Internet Gurus and Business Experts.... need input..

[AAP]

Ok, let's say that I want to start my own website. It will be a pay website.

How do I go about doing it? (assuming I already have all the material that I want to upload?)

I have no idea about how to purchase a domain or what I need to look for in a web hosting company? How do I determine bandwidth?

For the business experts... If I offer in addition to online payment options the chance to purchase membership by cash, check or money order, what pitfalls do I have to avoid to keep the IRS from thinking that I am not declaring the correct amount. I mean, it would be easy to just keep the cash and no claim it right?

 

[Lestat]

If you have the content, you simply need to setup the payment portion, go here:

http://4creditcardprocessing.4t.com/


That will show you what you need to do in order to get your site ready to accept credit card payments. It requires you to pay for a third party service and get a merchant ID and things like that.

Getting a domain name is easy, go to yahoo and search for "Domain Registration"

There are TONS. What you also need is a host. Someone who will provide you web service. You need to know how much space you need, this will depend on your content. You also should look at the host's bandwith and server archtiecture. Do they also have all the required services running on their servers that you will need. For example, if you are running cold fustion pages, will they have cold fustion server installed? The more services you need, the most expensive the host will be. Be sure you have enough hard drive space for all your content and future content.

You can accept payment any way you want. Small personal businesses are high on the audit list for the IRS so you won't be increasing your already high chances of an audit by accepting cash and money orders. You will have to file your taxes and like most people you will probably under report. Be sure to write off any equipment at home you use for your business (ie computer).

Brian

 

[WODIN]

Ok, let's say that I want to start my own website. It will be a pay website.

How do I go about doing it? (assuming I already have all the material that I want to upload?)

I have no idea about how to purchase a domain or what I need to look for in a web hosting company? How do I determine bandwidth?

For the business experts... If I offer in addition to online payment options the chance to purchase membership by cash, check or money order, what pitfalls do I have to avoid to keep the IRS from thinking that I am not declaring the correct amount. I mean, it would be easy to just keep the cash and no claim it right?

A neat audit trick is to compare you enrollment roster to over a period of time to your revenue stream. If the two don't jive then you are cooking the books.

What are you? Merck or Worldcom?

LOL!!!

 

[AAP]

Ok, a couple of more questions:

How do I determine my bandwidth?

What is the most common web programming out there? Dreamweaver? Cold Fusion? Front Page?

Will I need a business license to do this? ( I think kronk has posted something along this line before, or maybe it was someone else.)

If I want to sale material things like t-shirts, will I have to have a distribution license?

I am assuming I can write off expenses like advertising and computer hardware, etc..


Thanks a ton. Please feel free to add as many comments as you like. Good karma to all who help.

 

[naturally anabolic]

anal assplorer shoot me a pm i can hook you up with all the details.

 

[the nature boy]

is the content your own? if not, there are some serious legal ramifications.

 

[rotovibe]

You can write off most of it, I beleive. Just remember to keep transaction records like receipts

For the love of God don't use frontpage!
Coldfusion is a viable alternative. It's an easy mark-up language to learn and has proprietary back-end objects to use (for DB usage like customer tracking). The only down-side is the fact that you would have to get a hosting provider that admins Coldfusion since it is a completely proprietary set-up meaning, the coldfusion servers are dedicated to just that. You need to find a coldfusion web services company. They will do most of the work for you.
Actually, finding a hosting company will, more than likely, OFFER to do everything for you. They will even tell you of your bandwidth requirements.
Most of these hosting companies will do everything for you. Domain registration, shopping cart system, SSL setup, etc.

www.pair.com , www.cihost.com

If you need more links just respond to this post and I will reply. There are tons of them out there but these are the ones I'd recommend. I would offer my services but I have a full time job right now writing applications like this and am usually weeded.

Bandwidth can be determined by your host.

Oh, one more thing you might want to assimilate all of the top level domain names that may pertain to your website if you can. What I mean is get the .net, .tv, .org extensions as well. Not crucial, but you don't want anyone to go to a different site.

 

[huntmaster]

i recently set up my site

i went through doteasy.com and it costs $20/year

I prefer to use dreamweaver ultra dev and flash

luck

 

[Code]

Ok, a couple of more questions:

How do I determine my bandwidth?

What is the most common web programming out there? Dreamweaver? Cold Fusion? Front Page?

Will I need a business license to do this? ( I think kronk has posted something along this line before, or maybe it was someone else.)

