Is there any money in free hosting?

[Jason]

I have been toying with idea recently of doing some sort of "free" hosting site. Obviously nothing in life is free and there would be some stylish ads. Well stylish to the point of them not devaluing the website in question.

I was just wondering what people thought about the area. Has been over done? Is there much room for a new competitor? Are there any decent revenues to be made or would it have to be propped up by paid hosting?

Just any information really on what people thought about this type of venture.

[Damien]

Well, I have no experience in these kind of things but I will offer some ideas.

As long as your careful not to let people abuse the site (hosting downloads, lots of images that require a lot of bandwidth). Then all your really doing, in a way, is letting people add content to your site. All the ad revenue will go to you, while they do the work. You simply provide the platform.

The disadvantages are that most of them are unlikely to produce compelling content that will get hits. Most pages will only be visited by them and maybe a friend or two of theirs. You will get very slow ad revenue. I doubt you can make much of a profit...