I run
http://bitcoinstatus.rowit.co.uk/. We have no income from it but it takes a Amazon EC2 small instance and a bit of bandwidth to run it. We get the odd donation (thanks very much to those people)
http://blockexplorer.com/address/13Tn1QkAcqnQvGA7kBiCBH7NbijNcr6GMs but as you can see a lot less than the few hundred dollars a year it costs to host.
Is there anyway we could add to peoples forum signatures a signed link that showed what they had donated too?
I think if blockexplorer.com added a new link that was /address/pubkey/forumname/signatureOfUrlUpToLastSlash, then it would check the signature and only display a page if the signature was correct.
We would then need some sort of register of donation address, so the page showed who they had donated too.
Might encourage people a bit during Bitcoins current voluntary phase.
Maybe someone has a better idea to help encourage innovation?
I was also offering a service with an EC2 small instance, until I discovered a solution which is 80% cheaper than that, and it was proven even better in performance. You can get a VPS (VM) in many places in Europe. I use Giga-International. The EC2 small instance equivalent is 10 EUR/month with practically unlimited bandwidth included, and excellent connectivity to the rest of the world. I am sure there are many others as well.
In other words, I could consider donating as you offer useful information, but if you don't seem to care about costs, I feel that my donation would be wasted, if you see what I am saying.
