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Market leader slapfest
Not a day goes by that I don’t read about several market leaders clashing. Google is going after Apple; Apple hates Adobe; Adobe gives Apple the finger and jumps into bed with Microsoft and Google; Google tells Microsoft to stick it; and I can go on for days. But if there is one thing we can learn from the Apple vs. Adobe vs. Microsoft vs. Google and “whoever else gets in the way” turf war is that there is more than one way to lead a market.
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053 032 The New Generation of P!
049 Is Your Domain a Spam Magnet?
036 Edit Windows Hosts File to Preview Content
053 Choosing Outsourced IT Management Services
039 HostingCon 2010: Be There
056 Interview with ISPsystem
043 Are You Blogging Yet?
060 Ping! Zine Service Directory
046 The Art of Forum Marketing
062 Professionals of Merit
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014 Comodo Discovers Security Vulnerability 015 Parallels Releases Server for Mac 4 016 Microsoft’s Fraud Alert Program 018 Google Wins Youtube Copyright Case 020 FSE Expo Announced 020 Steadfast Opens Chicago Data Center
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B&B Worldwide 022 34SP.com Opens New UK Data Centre 023 Global Broadband Hits 484 Million 024 UK Companies Not Engaging Web Visitors
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bits & bytes
Porn Rules the Web!
Predominant content on the Internet is pornography, which makes up 37% of the total number of Web pages online, according to a new study published by Optenet, a pioneer and global leader of enabling SaaS offerings and delivering “on-premise� security solutions. The report, which includes a representative sample of approximately 4 million extracted URLs, shows that adult content on the Internet as well as illegal content such as child pornography and illegal drug purchase has undergone a significant increase of 17% in the first quarter of 2010, as compared to the same period in 2009. Additionally, Websites related to the online role-playing games (RPGs), such as World of Warcraft; Final Fantasy and Grand Theft Auto 4, have grown by more than 212% in the first three months of 2010. Websites that contain violence have grown by 10.8%, terrorism content by 8.5%, and illegal drugs purchase by 6.8% are continuing to grow.
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Recent Aquisitions Web.com Acquires Register.com Web.com has recently acquired privately-held Register.com. Under the terms of the agreement, which is subject to standard closing conditions, Web.com will pay $135 million and will finance the purchase through a combination of cash and long-term debt.
Savvis Acquires Fusepoint
New Mac Mini
Fusepoint was recently acquired by Savvis for approximately $121 million in cash. Savvis expects the acquisition purchase price to approximate 5.0x EBITDA after synergies of approximately $8 million, which are expected to be fully achieved in 2011.
Apple has recently released the new Mac mini with several new upgraded features. Mac mini comes in two models: 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and a 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor. Prices for the new Mac Mini range from $699 to $999. The $699 model features a 320GB hard and 2GB of RAM while the $999 model comes with two 500GB hard drives, 4GB of RAM, and includes Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server. Apple has also added an HDMI port and an SD card slot to the mini. The new Mac mini features the Nvidia GeForce 320M graphics processor, which Apple says is “the fastest integrated graphics processor on the market today.” It includes 48 processing cores, making it twice as fast as its predecessor.
Perigon Networks Acquires AmHosting The acquisition of the AmHosting brand, its customer base and data center facilities in Reno was completed in December 2009. The combined PowerDNN and AmHosting brands support more than 25,000 customers worldwide with call centers operating in Bellevue, NE and Reno, NV. Perigon’s technology infrastructure is also supported by data center operations in Bellevue, Reno, Sioux Falls, SD and Kansas City, MO.
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Comodo Discovers Security Vulnerability Comodo recently requested an independent third-party to notify VeriSign of a security vulnerability affecting its customers’ Web sites, including a major financial institution.
Steadfast Networks Acquires New York NOC Steadfast Networks recently announced its acquisition of The New York NOC hosting provider. Acquisition of The New York NOC allows Steadfast Networks to continue its expansion in the Northeast region of the US by offering dedicated server, colocation, and VPS hosting services to customers in New York and surrounding areas.