If I want to sale material things like t-shirts, will I have to have a distribution license?

I am assuming I can write off expenses like advertising and computer hardware, etc..


Thanks a ton. Please feel free to add as many comments as you like. Good karma to all who help.

Bandwidth needs vary on traffic levels. If you plan on running a webiste that serves a lot of video and/or high quality images the least you should get is a partial T1.

If you host it on your own [from your house or something] you can cut cost. But a data center is the way to go. Most have service level agreements ensuring uptime,traffic reports, user statistics, security services and best of all a certain level of liability.

A data center or high end hosting service will drain your pockets quite fast. Plan on paying at least a thousand per month for basic services.

 

[Lestat]

You need to do a traffic analysis to determine your bandwith.

Estimate your number of users for the next year at least, preferably 3 years. Estimate their usage, both concurrent and total per day. You can use this to gauge your bandwith needs.

I wouldn'r reccomend hosting at home.

Depending on the size of the venture you may want to build/buy your own hardware (which you can write off) and pay a provider to let you sit it at their facility directly off of a T1, or OC3. This way you can control the services on the web server(s) and upgrade as needed.

Brian

 

[rotovibe]

colocating is a good idea.
You would need to have someone monitor it just in case it goes down 24/7. That's the beauty of paying someone to admin it. They'll run reports if need be.
I honestly don't think you will have any bandwidth problems with the standard packages they give you. Unless you're serving video and have a lot of transactions like ebay.
As convenient as MS hosting is, I would also recommend going with someone who admins SQL server and runs JSP or PHP running on apache/ tomcat/ stronghold.
IIS is just a security hole especially when we're dealing with credit transactions. It's way too easy to hack into an IIS box.

 

[musclebrains]

I would like to order 10 ml of deca and an equal portion of strawberry-jalapeno lube.

 

[Code]

colocating is a good idea.
You would need to have someone monitor it just in case it goes down 24/7. That's the beauty of paying someone to admin it. They'll run reports if need be.
I honestly don't think you will have any bandwidth problems with the standard packages they give you. Unless you're serving video and have a lot of transactions like ebay.
As convenient as MS hosting is, I would also recommend going with someone who admins SQL server and runs JSP or PHP running on apache/ tomcat/ stronghold.
IIS is just a security hole especially when we're dealing with credit transactions. It's way too easy to hack into an IIS box.

Jesus christ people, do you know how much colocation costs??

This is like telling someone looking for a good pair of shoes to buy a sports car.

 

[rotovibe]

Yeah, kinda pricey...
run it out of your house,
get a couple of boxes preferrably with at least 128 worth of RAM, doesn;t have to be fast p3 would do.
get a router.
Learn mySQL ,
download a shopping cart system and a store front,
oh yeah get DSL,
get a domain name,
get a third party to handle the transactions
and voila your up and running!
that's the other alternative, really cheap too...

 

[AAP]

anal assplorer shoot me a pm i can hook you up with all the details.

I sent it.

 

[Code]

Here are some hard numbers on data center costs:

Rackspace: [renting the physical space for the machine] 100/month

Load Balancing: 15-50 a month

Traffic Monitoring/analysis: 50/month

Security Services: 300/month

Back-ups: 50/month

Restore from Back-up: 150/hour

Colocation basically doubles these costs.
Most data centers only offer software services at a premium. Figure roughly 100 an hour and up.

Your webserver, file servers and database choices are usually limited to whatever the data center will allow, but most flavors are accomodated.

 

[AAP]

is the content your own? if not, there are some serious legal ramifications.

Yes, this will be 100% my content and efforts. All material will be from my own hands and I am hiring someone to do the illustrations.

 

[AAP]

i recently set up my site

i went through doteasy.com and it costs $20/year

I prefer to use dreamweaver ultra dev and flash

luck

Does this site have pop up ads? I don't care for those. How big is your website?


What is the average cost per year to substain a moderate sized website?

 

[AAP]

Ok, I would probably run it from home. Without going too much into detail, let's use EF as an example.

