Cohousing-L Mailing List: Web Site Costs--a longer answer

[Sharon Villines (sharonvillines]

Costs for web sites vary according what you get--my earlier message was 
meant to mean that $600 a year/$50 a month is a standard price. Sites that
cost $50 a month also include:

1. Large amounts of server space which you probably don't need unless you
are storing graphics or sound files.

2. Statistics on who is looking at the pages how often, when, and where
from. This can be fun when you tell the group that people have been visiting
from 12 countries. It can also be helpful because it tells you which pages
are visited most often--are people leaving before they get to prices. Are
they leaving after they read the bios. Probably not necessary information
but could be useful.

3. The hosting of your domain name so your address is
http://www.yourname.org instead of
http://www.34576885))).com/~yrteu/yourname.org
Probably not necessary if Cohousing.org has your web address because people
will just be clicking on a link and not typing the name or trying to
remember it. Registering domain names is extra--I recommend, after
registering about six names with them, http://www.netnamesusa.com

You can visit the site free and find out what it involves. You can also
register you name with them and have it forwarded to a member's site or to
some free sites also (not all free sites allow it).

4. A chat room. You can set up a site where your members can chat with each
other or hold online meetings. Useful if you are spread out geographically
and all your members are online. This would be a private chat and works more
easily than the free sites that are available, and as someone else
mentioned, no advertising.

5. Email forwarding. A certain number of people, and certainly your contact
person, can have an email address that says

info [at] yourname.org or ben [at] yourname.org

 The number varies with each provider--usually 10 or so. Email is then
forwarded to the person's email account. This way your group address can
remain the same when the person who picked it up last week goes to Figi for
the summer.

6. Technical support. A person you can call to get help. Ours is excellent
at helping and suggesting stuff. But for a simple site, not necessary.

7. A whole bunch of other stuff I can't remember. I have one that hosts a
FilemakerPro database.

Synergy pays for hosting. Is it worth it? For some members it is. Do we
fully utilize all the features? No. Will we ever? Probably.

We do get responses but you also have to be out there telling people about
the site--list on Yahoo, etc. I get a lot of responses because I list the
sight with my signature. People check it out and come back with comments or
questions.

A thorough site is VERY helpful for professionals because they can go to the
sight immediately to see what we are all about without waiting for info.
This has been very useful and a good test of whether people are really
interested in working with us.

Sharon Villines
Synergy Cohousing, Delray Beach FL, http://www.cohousing.net