Using publicly available information, Comodo found that a VeriSign customer account of a major financial institution could be easily accessed without authentication. Comodo believed that the vulnerability was not limited to this single account. Communicating through the independent third party, Comodo urged VeriSign to take immediate steps to correct and remediate the vulnerability and notify all their customers who may be affected by this vulnerability. “When we uncovered this serious security vulnerability, we knew we had to do the right thing to notify VeriSign immediately to correct the design problem,” explained Melih Abdulhayoglu, chief executive officer and founder of Comodo. “With millions of customer’s financial transactions at stake, we wasted no time to help correct the problem even though it wasn’t ours to begin with.” Comodo followed the Vulnerability Disclosure Guidelines of the Common Computing Security Standards Forum (CCSS) by using an independent third-party as a medium for disclosure. It provided an outlined disclosure document to VeriSign outlining the vulnerability.
Server for Mac 4 Parallels has launched Parallels Server for Mac 4 which increases the speed and reliability of virtual environments for small businesses. Parallels Server for Mac 4 is the only virtualization solution optimized for Mac OS X server bringing consistent reliability and scale to Apple environments. Parallels Server for Mac 4 consolidates multiple operating systems resulting in the ability to retire redundant hardware and extend existing capabilities. The result of consolidation means less physical space, less power consumption and less administration skills are needed to manage the server needs of the business. Other significant upgrades include host and guest support for Snow Leopard as well as guest support for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. In addition, it now includes Apple xSAN support, VLANs, resource usage accounting, full and incremental backups, migration and conversion of virtual machines as well as express installations for Windows and Linux guests. Parallels Server for Mac 4 is a powerful, easy-to-use solution that provides the best value for organizations seeking to standardize and optimize their IT infrastructures.
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Microsoft’s Fraud Alert Program
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Microsoft has joined forces with the National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance (NCFTA), with the support of Accuity, the American Bankers Association, Anti-Phishing Working Group, Citizens Bank, eBay Inc., Federal Trade Commission, National Consumers League and PayPal, to release a new program to help mitigate potential losses due to online fraud and account compromise. The recently launched, Internet Fraud Alert offers a trusted and effective mechanism for participating researchers to report stolen account credentials discovered online — such as username and password login information for online services or compromised credit card numbers — to the appropriate institution responsible for that account. Through a centralized alerting system powered by Microsoft technology developed specifically for this program, Internet Fraud Alert will quickly inform companies about compromised credentials, allowing them to take the appropriate action to help protect their customers.
New MobileMe Apple recently announced the availability of its MobileMe Mail Service. Mail at me.com now features widescreen and compact views, single click archiving, mail organization rules, SSL protection, a formatting toolbar, better junk mail protection, and the ability to read mail from other email addresses. MobileMe is only supported in Safari, Firebox, and IE8. As of now the service cost $99, despite rumors of Apple offering it for free.
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The first of its kind, Internet Fraud Alert represents an important step forward in fighting online fraud. It will serve the much-needed purpose of enabling security researchers and investigators to more securely and systematically share information with service providers, retailers, financial institutions and government entities about incidents where compromised account credentials have been discovered. To date, when the security community uncovers compromised credentials stemming from phishing attacks, for example, there has been no simple mechanism to warn the service provider or bank about the exposed credentials. Phishing and malicious code attacks pose a serious threat to consumer identity and account credentials. In 2009, the AntiPhishing Working Group received more than 410,000 unique phishing e-mail reports, and recent data from the group show that the number of brands being exploited by phishers is at an all-time high. Internet Fraud Alert will bring together a wide assortment of stakeholders, including retailers, financial institutions, service providers, technology companies, academic researchers, consumer advocates and government agencies, in the shared interest of reducing online fraud and protecting consumers. As the technology creator and sponsor, Microsoft is donating the tool to the NCFTA, a nonprofit organization dedicated to facilitating public-private partnerships between industry, law enforcement and academia on cybersecurity issues. Accuity, a leading provider of global payment routing data, has donated a solution to assist NCFTA with the vetting of trusted institutions for participation in the program to help ensure the integrity of the alerting process.
