A page of links can't be launched. It can be UPLOADED, but not launched.

There's some statistics behind it too(both backend and javascript--the latter only coming with a certain probability) to update it based on what's popular.

I bet google does'nt want a rails app.

I seriously doubt that. It probably came down to price.

Almost all apps that Google buys have to be rewritten anyway.

I've been analyzing slicehost and they look great, but it looks like I'll have to do too much of the server admin myself, including security. Plus, they are currently back ordered unless you prepay. Says alot for them though that they refuse customers due to server loads.

MediaTemple's dv offering seems to be 'dedicated light' in that apache, php, mysql etc are preinstalled. Also MT has a security update option where they updated tested versions of apps as they come out.

Looks like that could take alot of server admin work off my hands, which is what I'm looking for.

Anyone else have an easier option?

Those guys are cheap. Kinda scares me a bit that they say they've built everything themselves. How is the control panel? Is there any way to view the real time statistics (cpu, database connections, etc) on your server?

I'm also very happy with SliceHost. But you have to understand the limitations of their offering. They're offering you a blank canvas -- an empty box with a standard Linux distribution installed. It does not have any user-friendly administration tools installed, beyond what comes with the distribution. Instead, they assume that their customers know how to manage servers themselves. If you want more of a GUI, you can install any control panel you want, but you have to install it yourself.

As such, the SliceHost control panel is very minimal. It will display some instantaneous statistics about CPU time, memory usage and network traffic. It also lets you reboot your server and restore from backups or from a standard distribution template. That's about all that it does.

That said, the control panel is very nicely done -- just minimal.

This isn't for everyone, but my personal feeling is that if you're in the market for a VPS, you should be familiar with how to configure it yourself. If you're not already comfortable with Linux system administration and the Unix command line, then I think you're better off with fully managed hosting. I wouldn't want to try and keep a VPS alive and secure without being a proficient Linux sysadmin.

Thanks for the great reply. I'm comfortable setting up cron jobs and some minor aspects of server management. I am looking to take the next step so I have more flexibility but I want to avoid all the work it'll take to customize a 'blank canvas'.

You can get a dedicated box from Layered Tech for about the same price. Same deal though - you run everything yourself.

Not even close to slice's price actually. They start at 99$ for a VPS, which is what we are talking about. Slice starts at 20$.

Yeah, $20 for a way underpowered (256megs?!) system with little storage. I guess that could work if you have a system that you want to scale up little by little, but I'm suspicious of VPS's after having had a few blow up on me and generally perform badly.

When comparing apples to apples, you want to look at LT's specials:

https://order.layeredtech.com/ConfigureServer.lt?method=disp...

Which is $20 setup and $70 a month, which is the same price as the slice system, only with double the storage and your own, real computer.

I'm talking about starting with 1 small server and scaling it up with ram and cpu, then possibly needing to add a db server. That's about as far into the future as I'd like to look.

The surfer crowd could be a good market here. You could probably find some traffic by posting in their forums. California looks to hurricane development off Mexico all the time for swell, but I see you are only covering the atlanitc here...

Great idea! Have you seen www.surfline.com? Maybe we could advertise there once we get the Pacific going (which wouldn't be a colossal amount of work with the systems we have in place...).

Advertise? You should partner with them. Their hurricane service is terrible.

Going to check it out. Thanks for the idea. We've been thinking about "Stormpulse as an embedded service" for a while . . .

Partner with them? They should crush them.

Anyone ever make revenue sharing deals for content? If so, what was the percentage, and deal structure? I'm dealing with seeding my site now, but want to keep costs down.

Thinking: x% as long as creator maintains content x% up to 3x market value of content x% up to 3x market value or x% till n time which ever is better for content creator.

Thoughts?