Ever thought about doing a public email host?

BlackStorm · Post #1 (**permalink**) 01-07-2004, 01:37 PM

Hey,
has anyone ever thought about creating a company just to do email hosting?
Something like Hotmail, only with better options and only free email hosting?

I have been thinking about doing this kind of thing lately but dont think a lot of people would use it.
It might work if you get a few good domains names and scripts to use as the webmail side of things.
If you have a few good, short and easy to remember domain names available, you might be able to be a bit successful.

What would be needed to just do email hosting on a server?
IE. No members would have a control panel or website hosting, only their email address would be on the server.

Do you think many people would be interested?Would you be interested?

If you would be interested, what would be the main thing you would like?

Thanks
John

GordyMac · Post #2 (**permalink**) 01-07-2004, 01:56 PM

Actually yes I was thinking about this John.. I was thinking about it alot the last few days.. HiveMail looks pretty good.. I like it. If you did it, I would deffinatly be interested. Give me a shout.

imported_Andrew · Post #3 (**permalink**) 01-07-2004, 02:21 PM

Hi John,

Horde has a good script for this as well.

I have thought about it - it would be ALOT of work, but could very well be worth it.

One of the most obvious pitfalls is spammers and getting your domain blacklisted. This can be avoided with custom scripts limiting the amount of mail sent per day, etc...

Marketing will also be tough, but not impossible, I still think theres a good market for this offering out there.

Off the top of my head, I would probably try targetted marketing to students, and more specifically, the travel centers in the various colleges and universities. (they are the most likely to require web mail when travelling).

Other possible targets would be RV dealers (geared towards their customers) - possibly a free hosting offer to the dealerships in exchange for flyers to their customers, etc, etc...

Let me know how it goes. I would be willing to help out with marketing, etc if you decide to go ahead with this.

BlackStorm · Post #4 (**permalink**) 01-07-2004, 03:37 PM

Thanks for the replies Gordy and Andrew.

I have seen HiveMail in a few places when I was looking for a bit of info on this, havent really done any research yet though.

I dont think Horde is advanced enough, there are a lot of things I cant do in it that I would expect if I was paying for it, and I would like to do a premium service.

I dont think offering free and premium email accounts would really work, I would say at least 95% would just take the free email accounts and not even look at the premium option.

I think it could cost even more to get started on this than as a hosting server because its not as common, the scripts could end up costing more than those needed for hosting because they wouldnt be as popular, but Im not sure on that one.

I would like to have something like Hotmail (I have seen so many people say that before) but I know there is nothing anywhere near as advanced as that available on the net.

What do you think would be closest to something like that?Or yahoo email, or do you know of any premium services that are doing well and that scripts they are using, if they are available for the public to buy.

Thanks a lot,
Hope someone can help with this!
John

BVSDaryl · Post #5 (**permalink**) 01-07-2004, 04:55 PM

We did this for a couple of our customers as a webmail solution

BlackStorm · Post #6 (**permalink**) 01-07-2004, 04:56 PM

Did you make any changes or just do an account which has webmail scripts like horde, squirrelmail etc?

BVSDaryl · Post #7 (**permalink**) 01-07-2004, 04:57 PM

Well we got a FREE script from HotScripts.Com and basically modified everything for the customer from this one script so we didnt have to start from scratch

imported_velton · Post #8 (**permalink**) 02-22-2004, 03:55 PM

well, i know there is a site www.mailkey.com .. they really awesome . well, if u going to start this, u need to get a script such as hotmail or yahoo .. man, am bored with such none graphic web mail control panel . and it would be great if it support pop and smtp . i will use webmail if am outstation .

imported_Stephen · Post #9 (**permalink**) 02-23-2004, 07:52 AM

HiveMail would be the best script and it has a good user interface, you could edit it to be similar to yahoo and hotmail if you wanted.
I think its about $160 for a license, but I could be wrong.
HiveMail support pop and SMTP also, I dont think theres much money to be made in email only hosting though