free web based email

**dvdrip** · 12-27-2002, 06:34 PM

Do you think that a free web based email like http://www.myownemail.com would work at these days?
Would you use something like john@smart.com or mike@verysexy.com? Or prefer yahoo or hotmail?
Would the revenue from ads and affiliates be enough to pay for all the bandwidth and webspace?
I am thinking of starting one web based email service.
I can't tell you the domains I am going to use but I will soon.

**draqon** · 12-28-2002, 02:37 AM

from what i've heard, its extremely difficult to make money from free web-based email. you need massive amounts of traffic,.

**dvdrip** · 12-28-2002, 05:37 PM

That's what I am asking. Will I get "any" traffic?
Are people interested in this sort of service nowadays?

**hellstrom** · 12-29-2002, 04:28 AM

I run a free web-based e-mail too. I get practically nothing from the banners.

**Edwin** · 12-29-2002, 05:37 PM

I run a free email service @emailaccount.com. It's now coming up to its 2-year anniversary (in early January), and the number of users passed 81,000 a few days ago.

With 2 banners on the top page of EmailAccount.com, plus a 50% share of banner space within the service itself, I have about 30,000 daily banner impressions to play with. Even so, it's VERY hard to make much money off of the traffic!

**RON2** · 12-29-2002, 06:18 PM

My free e-mail service had 180,000 users and I was making under $400/mo from it, and that was running banner ads AND promotional e-mails. It's now closed due to legal reasons.

But a free e-mail services is more hassle than it's worth. You'll have to deal with and be responsible for spammers and persons doing illegal activities.

Once even the FBI staked out in front of my house for a day and contacted several of my family members looking for me, all because one of the free e-mail users sent a death threat to a classmate.

**Fearless** · 12-29-2002, 06:22 PM

I had a free email service too. Yada.com. No more. It was too much hassle.

**dvdrip** · 12-29-2002, 06:33 PM

Is your site closed cause of the death threat?

Originally posted by -RJ-
My free e-mail service had 180,000 users and I was making under $400/mo from it, and that was running banner ads AND promotional e-mails. It's now closed due to legal reasons.

But a free e-mail services is more hassle than it's worth. You'll have to deal with and be responsible for spammers and persons doing illegal activities.

Once even the FBI staked out in front of my house for a day and contacted several of my family members looking for me, all because one of the free e-mail users sent a death threat to a classmate.

**adoptabledomains** · 12-30-2002, 12:05 AM

I offer free email on a recreational site. I only have about 350 users. It's third party email (everyone.net), so I get half the banner space. I make little if anything off banners, but do get a number of repeat visitors to login and have access to the members to send site news every once in a while. I'm thinking of just promoting the site itself on the banners instead of 3rd party links.

Most people could never compete with Yahoo and Hotmail for free accounts with all the trouble with spam, coppa, viruses, and other issues to make it as a stand alone service worthwhile. However, if you want to keep repeat customers for logins and create a community of similar interests, I think they are still useful. Just not directly from revenue.

**linkdomain** · 12-30-2002, 01:45 AM

Originally posted by adoptabledomains
However, if you want to keep repeat customers for logins and create a community of similar interests, I think they are still useful. Just not directly from revenue. [/B]

i agree that's how i use it

**DomainPairs** · 12-30-2002, 01:54 AM

Do you cut out some of the problem users by making a nominal charge (say $5 per year).

I've got sexadd.com and I was going to use it as part of a box number type service.

**RON2** · 12-30-2002, 03:40 AM

Originally posted by dvdrip
Is your site closed cause of the death threat?

No, closed because of other unreleated legal issue.

**dvdrip** · 12-30-2002, 06:33 AM

Do you actually make any money?
How much do you pay for disk space and bandwidth?

Originally posted by Genki
I run a free email service @emailaccount.com. It's now coming up to its 2-year anniversary (in early January), and the number of users passed 81,000 a few days ago.

With 2 banners on the top page of EmailAccount.com, plus a 50% share of banner space within the service itself, I have about 30,000 daily banner impressions to play with. Even so, it's VERY hard to make much money off of the traffic!

**adoptabledomains** · 12-30-2002, 08:56 PM

Originally posted by DomainPairs
I've got sexadd.com and I was going to use it as part of a box number type service.

Don't take this the wrong way, but why would anyone want an email address like that? Am I missing something? I thought the idea of vanity email was to have an email that says something about yourself or identifies you.

**Edwin** · 01-02-2003, 07:01 AM

> Do you actually make any money? How much do you pay for disk space and bandwidth?

Everyone.net handles the back-end, so all I have to host is one more site (just a few front-end pages really) on my dedicated server (i.e. incremental cost is near-zero). My side of things uses about 5GB of bandwidth and 150KB of disk space so it's a non-issue.

rainmand · 01-03-2003, 12:40 AM

I host a few free email sites (from everyone.net) as a hobby only. Dentons.org is the most popular and I have less than a hundred people registered on it. I point denton.org to it and think most folks find it using denton.org. Dentons.org cost $10.00 per month for less than 100 people and allows each user 6Mb of space. It also runs banner/ad free, thus the reason for the $10.00 fee. I also run RaymondDenton.com. There's no limit to the number of people that can use it and it's free and provides 6Mb of space for each user. Also, each user can sign up with everyone.net and receive 25Mb of personal email storage for a small fee. I don't receive any of the fee. It's probably the way they justify providing me with free email services.