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Origin of Screenshots for Windows
Screenshots for Windows, originally a part of brivers.com, was created to assist me when taking internet customer calls at RCN.
At its peak, Screenshots for Windows surpassed 4 million hits by an estimated 10,000 users from more than 1400 different sites around the world. (US-48%, India-37%, Philippines-11%, other-4%)
(Screenshots for Windows is now 2 completely separate websites)
A little history
In Nov 2003, Screenshots reached its first 1 million hits, and in December, Screenshots began exceeding the monthly transfer limit of 10GB on the current host. The domain screenshotsforwindows.com (hereon referred to as Screenshots-com) was purchased in Jan 2004. Three weeks were spent converting nearly 1400 pages to PHP and testing. Unfortunately, the servers' response time (at times fast; sometimes a several seconds wait) was never acceptable, so the site sat idle. In Mar 2004, the domain screenshotsforwindows.net (hereon referred to as Screenshots-net) was purchased and the same pages were moved onto another host. After 1 week testing on the new server (which got high marks from netcraft.com) and nearly 3 months of research, file preparation and testing, Screenshots for Windows went live as screenshotsforwindows.net on March 27.
From the time planning began in January, Screenshots-net was now growing rapidly, each month increasing by nearly 1 million hits. In May, Screenshots-net had over 4 million hits and nudged over my new server's 40GB limit. I could not have anticipated the rapid growth and thought, each month since Feb, that it would level off. But from early on in June, it was evident that traffic would reach 5 million hits and exceed my new server's limit by 10GB. For those that don't know, the problem with exceeding any limit set by a host means more money.
Big decision
Basically, I had 2 choices. I could shut the site down (as I was no longer working tech support) or start charging for access (as many have recommended for some time). The decision was made to charge a small fee for access to all of the Screenshots files on Screenshots-net, while still keeping a great number of images free on Screenshots-com. This strategy, while allowing me to make enough to cover the costs of all my sites, would also make file transfer a non-issue because many users would be lost to other sites.
Files had been prepared on Screenshots-com so there would be no interruption in service and the Screenshots-net site was shut down on June 20 to prepare it as a pay-site. aMember Pro (purchased to handle membership, PayPal payments and site access) was installed and tested, and Screenshots-net went back online on June 29. Within the first month, more than enough users had signed on to cover the costs of both Screenshots sites.
Screenshots today
I'm sure with the next version of Windows, there'll be a small surge in membership, but in the meantime, I'll keep up-to-date with new releases of antivirus, firewall, spyware, and email applications as they're released (especially by the major manufacturers). The free Screenshots-com site still gets nearly 1 million hits per month from faithful fans. Screenshots-com also serves as the backup site, in the rare case that the Screenshots-net site should go down. Membership growth, although slow, is steady, but Screenshots for Windows survives and will be around for years to come.
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