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Google Wins Youtube Copyright Case A U.S. District Judge granted summary judgment for Google in the longtime copyright fight between Viacom and the search giant over YouTube. “The court has decided that YouTube is protected by the safe harbor of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) against claims of copyright infringement,” Google said on its site. “The decision follows established judicial consensus,” Google continued, “that online services like YouTube are protected when they work cooperatively with copyright holders to help them manage their rights online.” Viacom, parent company of Paramount Pictures and MTV, indicated that it plans to continue to fight. “We believe that this ruling by the lower court is fundamentally flawed and contrary to the language of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA),” Viacom said in a statement. “We intend to seek to have these issues before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as soon as possible.”
Access Northeast Acquires RezZiliant Hosting Access Northeast announced that it has acquired the hosting division of RezZiliant Inc. With the acquisition of RezZiliant hosting and their two Data Centers in Waterbury and Hartford, Connecticut, Access Northeast now leases and operates four facilities throughout New England totaling over 40,000 square feet of space. The additional Connecticut Data Centers will assist Access Northeast with the expansion of their Parthenon Cloud footprint for customer replication and disaster recovery services.
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Florida Search Engine & Internet Expo Announced Global Associations, Inc. will be launching the Florida Search Engine & Internet Expo (FSE), the only On-Line Expo in the world for internet and search engine based businesses on April 13 through April 14, 2011. The FSE Expo is a leading business web technology event, driving technology adoption by offering knowledge and industry insight to IT and corporate decision-makers. Armed with the latest technological information, businesses are positioned to achieve greater success through the many educational workshops, and information and products from the expo’s many exhibitors and from this first of its kind event. Touted as the meeting place for the global business technology community, FSE delivers focused marketing campaigns to connect exhibitors to the right buyers. Exhibitors will represent the advertising; computer; peripherals , eCommerce; e-mail hosting and ISP; mobile; search engine optimization; security; web design industries plus many more. This is the first expo where attendees and exhibitors will not require any travel expenses, or freight costs as they are able to be in the technology know from the comfort of their own computer. For more information regarding the Florida Search Engine & Internet Expo, go to www. SearchEngineExpo.net or call 941.320.3216
Steadfast Opens New Chicago Data Steadfast Networks has announced the opening of its new Chicago data center, located at 725 S. Wells St. The new Steadfast Networks data center will accommodate the expanding demand for Chicago colocation services and Chicago web hosting services in a state-of-the-art data facility. The initial phase includes 6,000 sq. ft. of raised floor data center space and 750kW of power and is the first phase of a 4.5MW build-out at the location. Chicago hosting services at Steadfast Networks meet the key parameters for operational sustainability – location, processes, and staffing. The new Steadfast Networks data center has a redundant dark fiber ring back to their original 10,000 sq. ft. location at 350 E Cermak Rd., the main telecommunications hub in Chicago, and 600 S. Federal St. allowing Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet connectivity between the sites at affordable rates. The site will serve as a center for Steadfast Networks colocation hosting, Linux dedicated servers, Windows dedicated servers, and managed virtual servers. In addition to providing web hosting and colocation services to Chicago-based businesses, the 725 S. Wells St. data center is a connection point for some of the largest IP carriers in the world including Level(3), AT&T, Verizon, Qwest, Abovenet, and Cogent. With its premier infrastructure and extensive data backup features, Steadfast Networks offers superior connection to metropolitan cities throughout the area with its web hosting and colocation web hosting services. “Steadfast Networks Chicago data centers connect you to any provider in the buildings’ Meet Me Room (725 S Wells, 600 Federal, or 350 E Cermak), in Equinix Chicago, the Steadfast Financial Exchange, or the Chicago Internet Exchange with a wide array of connectivity options for T1, DS3, or Ethernet connectivity,” says Zimmerman. “The reliability of our infrastructure, our network, and our expert staff make Steadfast Networks a hosting provider our customers can depend on today and well into the future.” For more information on Steadfast Networks’ new Chicago data center or to learn about Steadfast Networks dedicated server hosting, managed server hosting, and colocation hosting for your business, visit steadfast.net.
