. If they're so amazing ... wouldn't they be preening the ole' weblog feathers?

Otherwise, if they're brand new, just coming out of the gate ... what do they have that you don't?
posted by user92371 at 4:56 PM on February 27, 2006

user92371, in their defense, they do note that they are putting together a new blog network. If they manage to put together a high-quality, high-traffic blog network (bletwork?) a la Weblogs, Inc. or Gawker Media, I can see how this would be beneficial to the potential blogger. It would be nice to have the exposure of being a part of such a community; I suppose I just don't see anyone creating a meaningful one successfully at this point in the game. Possible, though.
posted by youarenothere at 6:41 AM on February 28, 2006