Become an Web2.0 Hosting Company

Have you decided to host websites on the Internet? Do you want to assist people in getting their personal and official sites hosted across the Internet? Read on to know what you should do and the checklist that you should have to start a web2.0 hosting company.

FIRST of all:

You have to choose the right Partner for your Business (Infrastructure, support, servers,...)! - it does not mether if you want to start with an Reseller package of an etablished hosting company or starting with an Dedicated Server (also some companys offering complete management to hosting companys for their servers) or if you buy your own Infrastructure, its realy importend to do your business with the right partners! Hosting looks like an easy to build business - but that isn't!

If you are not an  high skilled technican - its the best choice for you to buy an reseller package of an etablished hosting company - because then they have the work :-).
If you not have the resources to do 24/7 support -> its the best to outsurce it!
If you are not an good designer -> its best to buy people to create and maintane your website

In this text you will find much useful and importent informations to start your own hosting business - also with some links to companys who are useful for your business!

Amidst the marketing craze towards web2.0 hosting that’s creating a revolution in the Internet, every tech-savvy site has started supporting web2.0 applications since the past one and half years. But why is this hype for Web2.0?

What is Web2.0 Hosting?

Within a very short stint of 17 years since Tim Berners Lee came up with the concept of World Wide Web, the growth of Internet has become unimaginable. Initially the web pages on the Internet were static html pages and the hosting servers found it very easy to support innumerous web pages on a single server since the demand on the server due to the use of static web pages was very low.

But, of Late, web sites have started using dynamic contents and the demand on the servers hosting those pages has increased enormously. Web 2.0 concept penetrates into the Internet right here.

Web2.0 Hosting is providing the required support to host the collection of second-generation web applications/web pages that utilize the dynamic technologies like AJAX enabling the user to make dynamic updates in their web page and providing a bunch of value added services for the customer.
Google continues to be the vanguard of this innovation of using web2.0 applications! Google Suggest, A9 search of Amazon, Gmail, Google Maps are a few web URLs that have initiated the growth of Web 2.0 technology over the past few years! Ad-on to this list are YouTube and MySpace. The list of websites that have adopted this technology as on date is much more.

What do you need for Web2.0 Hosting?

If you intend to start a web 2.0 hosting company, read on to get a list of top 10 items that you need to have to become successful in web2.0 hosting.

1. Hosting Website: You would require your own hosting website that looks professional with a nice web2.0 logo. The website should provide all the details related to the web 2.0 hosting that you are planning to provide your customers with. Website with a few multimedia effects and dynamic updates is an added advantage and attracts customer enquiries.

2. Plan Details: The plan details that you give should explain the details of disk space that you would give to each customer, monthly data transfer that you would allow for each user, number of accounts that he can have and the annual or monthly payment that he has to make for the services that you provide. Disk space should at least be 50MB since web2.0 hosting would require you to provide many value added services like forums, blogs and ticket systems to your customers.

3. Support Software: You should have the software needed to cope with the evolving dynamic technologies like AJAX and ASP.NET for the web2.0 hosting that you are planning to provide. Tell the customers about the operating systems and browsers that you would be supporting. In case of web2.0 hosting, clients would expect support for UNIX/Linux and Windows operating systems. They might also want their website to be displayed in most of the popular browsers like IE, Firefox and Opera.
     
Be clear with the versions of software like PHP and the apache modules that you would be providing the clients. One of your client would want to have blogs in his website and another may want to share photos while the third will opt to have a forum and ticket system. The system software should be generic and be compatible with the services that your clients demand. It should also be customizable as per the needs of the individual. You should also explain as to what are the e-commerce features and multimedia language support that you would be offering in your client’s website.

Remember that the customers would also intend to have single click and user-friendly installations to use your web2.0 hosting service. Make sure that you provide support for XML, JavaScript, CSS, XSL, XSLT languages in your server since they collectively form the building blocks of web2.0 hosting service.

4. Value Added Services: With the surge created by the web2.0 technology, there are innumerous customers who want remarkable value ads in their websites. A few of the value ads that they might demand include:

• Sharing of photos and videos
• Host Forums where anyone can speak out by asking and answering questions
• Allow blog hosting where the viewers can express their opinions and views
• Horde ticket systems and online polls
• Allow social bookmaking features
• View their website statistics that will detail the number of visitors by page/month/week. The client will want to look at the raw logs of visitors to his site and a bandwidth meter to see the trend of incoming traffic to his site.
• RSS feed that can reach the website viewers if the viewers subscribe to the new posts in your client’s website.
• Ftp-access and CGI-bin access requirement - Make sure that you provide 24/7 support for your customer’s file uploads using any ftp software like cuteftp, wsftp.  If your customer makes use of guest books and mailing list manager then they might want access their own private cgi-bin directory.
• Reseller hosting package, which enables your client to sell hosting packages to their site viewers.
• Advance options - A few of the advanced options would include the availability of cron job retrieval, MIME types supported, URL redirects and custom error pages that would be displayed.

5. Pre-Installed scripts: These are scripts that would help your clients to install new applications in their website. You have to support such scripts to combat the growing needs of your customers. CGI-Center for cgi-bin access, Fantastico for photo sharing are instances of pre-installed scripts that you would need to support web2.0 hosting services.

6. Billing Software: You should be able to provide means of payment for your customers during new registrations and renewals. Some of the popular billing scripts are Accounts lab pro, Clientexec and Whmautopilot.The billing software application that you are going to use should be integrated with the payment gateway so that your clients can make payments online.

7. Databases available: MySql and PHPMyAdmin is a couple of databases that you might need to have for web2.0 hosting services.

8. Technical support: You should be able to provide 24/7 supports to your client in case of any technical difficulty that they may face. Online support, FAQs and a product guide can help them out in getting technical assistance irrespective of time.

9. Website control options: The customer will want to know the means by which he would be able to take control of his website.

10. Server specifications: Irrespective of dedicated or shared web hosting, Web2.0 hosting services would require you to have servers with the highest disk space and RAM memory to enable audio, videos and photo sharing in your client’s website.

If you are searching for an realy good Hosting company who offers all kind of Reseller and Owner-Care solutions for your business go there: http://yourserving.com

If you are searching for an realy good 24/7 support company who can do your customer support - go there: http://hsphereexperts.com

If you need some design help: go therre: http://templatespin.com - and contact them for individual quote - they have realy good Designers!