I have 2 homepages on AOL Hometown and I want suggestions where I can transfer
my homepages to (Must be a simple template site) Must be free to Members!


This is because I recieved this Official Heads up Email from AOL today
The Countdown clock is ticking down fast

quote:

Dear AOL Hometown/FTP user,

We regret to inform you that AOL Hometown/FTP is shutting down on 31 October 2008. After this date your content will no longer be available and will be deleted.

In order to save your valuable data we suggest you save your AOL Hometown/FTP content as soon as possible and we have provided a webpage with detailed instructions on how to do this. Please click here or go to this URL http://info.aol.co.uk/hometown/product-notification// to receive more information on how to save your content.

Sincerely,

The AOL Team

From that link

quote:

Do you recommend alternatives for me to use instead of Hometown or AOL Journals?
Unfortunately, AOL does not have a replacement product to offer you.

I'm not particularly surprised by the move. AOL has been having trouble as its dialup base continues to move on to Cable/DSL packages. (DSL is available for $10/mo in some areas of the US, the same price as AOL dial) Advertising is keeping the company afloat, but it needed to cut some weight.

The question now is where to go from here...

Many high-speed providers quietly offer personal web hosting as part of their service. (ex. Comcast) This kind of offering is a great replacement for either AOL Hometown or AOL FTP hosting. Usually its ad-free and costs nothing in addition to your regular service fees.

The free hosting market is still around, though the insane ad-free hosts of yesteryear are long gone. Geocities, Tripod (UK), and Freeservers are among the older hosts still offering free hosting. Their offerings are comparable to AOL Hometown's level of service. Many smaller free web hosts can easily be found with a quick search.

Refugees from the ad-free AOL FTP hosting (members.aol.com) will either have to deal with advertising (above) or part with some cash. Doteasy provides a similar level of service to AOL's FTP hosting, costs $25/yr for a domain, which includes "free" hosting. NearlyFreeSpech.NET offers pay-per-megabyte hosting, a simple low traffic site can run for over a year for less than a dollar. (Domain not included, may need some technical know-how for setup, but great for power users)

R.I.P. AOL Hosting... The final days of a decade-old service. Hope that other AOL refugees are able to find suitable new homes for their pages.

Had considered buying a Domain But I'd rather have it for business, not business and Pleasure

Thanks for the Ideas .Keep them coming. Is a minefield
Its HTML that messes things up. If you can do manual simple HTML Like on this forum and many email pages and the editing page is easy to navigate, that is a Big Plus in my book and I'll be happy with the end result
PS I do so hate pages that are hard to edit after submitting or Locked out!!

quote:

Originally posted by bedstor:
Had considered buying a Domain But I'd rather have it for business, not business and Pleasure
(

And that's pleasure with a capital "P" because, after all, you would be master of your own Domain, Bedstor.

(Forgive me, sometimes I just can't help myself )

quote:

Originally posted by dg:

quote:

Originally posted by bedstor:
Had considered buying a Domain But I'd rather have it for business, not business and Pleasure
(

And that's pleasure with a capital "P" because, after all, you would be master of your own Domain, Bedstor.

(Forgive me, sometimes I just can't help myself )

You've lost me dg. A domain for business or pleasure ? 'Master'? Surely 'mistress' (Max Mosley enjoyed it, especially when the mistress gave commands in German.It was all over the News of the World :" our reporter made his excuses and stayed")

For the curious : "Master of My Own Domain"

Thanks for the laugh, dg. Caught me totally offguard and now I might need oxygen. Bravo.

quote:

Originally posted by FredPuli:
(Max Mosley enjoyed it, especially when the mistress gave commands in German.

Of course, you just knew I'd have to go and look this up, Fred! There were five of them. Yikes! And him a barrister, too.