#306 - Cloud service

Identifier #306
Issue type Feature request or suggestion
Title Cloud service
Status Closed (rejected)
Handling member Chris Graham
Addon General / Uncategorised
Description LOTS OF NOTES


This is all on hold, while we concentrate more on Arvixe as our recommended host - and our own server for hosting clients and performance tests.

We still have our own dedicated server, so for clients that need scalability or we will charge them for hosting, we can host them on here. We can develop technologies, and run redundancy through Amazon instances (developing Composr's synching, replication, our own server image -- all with primary configuration on our main server).

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We could do direct sales targeting and use install profiles, setting people up with their own Arvixe accounts.

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We could work with Arvixe on a multi-tenant HHVM system with a month free. Although this seems pointless - no reason to chase complete cheapskates who won't even pay for shared hosting or a server.

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CLOUD (targeted to businesses, at least initially)
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Proposition: businesses, don't tie yourself into a closed source product, or a web designer - be able to grow the website yourself, add content yourself, be in the driving seat. Don't have to negotiate/brief/manage every little change with a web designer, just get it done in-house. Pay for what you need - get world-class support and training, help your staff build up skills. No limits.

Probably don't run through compo.sr. Point compo.sr to it, and share the tracker, memberships, use a lot of the same copy, etc - but have an idealised streamlined website that removes unnecessary discussion and choice ; no forum (link to compo.sr though), user to use discussions all through tracker

Example pricing:
Home: £10/$15 per month
Home business: £20/$30 per month, Debranding Admin Zone allowed (...)
Business: £40/$60 per month, SSL (...)
Build advertising into margins, so we can do Google ads, split testing etc - long tail advertising - grow via reliable advertising, rather than expecting us to get noticed in a market crowded with providers where people aren't connected well enough (always been the problem - people don't know enough people needing websites)

Get running on HHVM (Hip Hop PHP).

Get a ServerPronto server, and install OpenStack on it, and we can actually host people in different VMs using that. And then later install Composr multi-site in VMs and run hosting on top - and write code to mirror people across multiple VMs (on multiple servers) automatically according to capacity, and make it easy to set up new VMs on new servers very easily and have Composr start putting users on that automatically too.
All these cloud companies will be doing a lot of our R&D without us paying them for it ;). There's no point having middlemen doing support for tech, and adding flexible control panels, when I can just deploy myself as I want it - and undercut our competitors.
Sync across 2 dedicated servers, for backup and redundancy.
Support for automatic spill-over to AWS, if our own servers are over-capacity.
Code some decent scripts to automatically shuffle sites between servers to ensure capacity

Services marketplace, e.g. video production, SEO, etc, meeting anything in here http://compo.sr/tracker/view.php?id=871
Give companies a franchise to run part of the offering; maybe allow multiple companies to list and order by best revenue and rating. This is good because we can concentrate on software, while building a platform that assimilates the web/marketing industry :)
Good for fast growth, good for encouraging investors.
Suggest users set a monthly budget of say £200, to buy packages
What could be easier than auto-sending a help request to our partner video company, to improve the video to text ratio benchmark.
Add graphs to Composr for plotting detected quantities of incoming links and marketing codes, to tie into SEO and marketing companies. i.e. the graph helps you see if you keep detecting a constant/growing rate of new external links, or new external promotional codes leading in. If you're not, then you need to hire an SEO agency.
It also comes back to a long-term thing, to get users outside of a website building tool vacuum, and thinking in a wider sense about marketing. Composr should bridge them to the wider world, for their own success. So they know what to do/where to go, and how marketing works in general - without needing to read a small library of books like i have.

Sell using a real-world sales team.
And also, adwords.

Use constantly-run unit tests to ensure systems continue to operate properly (e.g. signups).

Accumulate 'free' support credits with you hosting. People can use on support, on sponsor stuff. "You get to decide where this open platform is going next".
Consider getting people out of an Indian office to do the support.
NB: When it comes to assigning tasks in a support operation, Mantis is very helpful - a support person can add something to Mantis and assign it, and when done close the ticket
Easy way for people to buy support outside their allocation, with credit-card auto-charging

From an agency perspective, this is part of a wider thing, that we essentially remove the commercial risk we're exposed to right now. There are no costly proposals like we have now, as we simply are charging on the clock for the live chat and the support tickets, and just do what we are asked to. They get quotes, but pay for the time taken to make them. There is no risk of a client not paying up due to the pre-payment. We have a very simple easy "call to action" in any sales situation: get their credit card details so we can create the recurring billing account. It's a move to make things 100% billable, without the user really noticing (they'd think it reasonable as they are clearly purchasing a service).

Make very simple, really simple combined signup, combined control panel

Use buzzwords in marketing. Look at 1&1 and copy marketing, also drupal gardens; lots of good UX, using CSS3. No need to reinvent the wheel. Compare to: http://modxcloud.com/
We could style the business around Google. So we continue to use Google Analytics, etc, and we provide a Google Sites importer as a way to grab users. Also good support for Google+ and other Google services. The ideal end game would be a Google buyout, as a premium Google Sites.

Resource limits, TOS

Allow integrated domain registration, using godaddy affiliate

Automatically upgrade people - so any compat breakers need carefully defining with upgrade code for it

Have a script that assembles lists of git commits/tracker and automatically asks ocProducts staff to turn into a weekly "what's new" posting; also includes sponsor sites with their profiles
Make sure we keep sending newsletters: http://compo.sr/tracker/view.php?id=580

30-day money back guarantee
Plan on people's laziness, people's need for budgeting, use normal cynical consumer marketing techniques

Beta test with some free users for a while

A "download your site" feature, so you can get off the hosting

Better support ticket automation http://compo.sr/tracker/view.php?id=351
Move most of our auto-responses into this.

Ideally- Integrate with Google apps for email ; otherwise add a basic email management module, and integrate some webmail system

Ideally- Integrate with Google analytics

Needs way to be able to manage which addons are enabled on multi-site-installs (including non-bundled ones, which should also be available)

Some kind of automatic backup system

We run an automated referral process, where people can get payouts for new customers that sign up and stay past the trial. This would be the only user-involvement outlet we have given the forums would not be there.

Some of our non-bundled 'addons' should be bundled with the hosting (e.g. Google Maps)

Business idea - consider selling white-label to companies like Yell.

Distant future: completely free ad-supported hosting.


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Site template for pubs

Government, publish in:
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