Suppose I am going to open a Total Fitness board. There will not be any chat areas or member posting areas. It is basically going to be a read / view only website. Now suppose that I would want to charge people to view this content. I would have all aspects of fitness included here (though it is not a fitness site, this is just for illustration) and there will be a section on weight training that has definitions and illustrations (not movies, but drawings or photos of models doing the exercises) then in the section will also be a sample of workout routines. The next section would be a nutrition section, with diet tips and a calorie/nutrient calculator. The third section would be an anabolic section with profiles of the various AAS compounds. Including pics of injection techniques. The last section would be a place where personal trainers in various cities could buy advertising space to market themselves. And have an online store that sold t-shirts as well.
The site would basically be an online book that did not accept user's postings threads or such.
This is just an example of the type of site I had in mind.

 

[Code]

Run it from home for a while.

Get a dedicated machine, nothing too fancy: PIII 800,Windows NT sp6a, 128Mg RAM and a 20Gb HD.

Apache
Dreamweaver
Maybe Photoshop
CheckPoint Firewall
[Do *not* listen to the 3733t people here who try to get you to go with some freeware firewall]

MS Storefront allows you to accept credit cards. (I think it's still called storefront) Or go cheap with a paypal account, but this requires you to add users manually.

 

[AAP]

So basically just buy a med priced computer and run nothing but my website on it. Have another computer strictly for my email, personal shit, etc...

What is an average price for the type of site I want to cost per month, (one with no active user exchange going on)

 

[HappyScrappy]

I am both shocked and appalled that you didn't recommend Mac hardware and software.

AA - if you just want a website without dynamic content (not chat, no database, etc etc) - then it is cheap.

I use pair.com and love them - they are fast, reliable, and the best bang for the buck IMO

Run it from home for a while.

Get a dedicated machine, nothing too fancy: PIII 800,Windows NT sp6a, 128Mg RAM and a 20Gb HD.

Apache
Dreamweaver
Maybe Photoshop
CheckPoint Firewall
[Do *not* listen to the 3733t people here who try to get you to go with some freeware firewall]

MS Storefront allows you to accept credit cards. (I think it's still called storefront) Or go cheap with a paypal account, but this requires you to add users manually.

 

[Code]

If you host it at home, it'll only cost the price of a DSL line.

{Plus the cost of the machine and software and domain name}

 

[HappyScrappy]

DSL can get expensive since it tends to be a faster download (your home's side) and a slower upload (people that want to connect to you).
that isn't what you want as a website.

also, if you get a lot of traffic - that is good for business - but it won't make your provider happy.

you can get a pair.com site for like $10 a month.

 

[Code]

I am both shocked and appalled that you didn't recommend Mac hardware and software.

AA - if you just want a website without dynamic content (not chat, no database, etc etc) - then it is cheap.

I use pair.com and love them - they are fast, reliable, and the best bang for the buck IMO

I was going to suggest a G3, 128Mg of RAM, OSX and Apache.

But a used G3 is more than a new POS PC.

 

[AAP]

Ok, so I can check out pair.com and get some prices. No pop up ads right? This is just going to be a database sitting there to be read and viewed only.

Now where can I get a good PC to handle this? Isn't there some online companies that build your PC for you?

 

[AAP]

Here is a PC price I found on a buid your own. Do you think this is a good deal?

https://order.store.yahoo.com/cgi-b...f428763e680e188d8d8ce224337ec05f15ea9c5d498c8

 

[HappyScrappy]

1) that link doesn't work since it likely kept your session - probably on a cookie on your machine.

2) no database - just a webserver to feed off the pages - and no popups since you are paying for server space and that is it - you put what you want in there.

if you want a good computer to serve it, and you want someone to build it, just get some low end dell. they are known and will give you customer support.
if you host it at pair.com, it is cheap, monthly bills - and you can keep the computer you have.
design the pages on what you have now, then upload them to the server.

 

[Code]

if you want a good computer to serve it, and you want someone to build it, just get some low end dell. they are known and will give you customer support.

I'd run it on a PC. Once it's been up for a year and you've patched it 30 times, gotten 15 file wreckin' virii....then and only then can you appreciate the value of a solid machine like the quality products from Apple.

My name is Code. I work as a professional paycheck collector.

