Fellow Committee Members, Ambassadors, and Constituents,

A few weeks ago I announced a "test" website that I have been considering using as the new face of www.secondpride.com. I have asked for your feedback and input to better grasp if this new format works for the community at-large. All of the feedback I have received thus far has been positive with an excitement undertone. The reason we feel we needed to research a new hosting service for secondpride.com was for ease of use and logistics. The current format is complex, not user friendly and requires a person to dedicate valuable time to find basic information. The committee asked me to find a hosting service that will do everything we want it to do. Which in its own right is a challenging task. To find a hosting service that doesn't cost $250+ per year, which has built in forums, blogs, video hosting, picture hosting, widget functionality, a detailed calendar, an easy to use admin interface and a site that is very user friendly, is rare. Though they do exist. I have researched zooloo, moogo, doodlekit, jimdo, weebly, webon, yola and webs. Out of all of these, webs is the only one I have found that appears to have an all inclusive site while requiring no technical background to operate. Meaning it can be carried and maintained from year to year without the new Marketing chair having to "outsource" or struggle to maintain it. Now that the domain name transfer of registrars has begun, Second Pride will be able to choose any webhosting service they wish. Which also means we can keep things the way they are now. This is up to YOU!!! In my professional opinion, I strongly believe migrating to webs as our hosting service while dumping the Google sites and Forumotion is the best choice for the future of www.secondpride.com. As our membership base continues to expand and social networking continues to explode, we need a hosting service that has all the capabilities to grow with demand.

I have broken down costs on what we are currently paying versus what we will be paying if we elect to migrate to webs. I ask that you keep in mind the new capabilities of the new site, as well as ease of use, flow, and technical management time required versus our current site. In my profession this is what we would consider indirect costs.

Current Costs - *All numbers listed below are per year*

Secondpride.com through Forumotion = $20.00
Removal of paid advertisements from secondpride.com = $25.00
Picture gallery space = $15.00
Secondpridefestival.com = $10.00

Total = $70.00 per year

Webs.com hosting has 2 packages that I would recommend for use.

Webs.com Basic Hosting Package = $49.95/yr and includes the following:
5GB Bandwidth per month**
No Adds
400MB Storage*
Free Google adwords credit

Webs.com Enhanced Hosting Package = $99.95/yr and includes the following:
25GB Bandwidth per month**
No Adds
1GB Storage*
Free Google adwords credit

*Technical Explanation: An average picture is usually around 200KB. An average mp3 (song) is around 4MB. A 10-minute YouTube video is about 125MB. There are 1,024KB to 1 MB and 1,024MB to 1GB.

**It is almost impossible to guess how much bandwidth we will use, as there are many factors that weigh in here. 5GB of bandwidth equals roughly 170MB per day for 30 days. 25GB of bandwidth equals 853MB per day for 30 days. The main determining factor for bandwidth will be audio and video streaming. If we use flickr, and YouTube, we should not exceed 170MB per day, but in the event we do, we can upgrade the package.

New Costs based on basic package - *All numbers listed below are per year*

Secondpride.com registry through register.com = $14.95
Webs.com basic hosting package = $49.95

Total = $64.90

New Costs based on enhanced package - *All numbers listed below are per year*

Secondpride.com registry through register.com = $14.95
Web.com basic hosting package = $99.95

Total = $114.90

So...we have a decision to make. I would really appreciate everyone taking a look at the "test" site and share your comments here. If you have any questions about the above stated, please feel free to ask and I will do my best to answer them.

It should be noted that most web hosting services that are all inclusive have bandwidth limitations and various pricing packages. Including most of the other sites I researched which I listed above.

In my professional opinion I feel the webs.com basic package is our best option, knowing we can always expand later as we grow.

I would like to call for a vote before Marcus leaves for a month which I believe would mean we need to vote on this Sunday Nov 8, but this is up to you.

Please take a look and share your comments and questions - http://secondpride.webs.com


Regards,

Isaiah Tolsen
Marketing Chair
SP2010