Im beginning to cocreate a media-hosting service that caters to providers. This would include a photo hosting service not unlike Photobucket and video hosting service similar to Vimeo.
The main advantage is that the Terms of Service of the hosting service would be tailored towards our media (ie, sexiness would not violate the terms of service).
There may still be grey areas as to what's "appropriate", but the customer service team would be dedicated to getting your media up rather than blacklisting you (a la Vimeo or Eros - though Eros is an ad site and not the same service, I'm sure many of you are familiar with someone who's been banned from Eros out of the blue).
Another advantage is that our site does not have a public face, meaning that no one can flip through your media from our end. Everything you upload will be private and viewable by you in any place you share a link and/or embed the media. So unlike Photobucket and Vimeo, strangers will not be able to browse user profiles.
This is the result of my own trials. My media must really offend some people because my hosting accounts get flagged (and removed) pretty regularly.
My Photobucket account got flagged in summer of 2014, forcing me to find another solution (which works but is not user friendly and has been hard for me to introduce to friends).
These membership costs are marginal though they add up, and what really gets me is the disruption of service and kind of my brand presentation for those few days that my links are messed up.
Anyway, I’m working with a dear-friend/queer-friend who is a software designer by trade and has experience creating privacy protection applications (disconnect.me). We have server space and are creating a slick user interface that will simplify posting photos on boards and/or embedding photos and videos into websites.
This is kind of a soft launch, right here, in a way.
Would you want a service like this if it were comparable in price to other hosting services with the benefit of being run by providers and not having to worry about being taken offline for the sensual nature of your media?
Are there extra features that would interest you, perchance a breakdown by city of your views (rather than national or by state)? A way to block your media in certain regions (cites/states) where you just don’t want publicity?
We are approaching Eros and Slixa too, to see if they would endorse our URL in addition to their cooperation with YouTube and Vimeo.
Thank you for reading. Looking forward to your reactions/responses.