 

[AAP]

Here was the specs on that machine:

CAS: [BLACK] MEDIUM 10-BAY 350WATT ATX CASE w/ See Through Window [+49)
CASUPGRADE: "See Through Side Panel Window" & Sound Activated Neon Light Installed [+27]
CD: 56X CD-ROM [+25)
CDRW: (BLACK)CD-RW 32X12X40 [+65)
CPU: AMD ATHLON XP-1800+ [1.53GHZ QuantiSpeed] 266 FSB CPU [+119)
FAN: AMD CERTIFIED CPU FAN, HEATSINK & 2 EXTRA CASE FANS[XP2400+] [+9)
FLOPPY: (BLACK) 1.44 MB FLOPPY DRIVE [+15)
HDD: 60GB 7200 RPM ATA 100 HARD DRIVE [+82]
HDD2: ---Optional---
KEYBOARD: ---Optional----
MEMORY: 512 MB PC266 PC2100 DDR MEMORY (REQIRES DDR MB) [+85)
MEMORYUPGRADE: From Standard Memory to CORSAIR High Performance Memory W/ Heat Spreader [+39]
MODEM: 3 COM US ROBOTIC V.90 FAX MODEM W/ VOICE SPEAKER PHONE [+ 59)
MOTHERBOARD: AZZA KT-266A PC2100 DDR MB 4X AGP *[+68)
MOUSE: ---Optional----
NETWORK: 3 COM 905 BTX NM 10/100 NIC [+ 39)
OS: NONE FORMAT HARD DRIVE ONLY
RAID: ----- OPTIONAL REQUIRES (2) IDENTICAL HARD DRIVES-----
RUSH: NO; SHIP OUT IN 5~10 BUSINESS DAYS
SERVICE: STANDARD 3-YEAR PARTS AND LABOR WARRANTY INCLUDED
SOFT1: ---Optional----
SOFT2: ---Optional----
SOUND: Creative Labs SOUND BLASTER PCI 128[+ 25)
SPEAKERS: 120 WATT STEREO SPEAKERS [+ 5)
SUPER_PAK: (SILVER & BLACK)VIEWSONIC WIRELESS KEYBOARD & WIRELESS MOUSE [+59)
Subtotal1: (+799.00)
Subtotal2: 799.00
VIDEO: NVIDIA TNT-2 M64 32MB AGP [+ 29)
ZIP: ---Optional----


It is $799 same price as the cheapest Dell.

 

[HappyScrappy]

last I looked at DSL (which was over a year ago, so these figs are likely off) - but the lowest you can get business DSL for (where it isn't slower access to your machine from outside computers) was like $60 a month.
So that means you spend $800+ on your computer, then $60 a month for the DSL.
Say you run that for a year, that is:
12*$60 = $720
$720 + $800 = $1520
so $126 or so a moth over a year.

Now you sign up at pair.com and even at the Advanced level, it is $20 a month, and you could keep your current computer. (add on like $30-100 for your own domain and setup - likely even less)

Why the hell would you want to host it yourself?

if you do host it yourself, then checkout www.dslreports.com
that will tell you all about the best dsl and/or cable in your area, along with boards to discuss issues

 

[AAP]

Ok, so use www.pair.com and I won't have to be there 24/7 to keep it up and running?

 

[HappyScrappy]

Ok, so use www.pair.com and I won't have to be there 24/7 to keep it up and running?

yes

in the 4 years that I've had a pair account, the server I'm on has been down twice, for a total of about 15 minutes.

I also have some pretty fun domain names

 

[AAP]

Happy - What do you think of that computer I had listed? Do you know of any that would have a better syste for a cheaper price?

The only requirements is that I want a lot of RAM (I think DD is the best) about 512 minimum, a hard drive about 40-60, and CD burner. I don't do gaming or care to watch DVD's on my system.

 

[HappyScrappy]

the system looks pretty good - the video card isn't that great, but since you don't game, that won't matter.

 

[HighIntensity]

is this website going to have gay content?

 

[HappyScrappy]

I sure hope so - the net has a dearth of gay content at the moment

 

[HighIntensity]

hes going to make a killing, gays always seem to have a lot of money...

and anal sex

 

[AAP]

Happy - can you find a better built PC on the net anywhere? For a great price? I need a new system anyway.

HI - It will be geared towards gay but have no porn in it.

 

[Code]

I sure hope so - the net has a dearth of gay content at the moment

Yes, not only is the a relative lack of gay porn, but also fringe stuff like beastiality and fisting....not enough sites for this kind of content if you ask me.

 

[Puc]

jesus you all are fools.

store.yahoo.com

$50 a month

and a whole hell of a lot less charge per cc transaction then most.

you can be up and running in days. with your own domain name and fully functional (and damn near worry free) store.

 

[HighIntensity]

.

HI - It will be geared towards gay but have no porn in it.

NICE

 

[musclebrains]

Happy - can you find a better built PC on the net anywhere? For a great price? I need a new system anyway.

