Want to provide FREE WEBMAIL on our site - which provider is best?

want to offer free web mail on our web site, which provider is best

[harmonyjones]

We own a fantastic domain name (was offered >US$500K last year)
and want to start putting it to use. As a start we are looking to provide free web mail. As the domain is so good I anticipate alot of interest and a great number of people who will sign up. I have 2 questions:

1) Who is a good provider for this service? I've shortlisted bigmailbox.com and everyone.net - does anyone have any first hand recommendations or suggestions?

2) What kind of revenue earning opportunites are there for a great very consumer focused domain name? I'm clueless as far as affiliate programs, advertising agreements etc. run, so I'm looking for some advice. Basically how can we earn revenue off a great domain name?

Would welcome any comment or suggestions.

Thanks.

[edited by: NFFC at 11:52 am (utc) on Sep. 4, 2002]
[edit reason] email address removed [/edit]

[edit_g]

Should have sold it when you had the chance... ;)

(just kidding, well, no, I'm not actually...)

Try this for a decent list: [emailaddresses.com...]

[txbakers]

There are no decent free ones.

If you truly have a valuable name, then you will want to protect it by only providing good services.

Take a look at Merak Mail server, which you will have to buy, and look at their web mail program. It looks good.

[Brad]

I agree with txbakers, the free outsourced email hosts will be filled with popups and other nasty things.

You can upgrade most of these free services by paying or you can run your own email hosting software.

I would avoid the totally free services.

[Filipe]

Should have sold it when you had the chance...
(just kidding, well, no, I'm not actually...)

I totally agree. If it was a legit offer, I would have sold it. A name alone worth that much is something. 90% of webmasters couldn't hope to sell a complete site for 1/100th of that much. But then, if you have the technical know-how and business sense to build a site that's worth would exceed $500k UK, then more power to you.

But nowadays, it's hard to come by that kind of kablingey.

[BlobFisk]

I'd love to know what the domain name is that someone has put a worth of $500k on! I'll second the sentiments of not going with a free mail provider.. if this is stage 1 in an ongoing strategy, the initial investment will be worthwhile.

[harmonyjones]

ok, let's say I'm prepared to pay for a decent free web mail service. What would you all suggest?

[nipear]

Through one of our websites we offer free web mail (through everyone.net). What a mistake, it costs a lot of money to manage those accounts, and really what good are they? I've heard that people come to your site to check their email but I just don't know. And I know for a fact no one clicks on the banners in their accounts.

If you get 20,000 accounts that's a lot of junk mail eating up your bandwidth, and filling up your servers hard drives... How much revenue can you squeeze from that??? There is a reason Yahoo and Hotmail are charging for web mail now!

If you have such a great domain, build a great content site that won't need maintaince. When planning your site think 3 years down the road and how much money and time it will take to maintain your site....

[txbakers]

I agree totally with the above post. Why eat up your bandwidth for junk mail sites? And why try to compete with hotmail or yahoo? Offer a paid service with filters and people might like that.

The totally free web has gone away.

[harmonyjones]

The last post was interesting.

An option is to provide a chargeable service that aims to solve some of the SPAM and Virus related problems that are prevalent today.

Anyone have any comments or suggstions on this front.

To address the other poster about building a good content site, I don't really think that's a cost effective solution. To maintain quality content you need a dedicated team which translates into $$$ - agreed?

[txbakers]

To maintain quality content you need a dedicated team which translates into $$$ - agreed?

not agreed. To maintain quality content you just need quality content. That was the fallacy of the dot-gone era - huge budgets, teams of web designers. A 15 year old in his bedroom can have a very effective and popular website if he has the content for it.

I heard a story on the radio today about a website devoted to pictures of airline food. Why this site was so popular was even baffling to the designer! Yet it grows and grows.

If you build it, and it's good, they will come.

[harmonyjones]

I think it's more than just building it, the key is in maintaining it, you want users to come and you want users to stay.

It's fine to be passionately empowered to put up a site about variants of Pesto sauce and to generate some good traffic, but to keep it busy and commercially viable you need to evolve, grow and develop and so I maintain ultimately it comes down to a question of how much $$$ you want to spend....

[bacana]

Go for Verio, and really stay away from free service. Let's say that your webmail is a success, but your free service suddenly fail to their obligation.

Take a cheap account with Verio just for webmail. The support is great, and the connection is the fastest that i know.

Good Luck.

[intervelopers]

Also, you should take into considetaion that to maintain the freem email site you'll need:

- a proper dedicated server; (or rather - a _number_ of them);
- a system administrator;
- a programmer;
- a _zillion_ of custom service people.

And you'll have to deal with all the SPAM complaints and issues, including your domain being blocked by spamcom (spamcon?) - quite a pain in the neck.

So, running a content site is not such a time-consuming (or workforce-consuming) idea.