When "inexpensive" isn't cheap enough.

Let's face it; most people who journal or blog do not do it for the money.

Most of us pay for the privilege. My flagship site, Graphictruth, [ http://www.graphictruth.com ]is such an effort. It pays for itself most months - but only just.

It's my ambition that it will do much more, but long before profit, there must be content.

What if you simply cannot afford the twenty to thirty dollars a month it takes to get a great interface? Or what if you simply don't have the knowledge or time to set one up? What good does it do you to have a host that can run perl and php if you haven't the vaguest idea what those things mean? What if you just want to write, or share pictures?

You need something like Bravenet! [ http://www.bravenet.com/cserv.php?pid=4&tid=4&afilid=821317112 ]
Bravenet seems to have a solution for every common online desire - including hosting - and while you pay for the service by tolerating their advertisements - hey, TANSTAFFL! While the ads are aggressive, they do not get in the way of your content.

I've been using Bravenet resources for several months now, because it allows me to avoid incurring further costs and lets me get experimental. It's a trade-off, of course. The ads detract from the professionalism I'd prefer. But unlike other "No-Cost" solutions, Bravenet is scalable and upgradeable to meet the highest standards.

I've never once been able to set up an eCard interface. I've tried, and there seems to be a jinx. Even when they work, they take up space and eat up my bandwidth.

Now, I don't want to be a one-stop-shoppe for e-cards. I don't want to devote that sort of time to it. I don't need thousands or even hundreds of cards.

My eCards are items of whimsy, little bits of commentary, often topical and possibly intended as a companion to an article of mine. Because I use this service, I don't HAVE to think commercially. If I change my mind, I DON'T have to change my solution - I simply hand them the price they ask. Since that price includes all hosting and software and traffic overhead, it's damn reasonable. I can even pay to have their branding removed.

Ad-supported or paid, at all levels there's one important factor. It's a web-interface, it's remote-hosted and maintained and I don't have to figure out how to make the back end work. I just have to upload the images. It lets me concentrate on the things I'm good at.

This is the important part. It's a scalable solution. I can stick my toe into the water at no cost but some time and effort. I can be experimental. I can try new things. I can risk total failure with no risk to anything but my pride. But should my ideas prove to be popular - I can then smoothly upgrade to a professional grade service without losing any of my work!

At the time of this writing, I'm using their blog solution [ http://graphictruth.bravenet.com ] as a backup system. My main site is down for server upgrades and being down is death. I'm awfully glad I was able to simply and easily set up a replacement blog where I could continue to write.

I've learned that it's best to have more than one string to my bow. And I'll tell you, I'm impressed enough with this blog engine that I will likely continue using it. It won't replace Graphictruth - but it will become a place I use regularly to speak of things that don't fit my flagship site. I'll continue to use their classifieds as well. Why? It's automated. It's administration is simpler than any solution I've found - and I can use ONE classified solution for any of my sites. I'm going to continue using their photo manager as well. Why? Because it allows me to remote-load; even gives me a url to copy and paste. It makes adding a photo to ANY blog painless and effortless. If the photo is already uploaded, I don't even have to be at my home computer!

And that's the real secret. It's fun to be an IT geek, it really is. But if there is a choice between creating the platform and having content to put ON the platform, content HAS to win! Tools like those found at Bravenet allow you to expand the sorts of content, enrich your existing content and manage your site easily. Even from a web phone.

Send one of my eCards and see if this service might not just be your little viral marketing secret!

[ http://pub10.bravenet.com/postcard/post.php?usernum=821317112 ]

Or add a free classified here:

[ http://pub10.bravenet.com/classified/show.php?usernum=821317112 ]

Keep it clean, folks. No hate, no R or X, no obscene language.

About the Author

Bob King is an author, writer, webmaster, poet and artist, not always in that order. He can be found at graphictruth.com most every day.