Racer Web-Sites

[MZGirl]

Another question which I probably should ask first is what else is out there for racers? does everyone maintain their own sites or are there offerings out there which do what they need to do for a reasonable price?  or is it a crap shoot and you gotta know someone to get it done?

Mine is a simple geocities site.  I maintain and write everything for the site (ok, my husband contributed a few things  ;)).  This includes writing everything for our race report newsletter, The Bullseye.

I like doing everything myself, because I can work on it when it's convenient for me.  Sure, it's a lot of work, but I know when stuff is getting done and to what quality.

[EM JAY]

Dafan that seems reasonable but as a racer I see a set of tires in the cost  ;D  

  I was looking for more of the "free" hosting type.  How hard are they to learn?  Copy, post, type stuff or is it more detailed than that?  

  GSXRMike- yea, I would have to post pics of any travels with you because I don't think anyone will believe the bad luck we have!!   ;D

[MadXX]

Dafan, if you are creating the design for them based on their concept as part of this package then this is a great deal.  Thats where the real setup costs are.  very few people know a graphics artist who does pro-bono work.  

For an automated system I was thinking more along the lines of using pluggable templates.  Where you can choose one of the ones alredy made or plug in your own. (more work for this though)  I have done this in the past for real estate agents and it works quite well for sites with the same type of updatable information but needing different looks.  It would allow them to post their own race reports, pictures, etc. without requiring you to format their text, resize their pictures, create thumbnails and other fun stuff.  Get enough clients and that could get quite time consuming after a big race weekend.  

The free websites are not too hard to learn but they are sometimes a pain with the popup ads, banner ads, and other restrictions they place on their accounts.  The good thing is they all have decent site managers which make creating a simple page a snap.  A lot of the editors work like an advanced version of the editor on this site.  Point, click, insert, highlight, etc...

It all comes down to whether you want to spend your time or your money doing this and how personalized you want to make it.  For example, if you want to have www.ICanBeatAnyoneOntheTrackSoComeGetSome.com then you will need to do something other then just the free sites.

[GAMEDIC]

Dafan, if you are creating the design for them based on their concept as part of this package then this is a great deal.  Thats where the real setup costs are.  very few people know a graphics artist who does pro-bono work.  

For an automated system I was thinking more along the lines of using pluggable templates.  Where you can choose one of the ones alredy made or plug in your own. (more work for this though)  I have done this in the past for real estate agents and it works quite well for sites with the same type of updatable information but needing different looks.  It would allow them to post their own race reports, pictures, etc. without requiring you to format their text, resize their pictures, create thumbnails and other fun stuff.  Get enough clients and that could get quite time consuming after a big race weekend.  

The free websites are not too hard to learn but they are sometimes a pain with the popup ads, banner ads, and other restrictions they place on their accounts.  The good thing is they all have decent site managers which make creating a simple page a snap.  A lot of the editors work like an advanced version of the editor on this site.  Point, click, insert, highlight, etc...

It all comes down to whether you want to spend your time or your money doing this and how personalized you want to make it.  For example, if you want to have www.ICanBeatAnyoneOntheTrackSoComeGetSome.com then you will need to do something other then just the free sites.

Only draw back using templates in this case would be everyone would have a different title and pics so you would prett much have to make every field unlocked and able to edit... so if you are going to do that you would just be better off creating a new page

[MadXX]

Only draw back using templates in this case would be everyone would have a different title and pics so you would prett much have to make every field unlocked and able to edit... so if you are going to do that you would just be better off creating a new page

What do you mean?  For regular pics a photo gallary is a pretty standard looking thing.  For pics in content such as a race report, there are many online editors you can use now which allow you to insert pics right into your text.

Not saying that this is the way to do it, I am just tossing ideas out there.  

[EM JAY]

 For example, if you want to have www.ICanBeatAnyoneOntheTrackSoComeGetSome.com then you will need to do something other then just the free sites.

 Anyone else try the link?   ;D ;D

       Thanks for all the responses, keep any ideas coming.

    (Jack your #1) ;)

[Mark Bernard]

Anyone else try the link?   ;D ;D

       Thanks for all the responses, keep any ideas coming.

    (Jack your #1) ;)

Link dont work for me either. Need a little help Chad!

[MadXX]

the link isnt real; it was just an example.  ;)  I was referring to having your own domain costing more.

Though if someone wants to register and put a site up on it I'd consider hosting it for free just for its comedic value.

[EM JAY]

  I kinda figured that ;D  I was draging the mouse around and when I passed the link I couldnt resist!  Would have been funny if it opened tho!  Hmmm, who do you think it should be linked to?  I think I remember seeing a post about Benji having a bit of a swole head..... ;D ;D ;D

[Woofentino Pugrossi]

I do my own. Got one of the web site creating programs and works decently. I went through Yahoo Domain to host mine. $14/month. Domain reg is by them also.

[r6_philly]

so you pay about $200 a year in cost alone to host your website, which is about right. So is $100 more a year really not worth having a site professionally done, and the end product is absolutely top quality? I have taught graphic design and web design classes at local colleges here for a few years now, and I can say from experience people need quite a bit training before they start making things that are of a decent quality. Nothing wrong with people trying to make their own websites, after all I teach people to do so, but if there is no big difference between the site you make and the site I make, I think I should just go work at the 7-11 from now on.

[ecumike]

A domain name only costs $9/year.. that's nothing.

If you're gonna pay for hosting.. you should only be paying ~100/year. And that's should be for ~200 MB space.
There's plenty of hosting companies that do it that cheap.

As for sites, yea, anyone can make a site using Dreamweaver but like Dafan said, what you're REALLY paying for is the quality of the site.

I'm a Web developer as day job, and have my own business doing web sites on the side.  For $120, you can even get a 'reseller' plan, and divide up that space, between a 4 of you, and THEN you'd only be paying like $30/year for hosting. Now there's an idea!