More Free Data Storage and File Hosting
Web Storage Hosts for Free File Uploading and Sharing that Earn Cash
Aug 30, 2009
As shown in the previous article, Free Data Storage and File Hosting, the one-click filehosting sites Rapidshare, Depositfiles and Mediafire currently dominate the free data storage provider market.
This dominance has caused other competing free file hosting services to offer different incentives to online file uploaders than the services offered by the most popular storage hosts. One such incentive is to pay the file uploader whenever their files are downloaded.
This is a particularly attractive offer to application developers, game designers, hobbyist movie makers and musicians. By uploading their media to the free web storage host, and sharing the download link over a wide range of relevant forums, blogs and social network sites, a healthy residual income can be generated by the file uploader, particularly if impressed downloaders distribute the download links to other sites in a viral fashion.
Share Files and Make Money with Free Web Storage Hosts
Two such free file uploading websites that reward their uploaders by paying them for files downloaded are:
While both of these websites host files for free, and pay the uploader for files that are downloaded, FileFactory and Ziddu take very different approaches as to how their free data hosting service works and how their uploaders make money.
Free Data Storage with FileFactory
FileFactory has a similar business model to its more well established rivals, Rapidshare and Depositfiles, in that it offers a premium service as well as a free data storage service. FileFactory offers an upload limit size of 300MB per file, and their premium service starts from as little as $10 a month.
FileFactory has a quite complex rewards program. The site separates downloads based on the country of origin, and pays on a sliding scale based on the “tier” of the country. The highest paying tier contains only the USA. Tier 2 countries include Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom. All other countries are considered tier 3, and pay the least.
FileFactory also determines the payment rate by file size. Thus, a file over 125MB downloaded by 1000 downloaders in the USA will generate $10 of profit to the uploader. The same file downloaded by 1000 users of a tier 2 and tier 3 country will make $2 and $1 respectively.
For files under 75MB, the payment amount falls to $5 per 1000 downloads for tier one countries, 5 cents per 1000 downloads for tier 2 countries and 2 cents for tier 3 countries. All payments are made through PayPal.
Earn Money with Free Filehosting Service Ziddu
Ziddu is unusual in that it has no premium account option. It is one of the few free file hosting services that is truly free to use, both as an uploader and a downloader. Ziddu has a 200MB file size limit on uploaded content, and pays a flat fee of $10 for every 10000 unique downloads, payable through PayPal or Moneybookers.
Free File Uploading and Sharing: Which Service Earns the Most?
While FileFactory appears to offer a more generous rewards program than Ziddu in terms of the number of downloads to the dollar, Ziddu does have the advantage of offering all users the opportunity to download multiple files in parallel, accelerate file downloading with an internet download manager, and all with no waiting time between file downloads. This is a service that the majority of free data storage providers offer only to paying premium account holders.
As a consequence, while FileFactory appears to pay more for file downloads, with Ziddu, the downloader can download multiple files quickly and easily without paying for a premium account. This is far more convenient for the end user, and is likely to generate far more downloads. Also, Ziddu pays a flat fee regardless of the country of origin of the downloader, making steady profit much more likely for the file uploader.
However, since the services are free, an uploader can generate both FileFactory and Ziddu download links by uploading files to both hosts. By posting the links together and observing the results regarding the generated income over a number of months, it should be easy to determine which free data storage site earns the most for a particular uploaded file.
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