Vanilla Farming

Ben

I just had an idea.

Why doesn't Mark set up his own version of InvisionFree or Wordpress.com for Vanilla?

They wouldn't be able to upload their own extensions or styles as easily, so I suppose it would be limited to ones already submitted to the Add-Ons Directory.
If you just put some small google ads in the sidebar it could provide a bit of revenue.

Thinking about it a bit more I'm not sure at what point the cost of the servers would be less than the ads you served.

Minisweeper

I was actually thinking about setting some sort of vanilla targetted hosting up myself from a business point of view with either free or very reasonable cost supported or not supported by adverts but I'm not sure how it'd all work. Busy forums cost a fair hit in bandwidth. I was gonna put some more thought into it when v1 was released though.

Bergamot

The main problem with forums isn't bandwidth (which is much lower for a text-heavy site app vanilla) but CPU time.

Minisweeper

Well blizehs is chomping through about 3gig a month which is quite a bit for a quiet forum.

Crypt

ehhhh i really don't like this idea. 2/3 of the time people who set up accounts never used them or there are so few posts that it's not worth it.

Minisweeper

eh? What's that to you?

ADM

I'd love to be able to set something like this up. I think it could come very handy and I don't think it matters if only a couple of people setup an account and actually use it.

The fact that they have the option to is more then enough.

lech

I really don't think it matters if people use it or not, the fact that it can be done at all from one setup is convincing enough. The plus side is that people will get a chance to use it, and Vanilla gets a chance to experience wild usage/mis-usage where even people without their own server can play admin to their own project or interest. However, I'd say anyone taking this route and making mad cash, should at least be compelled to kick down some donations back to mark to keep the project afloat and fed :)

Ben

It'd be in their own interests anyway. If Mark gets more donations he's more likely to spend all of his time developing the Lussumo family.

nathan

I wonder how much it would cost to hire him for a day or two to work on Vanilla?

Minisweeper

Few hundred dollars atleast I assume. Though i dunno how markets run over there. If i were as skilled as him i wouldnt want to work for less than about $250 a day (i really hope he gets more than that now or i'll feel pretty dodgy - i'm just guessing based on someone in the UK not wanting to work for less than £100+ which is just over 200cad).

As for the kickback donations, lech, certainly. I was gonna have a chat with the man himself before i made any moves anyway. I really doubt there's any mad money to be made in it though. Offering bitesize hosting at reasonable price and making profit are not 3 things which go together too well.

Toivo

could you share the setup process, minisweeper. some tips & trick

Minisweeper

Well i run a hosting company so most of it is just normal practice for me with the way my server is running - especially if they were using fully fledged accounts (i.e. had their own ftp access and such).

If i make something where people could have their own forums with no ftp access or anything else i'd probably just setup a root folder and make a small php script which copied the skeletal files into a new sub folder then ran the vanilla installer for them (i'd make the configs use the central repositories for extensions and themes so only the minimum number of files were repeated all over the places). It should be a pretty simple process.
If you need me to elaborate further I'd have to put some extra thought in - as i say i only considered it in passing as I'm waiting for v1.

Mark

I will be setting up hosted vanilla after 1 comes out. As soon as possible, I hope.

Mark

I wanted to keep it a secret, because I hate announcing things and then not following through. But this is a solid plan that I've been working on for a few months, and I don't want mini stealing my thunder :P

Bergamot

I suppose that's why you registered vanillaforums.com?

Mark

*tips hat*

deel

cool!

Kosmo

Mark, you have a solid business strategy or you just hoping that things will go fine? I'm a webmaster for some 5 sites and I don't have a jack of time to do my own stuff at home anymore, I bet a thing like that is going to consume time like teenage girls consume jello shots.

Ben

If it's a good idea, Mark's had it first.

Minisweeper

Heh, I figured he might have had a plan of some sorts. Thats why i was gonna talk to him before i did anything.

*waits for his free forum