MobileMe for hosting commercial site?

[Philsy]

Hi

You may have spotted my post about the problems I'm having with my, admittedly old, site www.findaporsche.com.

I'm planning on creating an all new site and wonder about hosting it on MobileMe. I already have an account and it occurred to me that it would save money by not have to pay another hosting company when MobileMe is there.

However, I've heard that there are problems hosting commercial sites on Me. Can anyone offer any advice?

Thanks

Phil

 

[mathcolo]

I'd highly recommend against doing this. As easy as MobileMe might be, there isn't ANY dynamic scripting or fun stuff.

It may be ok for your needs, but I would always go with an alternate hosting provider such as HostGator, 000webhost.com, GoDaddy, or Verio.

 

[aristobrat]

I've used MobileMe/.Mac over the last two years to host a personal website and it's been mostly OK. My biggest gripe has been that it's sort of slow most of the time.

I'd probably not use it for a commercial site because you're pretty limited on what you can do (i.e. no MySQL/PHP/etc), it's next to impossible to get the type of fast customer service you may require in a commercial setting, and it's pokey (good enough for general use, but questionable for commercial).

 

[Matsta]

Mobileme isn't designed for large scale websites. If your site isn't gonna get that much traffic (around 100uv a day) then it should hold up fine, but if you want to use a cms your out of luck because mobileme doesn't have support for mysql etc, so its gonna have to be all flat files. You can find some decent shared hosting for about $5 a month which will have a proper control panel and will give you much more control over your site.

 

[Philsy]

Thanks for the feedback.

I'm not planning on doing anything fancy - I've never built a website before . However, I'll take your advice and stick with my current host. I'll keep MobileMe for email etc.

Cheers

Phil

 

[highjumppudding]

i am running all of my business websites on MobileMe and i love it and would recommend it. i started using dreamweaver with a hosting company for many years and was underwhelmed and it consumed more time that with iweb. go for it.

 

[dmiller1201]

i am running all of my business websites on MobileMe and i love it and would recommend it. i started using dreamweaver with a hosting company for many years and was underwhelmed and it consumed more time that with iweb. go for it.

I am glad to hear that, as a MobileMe user, I can host a small commercial site. I take it that Apple does not have any restrictions/rules governing the usage of MobileMe accts for personal commercial sites.

Debbie

 

[Apple Ink]

I am glad to hear that, as a MobileMe user, I can host a small commercial site. I take it that Apple does not have any restrictions/rules governing the usage of MobileMe accts for personal commercial sites.

Debbie

No, at least their legal policies dont mention anything like this but once I did ask this of a chat assistant and he said that none of the MMe services were meant for commercial use.

 

[jsw]

I am glad to hear that, as a MobileMe user, I can host a small commercial site. I take it that Apple does not have any restrictions/rules governing the usage of MobileMe accts for personal commercial sites.
Debbie

From here:

The Service is designed for personal use and not intended to be used for commercial business purposes, including, but not limited to, transacting online sales or software distribution via an e-commerce site.

Now, I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not sure that means commercial use is prohibited so much as not being the intended use. For what it's worth, places like DreamHost.com will give you unlimited storage and bandwidth, as well as MySQL access and so on, for about $120/year. You pay more, you'll get more consistent uptime. You pay less, you'll get less consistent uptime. But if you're going to host a commercial site, I'd recommend against .Mac simply because I wouldn't trust Apple to not interpret the TOS in such a way as to shut you down. They probably wouldn't, but a "real" hosting service never would.

Edit: pretty much what Apple Ink said above.

 

[miles01110]

For what it's worth, I would raise serious question about the legitimacy of a "company" or business that hosted their website on MobileMe.

 

[jsw]

For what it's worth, I would raise serious question about the legitimacy of a "company" or business that hosted their website on MobileMe.

For me, it's not that I'd think it was any less legitimate than any other site I see, but I'd likely think the site was put up by an amateur or novice. Not that it'd necessarily strike me as bad or to be avoided. Just... something done by someone who didn't know how to use a "real" host.

I'm not saying those impressions would be accurate. That's just how it would strike me.

 

[Apple Ink]

For what it's worth, I would raise serious question about the legitimacy of a "company" or business that hosted their website on MobileMe.

A Fortune 500, million dollar company might not but I dont see why a small scale initiative by a group of persons like, oh, some iPhone Game developers wont use MMe for hosting their website. It is fairly simple to use and you just enter a domain to refer yours. So so many already use it for this purpose. I agree while they may not seem like a 'company' to you but they are commercial in a way since they do advertise some product or service.

 

[miles01110]

A Fortune 500, million dollar company might not but I dont see why a small scale initiative by a group of persons like, oh, some iPhone Game developers wont use MMe for hosting their website. It is fairly simple to use and you just enter a domain to refer yours. So so many already use it for this purpose. I agree while they may not seem like a 'company' to you but they are commercial in a way since they do advertise some product or service.

I didn't say they weren't commercial or a real business. I said that I, along with many others, give more legitimacy to non MM business sites.

 

[Cabbit]

I find more people trust a business that is run on a .com domain than on anything else.
.com seems to have the same value to a consumer as being a LTd company is to a supplier. It instills greater professionalism and trust in the view of the client as they see you have went to "extra effort" and even some believe that in order to get a .com the business must have proven legitimate.

This is based on my personal experiences with around 50 clients, and friends where i have been involved in teaching the use of computers and the internet and the preconceptions most already have in place in regards to domain names.

"All the big shops have a .com"

 

[vivithemage]

I would not do it personally .