Pondering Personal Website

[oldmuley]

Since back in the days of Apple's "iDisk" in 2000, I've had a personal website at www.oldmuleysroundhouse.com. Originally when I was using Apple's iWeb software, I was able to keep it updated on a fairly regular basis. The "iDisk eventually morphed into .Mac, then into MobleMe. About 3 years ago support for iWeb was discontinued and iDisk went away, so I was left to fend for myself. The solution I came up with was to find a new web hosting service and then try and learn some new web design software. The software I use is called "Freeway Express" and sometime I feel the learning curve on it is steeper than learning hexadecimal programming for my old Digitrax Big Boy. 

This brings me to today- I really find that I rarely update my website and I imagine it gets almost no traffic. Do you guys who have personal or club websites find them to be more hassle that they are worth? I can't imagine I'll ever use my site for e-commerce, and it seems like I barely have time to work on my model trains, let alone work on a website about my railroad. Perhaps if my web software was easier to use I'd update things more, but even with Facebook I find I hardly ever post anything and that's an easy site to use.

My annual subscription is coming up for my web host site. I'm just not sure if it's worth the $$$...

Any thoughts?

[atsfan]

Do a webpage with square space.
Depends on what you want to do with it?

[llxlocomotives]

As with everything else pertaining to the web, technology has moved on. There are so many options, to communicate on the web, hosting your own site is questionable. I have one, but it is on Bluehost. It costs money, but a lot of the head aches are taken care of.

I've heard horror stories, but they allow you to keep a tight grip on who can make contributions. I can justify it because I use it as promotion for some sales.

In this case, they record the traffic. I know how many views the site gets daily and also what threads get the most interest.

I decided to try it for a year. The jury is still out on the next year. At this time, I'm using it as a place to record data that I measure or learn in some fashion.

[WP 257]

To the OP--

One guy in my area loved Porsche automobiles, and developed a great website with links to the parts suppliers, etc. It grew and became something that many owners of vintage Porsches still use as a source to find all kinds of information--and parts. He made enough money off his website to be able to walk away from a "good" job in civil engineering, and make more money just managing the website. He set it up that he got a little cut of money every time somebody followed a link to a parts source website. It actually works.

I think what you get out of it and how far it goes depends a little on what you put into it and how you want to market it. From what I can tell, the photographs on your site are pretty good.

Best wishes for your success.

John

[mlehman]

If you primarily want to show pics, then one of the various pics websites does much of what you need. The photofeed and album features can organize things. I use Imageshack, but lots of other choices. I just wish that it had a way to add captions, which some do permit. It may, I just haven't bothered to figure that out.

[umtrrauthor]

I've had my own website for years and I'd never do it any other way. In my opinion (your mileage may vary), the benefits far outweigh the risks. I've seen too many websites go 'poof' when their ISPs decided to shut down hosting services... AOL's "Hometown" probably being the worst example, having been killed off with zero warning one Halloween night (Trick or Treat!).