What are the options for an inexpensive web presence?
Background for the discussion at BarCampPortland 2008
Discussion leaders: JimTyhurst, CraigFisk
Small non-profits or start-ups typically have very low traffic, but they want a web presence to manage:
- Content regarding the organization
- Content generated by members or customers
- Member or customer relationships
- Events
These requirements usually translate into a web site with some subset of:
- static content
- form submission
- wiki
- blog
- calendar
- event registration
- product catalog
- online sales
In terms of possible implementations, hosting companies provide a range of solutions from $9 to $99+ per month, ranging from a few static HTML pages to a dedicated server where the customer loads their own software.
Is there a low cost middle ground where open source applications can be run in some standard configuration? In particular, is there any way to get by with less than self-hosting or collocating one or more dedicated servers and still meet the requirements?
We hope this discussion will to lead to a matrix with each possible solution as a row and each type of functionality as a column, maybe with a checkmark or numeric score in a cell for functionality satisfied by a solution. For example:
Configuration | Cost/Month | Plain-text Content(1) | HTML Content | Form Submission | Wiki | Blog | Calendar | Event Registration | Sales |
WordPress-hosted | 0 | + | + | | | + | | | |
Simple HTML pages | 9 | | + | | | | | | |
Java, Tomcat, MySQL, custom apps | 19 | | + | + | | | | + | + |
.NET | | | | | | | | | |
PHP | | | | | | | | | |
-Drupal | | + | + | + | + | + | + | | |
Ruby | | | | | | | | | |
-Radiant | | | + | + | | + | | | |
Joomla! | | | | | | | | | |
? | | | | | | | | | |
Virtual application server | 20 | | + | + | + | + | + | + | + |
Dedicated collocated server | 99 | | + | + | + | + | + | + | + |
Notes: (1) like TinyMCE support of plain-text editing without needing to learn HTML.
We invite you to share your favorite configuration of open source or proprietary solutions for an inexpensive organizational web site using Java, .NET, Ruby, PHP, or any other technology.
Notes from the discussion
http://www.barcamp.org/InexpensiveWebPresence
-Easy to start on WordPress.com -- no html, easy signup, ready to go
-Other end: hire a professional developer to work on it
-In the middle: Get a (for example) Tomcat server to deploy custom webapps for something like $20/mo
One person here who is nontechnical runs a nonprofit that uses a free hosted Drupal instance called CivicSpace On Demand, but there's a lack of flexibility. That's created some problems.
CivicSpace: "CivicSpace is a for profit social enterprise. Our goals as individuals and as an organization are to make a difference, earn some money, enjoy life and change the world! We are a diverse group who share values of effectiveness, respect, fairness and fun. CivicSpace started with the grassroots software of the Howard Dean for President campaign and has emerged as an online service to help civic groups of all sizes to use advanced open source fundraising and communications technologies."
Inexpensive = time and money
Cost is a balance of time, money and your technical knowledge. It will vary for every person/group.
Another person likes wikis a lot and runs AboutUs.
AboutUs.org: "We connect businesses and websites with each other and their customers using a wiki-based resource of millions of editable pages of information." Could be used as an early website before getting up your own hosting. About 20 nonprofits have done this.
Interesting tidbit about how technical details impact people: On the free CivicSpace hosting, the security certificate for secure connections has been expired for almost a year. This could cause potential donors not to donate when they get the warning!
TechSoup: "TechSoup.org offers nonprofits a one-stop resource for technology needs by providing free information, resources, and support. In addition to online information and resources, we offer a product philanthropy service called TechSoup Stock. Here, nonprofits can access donated and discounted technology products, generously provided by corporate and nonprofit technology partners."
Book by Steve Krug: "Don't make me think" -- about making things intuitive. Fairly expensive because of color graphics.
What's simple for non-technical people? Drupal, WordPress... But Drupal does have technical startup costs (need a decent computer person to set it up), and WordPress has some technical limitations (no calendar, sales).
Another person mentioned WebYep: "WebYep is a compact Web Content Management System for extremely simple creation of editable web pages. It is a low priced alternative for small to medium websites."
Email marketing, mailing lists, keeping in touch: ConstantContact, iContact
CRM (customer relationship management): SugarCRM, SalesForce.com (for nonprofits too). Fairly high technical barrier to entry, at least for setup.
Nonprofits have tickets for events and such. Check out Brown Paper Tickets. They take out less than TicketMaster.
Sales: CafePress, GoodStorm (which recently sold to Zazzle) -- has a higher profit margin than CafePress.
- DonnieBerkholz
Additional comments
Renting a ~$20 virtual machine through a company like Slicehost, Linode, RimuHosting or such can provide you with your own UNIX server and root access, like you'd have on a dedicated/co-located server. Because you have root, you can do whatever you want, install what you need, etc. This virtual server can perform all the tasks listed and more. Although you can technically run .NET apps on UNIX using Mono, you're best off just renting a Windows virtual machine instead, but the rest of the tasks listed are well suited to UNIX. Because you pay for a chunk of the physical server's resources, you're guaranteed to have a usable portion of the server's resources at all times. Because the hosting company takes care of the hardware, you're much less at risk than if you're co-locating because if something breaks, the company has spares on-site and can also easily move your VM to other servers, so hardware failures are resolved quickly. As your needs grow, you simply pay for more resources and they're usually be added within minutes. If you're planning on running any significant number of resource hungry applications (e.g., Java, Rails, Django, etc), you will need to buy more memory or switch to a more expensive plan, but that's just fair. The only real downside is you'll need to have someone that can administer UNIX, or you can learn to use an awkward control panel program like Plesk, but you're still best off knowing UNIX. - IgalKoshevoy
Hi Igal, Thanks for your comment about getting a slice on a virtual application server, which I've added to the mix. Like you say, the barrier there seems to be expertise (and awareness of current offerings). - CraigFisk
CivicSpace On Demand just sent out a one-week eviction notice - as of 5/21/08 they no longer offer free hosting there. I don't know if they will offer any paid service cheaper than $50.00 a month.
Joomla! claims that it "removes the need to have a "geek" involved in the day-to-day management of your Web site content". It is an open source solution that uses Apache HTTP Server, MySQL database, and PHP.