HI - It will be geared towards gay but have no porn in it.

If you're planning to put up a gay site and not include porn or something in the sex business, you ain't gonna make any money.

I was recently hired as consulting editor on a site that wanted to mix up porn and serious material and had huge financial backing. It didn't take two months to figure out that nobody wanted anything but the sex stuff.

I've operated my own site for 7 years and never made a dime off it.

 

[musclebrains]

what pitfalls do I have to avoid to keep the IRS from thinking that I am not declaring the correct amount. I mean, it would be easy to just keep the cash and no claim it right?

My friends who operate profitable sex sites go offshore.

 

[the nature boy]

Re: Re: Internet Gurus and Business Experts.... need input..

My friends who operate profitable sex sites go offshore.

why? is it because they steal material?

 

[AAP]

Re: Re: Re: Internet Gurus and Business Experts.... need input..

why? is it because they steal material?

Yeah! Why do they go off shore.


And don't be confused - this is not a GAY site. It is a site that will be advertised in Advocate and such, but it is not necessarily GAY material. It is quite relevant to heteros as well.

But why off shore?

 

[the nature boy]

I estimate that the legalities are harder to enforce. gambling and sport book sites are all located offshore.

 

[AAP]

bump for more info and some cheap PC prices.

 

[the nature boy]

musclebrains is going to fuck around and post on this shit tomorrow. watch.

 

[AAP]

musclebrains is going to fuck around and post on this shit tomorrow. watch.

Don't you know it. He does that shit just get on my last nerve.

 

[HappyScrappy]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Internet Gurus and Business Experts.... need input..

a company, and particularly a website would be based offshore for many reasons. but the two largest are legal and money.
say the states passes a law that says it is illegal to host a pay site where people pay to see a llama eating a sugar cone. and say your site has just that, and is doing a mighty fine business. well, if it is hosted in the states, you will be getting in trouble soon.
but what do you know, there is an island country that laughs at the idea of that law and salivates over your money. they will gladly host you, and the states' laws no longer apply to that site (although they are fighting this).

most offshore businesses - for instance many insurance companies go to Bermuda - do so in order to get various tax breaks.
many investors will either hold money off shore in order to avoid the states being aware of it for taxes (or legality like drugs, which boilds down to taxation issues anyway) - or they will do transactions via offshore accounts that aren't immediatley linked to them.
say you have insider information on a company. you could buy stock in that company and make lots of money because you know something big is gonna happen. that is insider trading and you would be caught. but, you can go through an offshore account that has different legal restrictions (and also isn't in your name) and buy it that way - or any other scenerio where you don't want your stock or other purchases known.

offshore is a way to hide money and to skirt laws.

havenco is the coolest, but also quite $$

Yeah! Why do they go off shore.


And don't be confused - this is not a GAY site. It is a site that will be advertised in Advocate and such, but it is not necessarily GAY material. It is quite relevant to heteros as well.

But why off shore?

 

[AAP]

Ok, just suppose I want to look offshore for a web hosting company.... where and how much do they charge?

Another thing... if I use an off shore account to collect the membership fees and such, how do I open the account and more importantly, how do I get my hands on the money that is diverted into the account?

One more question, if all this is located offshore, can I still write off the advertising expenses, etc.. in my taxes? Will I need a business license?

 

[HappyScrappy]

lol - you are expanding into the land of lawyers, accountants, and tax attorneys - a land where not many dare to venture, and those that do don't always return.

a google or yahoo websearch on offshore hosting will find you plenty quite nicely there.
as for the legalities and logistics of it, the good hosting ones will have info on that for you.

as a rule though, they are very pricy because they know that you can't be in the states if you are choosing to use them.
also, since the clients tend to do illegal things, or rather things that wouldn't be legal in their own country, they will occasionally screw you over and there isn't much you can do since you can't exactly alert the authorities.

so basically, unless you are positive that you are gonna pull some major scratch, and you are sure that you would violate the terms of service of any regular web hosting company, then I wouldn't bother looking into offshore hosting.

 

[AAP]

bump

 

[musclebrains]

Happy got it right.

 

[AAP]

More ideas on purchasing a new PC.

 

[naturally anabolic]

one pm coming up!

 

[AAP]

Long Over due dude.

 

[HappyScrappy]

I always put together my workstations with parts found off of pricewatch.com, and my laptops I buy refurbished from Ubid.com

 

[AAP]

bump