Webs (web hosting)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| Type | Web Hosting |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2001 |
| Founder | Mokhtarzada brothers |
| Headquarters | Silver Spring, Maryland, USA |
| Website | Webs.com |
| Registration | Required |
Webs (formerly Freewebs) is a free web hosting company founded in 2001. The company hosts more than 20 million personal and business websites over a variety of topics. Haroon Mokhtarzada co-founded Webs in 2001 with his brothers Zeki and Idris while studying for undergraduate degrees at the University of Maryland. Haroon continued building the company while earning his J.D. at Harvard Law School, and he now serves as its chief executive officer.[1]
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[edit] History
Webs began in 2001 as Freewebs, just after the dot-com bubble, as a start-up launched by Haroon[2] and Zeki Mokhtarzada after their last year at the University of Maryland, College Park.[3] Their goal was to make the Internet accessible to anyone and to protect user's rights to free speech.[4] Since then, the success of Webs has been growing, as of April 2007, the site counts 18 million unique visitors a month.[3] The company is self-defined as a social media company, and created "social publishing" properties such as Pagii. Freewebs sites can include blogs, forums, wikis, calendars, guestbooks, webstore, photo gallery, links, web forms, widgets, games, puzzles, videos, and hundreds of designer templates. One does not have to pay if not a premium member, but those with the premium account have access to some of the restricted features.
Freewebs changed their name to the current Webs on November 14, 2008, but is still widely known by longtime users as Freewebs.
In 2007, Webs developed a widget bank, which made the site more dynamic and contributed to the success of the site.[3][4] They also integrated with Picnik for photo editing and GetClicky for webstats.
[edit] Hosting policy
According to Webs, anybody is allowed to create a page using anybody else's email address. This feature is often abused, resulting in many sites created using other people's email addresses.[citation needed] The owner of the email address gets an email after the creation of the site, but cannot prevent it from going live. The Webs policy, according to their abuse team, is that the abused email owner has to remove such sites themselves.
[edit] Features
In November 2008, Webs added a new widget to their widget bank, called Plucky. Plucky is a widget that reads the person's site. Plucky then displays videos, news articles and other various multimedia, according to the site's owner's wishes.
In the beginning of 2008, Webs released a new application platform upon which they launched several new pagetype applications including: Photo Gallery, Webstore, Video Gallery, and Calendar. A Wiki and Link application have been recently added.
Webs services are free and ad-supported; however, users also have the option of upgrading to premium website hosting and domain names.
In July of 2009 Webs,(formally known as Freewebs)made a few changes such as, some cosmetic and some structural, to make it easier for you to find the right answers to your site building questions. They are getting dangerously close to finishing up a new way to code your videos into flash and bring back video uploading features. Also they have activity streams; these will be automatic updates that will go out to all your site members when something new takes places on your app pages. Benefit to you: it will encourage your members to interact more with your site and help you grow with minimum amount of work! SOME OF THE MOST ASK QUESTIONS ON WEBS: Can I Use Google AdSense and other advertising code on my Site? Yes absolutely! Do you have to be Premium to get in Search Engines? This is a popular misconception. You can do it on your own or if you need help check our partner Hubshout. They are experts at helping your site grow. Where can I find cool images to put on my site? We found a great source where you can get images for your site that will not get you into trouble with Copyright Laws. We teamed up with Fotolia to offer our Webs.com members a special deal on royalty-free stock images. Buy today and get 20% more credits for Free!
[edit] Hosting limitations
Webs offers free web hosting, site creating and membership. This comes with many restrictions, however.
- Banner advertisements are displayed at the top of the webpages.
- The free domain that you receive with membership is in the format of yourwebsusername.webs.com, which can be changed for five dollars (located under user settings).
- Webs only offers 40MB of webspace and 500MB of bandwidth per month.
- PHP is not allowed, but CGI is allowed with Premium Membership
These ailments can be solved by purchasing one of Web's three tiers of premium accounts (named Starter, Enhanced, and Pro)[5].
[edit] References
- ^ "Webs Management Team". Webs. June 18, 2009. http://www.webs.com/pages/team/.
- ^ "CEO Haroon Mokhtarzada Interview". Social Networking Watch. April 3, 2009. http://www.socialnetworkingwatch.com/2009/04/haroon-mokhtarzada-ceo-of-webscom.html.
- ^ a b c Hart, Kim (April 9, 2007). "Venture Capital Drawn to Freewebs". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/08/AR2007040800909.html. Retrieved on 2008-03-05.
- ^ a b Sandoval, Greg (April 26, 2007). "The free-speech fundamentals of Freewebs". CNET News. http://www.news.com/The-free-speech-fundamentals-of-Freewebs/2100-1030_3-6179465.html. Retrieved on 2008-03-05.
- ^ "Premium Services and Domain Registration Info". http://www.webs.com/premium.jsp. Retrieved on 2009-05-30.
