Free Webhosting + AdSense

The only flaw here is the abysmal CTR for forums compared to the bandwidth used. You would lose more money than the hosting with this option IMO

 

I think, forums is a bad idea, because in order to host a server with forums, you need to have a very powerful computer in order to keep up with complex PHP and MySQL scripts. Hence, investment cost are higher. I think a simple cheap web-server and huge marketing campaign would play a better role.

 

There are many free hosting services available today, a lot of which do not have compulsory adverts on members sites. IMO if you are going to get members to display your ads you must offer then something that other free services do not, be it better service, improved hosting packages or something. You’ll also be up against a lot of competition, I know of at least 5 other members on DP who have free hosting services in the portfolios and that’s not including me

 

If you are getting a cheap server and will be skimping elsewhere, that will present its own host of problems.

If peoples sites are down all the time, or if some features aren't there that they expect, they will end up going elsewhere and generate bad word of mouth.

 

To be honest, I haven't ever had any experience with hostings yet. Although, I have a bunch of websites, I stored them on commercial hostings at hosting providers. However, I have some money to invest at this point and I am in the quandary.

 

I'd suggest getting a reseller account and having a play around first. Reseller accounts are relatively cheap and will give you a chance to test out cPanel, WHM, Fantistico, etc. without any large investment

 

Okay, I will try a reseller account first. However, guys, do you know how to create such a script that would automatically put Google Ads at the top of each page?

 

For such script try out http://www.hotscripts.com

 

what u can do is give off free hosting and selectively put up adsense on only content intensive sites. Put up adsense on an account by account basis. And possibly share some revenue with the webmasters.

 

Might also make sense, as you have money to invest to go into a partnership with one or two people who've done this in the past. Myself and another DP member plan on offering free hosting soon but we have probably over 4 years hosting/free hosting experince collectively.
If you'd be interested in becoming a partner feel free to pm... I would not however even dream of offering free hosting on a reseller (server owner has too much control) and you'll not be able to use mod_layout either ... and forget about xpanel.