Do You Have a Website?

Question

Your very own. For whatever. (360 blog not counting)

I'm so tempted to make one, but it's an intimidating prospect. ...that & I have no real idea what I'd do one for. Most likely music-related. Maybe an internet radio station. (though w/ the recent changes in the law, that might be out o' the que$tion)

So tell me:

If you have one, what're the pros & cons?

Pain to maintain?
Expensive?
Easier than I think?
Anyone ever do their own 'net radio?

thx

Answer 1

It depends what you want to do with the website.

If you want to simply have a fairly flat website with a few pages of pictures and 'interesting' stuff about yourself, friends and family, it is pretty easy and not a pain to maintain. However, if this is what you want, you may as well just sign up for MySpace or something similar that allows you to do this stuff without any technical knowledge or expense.

If you want to have something complex or more dynamic, e.g. an e-commerce store, something with streaming music and video feeds, a membership sign-up & secure area, etc. there is much more work involved and you should do a lot of research before commiting.

Cost is relatively low. For about $1 per week you can get a hosting agreement that provides you with access to pretty good open source tools to design a website. If you don't mind losing some space to advertising, you may get a hosting agreement as low as $5/year.

Music and the Internet has pretty much been done from every angle in my opinion. There is a whole lot of legal stuff around copyright infringement and royalties and you would need to find some way to differentiate what you do from the mass of other music related sites.

Hope some of this helps and I hope I didn't kill your enthusiasm!

Answer 2

The people over in the proper section for the websites questions (computer section)would be more than pleased to help you, many of them may not even come to the hobbies section though.

It is very easy once you learn the lingo, very important. Net radio is probably a dicy one and you may even need permissions and pay a fee.

Answer 3

I haven't got one yet ~ I want one when I set up my own business ~ but I do own a .co.uk domain name.

I just pay to retain the name at the moment ~ I'd have to pay 3 times as much to actually create a site / page.

Answer 4

i made a simple one-page one for my mom's business with geocities. i ordered the package where you get your own html address and get under search engines and stuff. it had yahoo page builder so you dont need expereince with that stuff.

of course i am assuming (presumming?) your's will be more complex and therefore more to maintain. worth a try. go for it.

Answer 5

I used http://Tripod.com for my first websites. It's free, and their sitebuilder is easy to figure out.

Radio station is a little more complicated. Visit http://Hober.com for an example of a really good one.
.

Answer 6

i agree