Just last week, things weren't looking good for Phil Dhingra's 3D Porch, a 3D photo sharing website that had collected tens of thousands of snaps from different 3DS machines since the site launched earlier this year.
Dhingra claims he's found a way to make it work.
The biggest problem for 3D Porch was, ironically, the amount of traffic. 3D Porch wasn't making enough money for him to offset the costs, and there didn't appear to be a viable solution to make everything work out.
Sometime last week, around the time my story ran, he became inspired to save 3D Porch.
"Dunno, just had an epiphany where I decided to save it, even if there's a low return," he told me.
How he saves 3D Porch is by cutting down on what it costs to run. The exact details are still being worked out, but it may include having images that aren't accessed after 30 days being removed. He's also instituting a series of backend changes that should ultimately bring down his hosting expenses by as much as 90%.
"There's still a lot of work at the moment," he said late last week. "[...] I've been working on this all week, and it'll take another week of development to get it to a fully sustainable point."
The goal is to break even. It doesn't guarantee 3D Porch will survive forever, but for now, the emergency sirens can be turned off. 3D Porch, and the 3D images living there, will live to see another day.
Long live 3D pizza!