Institution

The distribution of websites is very different to the distribution of other media products such as television shows that would run through a licensed channel with funding and backing, the content would be regulated and approved by the channel and if it were not successful it would be cut. The nature of the Internet however is that anyone can add to it and present there own product. This means there are not as many stringent checks and you do not have to win the backing of a distributor to enable your product to be seen. The main institutions involved in the distribution of a webpage are advertising agencies, web hosting and domain name registration. It is through these institutions that a person or company can develop a website, purchase the server space for t to be uploaded and register the domain they would like for their website if it is available and applicable.

Web Hosting

Web hosting provides a service allowing individuals or companies to upload their website to the Internet ad allow others to access it via the World Wide Web. The individual or the company provides the content of the site but the host will provide the server space and in most cases file maintenance. There are varying levels of web hosting from basic free web hosting services offered by many Internet Service Provider that gives limited space and much less scope to control the layouts and content of the site. Going up to the high end of dedicated hosting services giving the user large amount of control over the site and the most expensive collocation hosting where the user owns the colo server and the host provides little or no support but only electrical internet access and storage facilities.

I believe for my charity site the more expensive option of dedicated hosting is not the best option. For a charity organisation the main goal is to raise money and so a large part of this should not go on the upkeep of the site. The cheapest option of free hosting would not be suitable because it is much to limited to layouts and contents and so for a professional website looking to convince users to donate would not work. Shared hosting is an option; it is still cheap while offering more scope for personalisation and content. However there are limits on space and so the ability of the website to contain all the media wanted. The best option for my charity site would be a Virtual Private Server. This will allow space for everything the site needs to include and space for if the site were to grow more on a later date as the charity gains a higher level of awareness. There is not need to have control over their own server for the charity and VPS will give all the scope they need for website to properly promote themselves. www.webhostingsearch.com describes VPS as “a great alternative for you who's looking for "that thing" filling the gap between shared hosting and dedicated servers" and would cost roughly $40 per month.

In addition to paying for web hosting a company also has to register a domain, the address of the website, this is an extra cost of only about $8 and most hosting services offer the option to purchase this while purchasing hosting. Most web hosting will work with any domains and so the company or individual selecting the domain can have any they wish as long as its availability, which can easily be checked on the Internet on web hosting, sites.