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34SP.com Opens New UK Data Centre 34SP.com has launched its third data center buildout in partnership with UK Grid, a customer focused provider of quality data centre space and network services based in Manchester, United Kingdom. The data centre is the third provisioned by 34SP.com with existing data centre space in London and Manchester. According to the company, the previous data centre buildouts were approaching capacity, and 34SP.com desired to find a massively scalable, world class data centre with close proximity to Manchester City. The new data centre space is a tier2 premium data centre in Manchester. The site location is Manchester Science Park, Synergy House and is UK Grid’s latest addition to its ‘carrier neutral’ data centres. The facility includes redundant power and cooling and is serviced by a fully diverse fibre ring providing extremely high availability, as well as full physical and virtual security. The data centre also has its own independent HV supply and power substation enabling the facility to sustain the newest high powered racks required by the next generation of powerful servers. The carrier neutral facility is connected via a dark fibre ring to multiple tier1 and tier2 bandwidth providers. Completely separate and independent multi homed fibre entry points into the building provide the maximum redundancy and uptime available.
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Global Broadband Hits 484 Million Broadband subscription growth took an upswing during the first quarter of 2010, supported in part by healthy DSL growth in every region, strong fiber rollouts in Asia and aggressive IPTV service offerings. These statistics were revealed today by the Broadband Forum at a CommunicAsia press conference, in conjunction with research by industry analysts Point Topic. The figures show that global broadband lines now top 484 million lines (484,788,597), representing a 3.12% growth in the quarter and 12.41% in the last 12 months to end of Q1 2010. The first quarter growth rate increase shows a swelling of positive growth for worldwide broadband. At the same time the number of IPTV subscribers grew to 36.3 million. China and the USA are the top two countries for both broadband and IPTV. Based on the research by Point Topic, Asia was responsible for more than 53% of the broadband lines added, with mainland China alone accounting for 45% of the total lines added worldwide in Q1 2010. China continues to be at the top of the table in terms of broadband with continued healthy growth at 5.67% in the quarter and 20.96% in the twelve month period, taking it to 112,594,000 subscribers. This made China the fastest growing country in both percentage and in absolute terms in the first three months of 2010. Six of the top ten countries improved their performance in Q1 2010 compared to Q4 2009; China, USA, Germany, UK, South Korea and Brazil all grew more quickly in the first quarter of 2010 against Q4 2009. Top 10 Countries – total broadband subscriber numbers Country 2009Q1 2010Q1 China 93,084,160 112,594,000 USA 80,117,747 87,070,960 Japan 30,666,900 31,782,400 Germany 23,788,750 25,953,150 France 18,009,500 19,254,000 UK 17,661,100 18,712,000 South Korea 15,706,466 16,552,222 Italy 12,595,533 13,528,650 Brazil 10,014,200 11,293,400 Russia 9,280,000 11,270,049
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UK Companies Not Engaging Web Visitors A benchmark study, The Engaged Web, published last month reveals many online brands are not seizing the opportunity to engage with visitors to their website by not integrating with social media channels, running online communities, blogging or providing ‘sticky’ and personalised content. According to the study, published by EPiServer, only a third (34%) of the eighty leading companies investigated feature a community on their website and while blogs feature on 40% of sites, only 39% update their blog on a regular basis and only 19% clearly promote it to site visitors. The Engaged Web report, available to download from http:// www.episerver.com/en/Products/Engaged-Web-Report/, analysed 80 companies, ranked by Hitwise as being the most visited in the UK, spanning eight vertical sectors – Telecoms, Charity, Retail, Sport, Travel, Public Sector, Finance and Utilities – and scored them against a matrix of criteria for an in-depth assessment of their online engagement strategies. The criteria assessed a wide range of different components that make up an engaged website including communities, multimedia content, personalisation and social media. The scores amongst the vertical sectors vary considerably. For example, every one of the ten sport sites feature a blog, and community and travel sites are close behind with 60% maintaining a blog to engage with their audience. Elsewhere however, the results are less impressive, with finance and telecoms failing to provide any ‘sticky’ content on their websites. When it comes to the use of social media however, overall the scores plummet considerably, with brands seemingly failing to encourage online interaction with their visitors and customers or integrate and optimise their online presence. Only 15% of companies advertise their Twitter account directly on the homepage and only 19% draw attention to their Facebook fan page. In terms of more traditional engagement methods, it was a relief to find the companies assessed performing better, although not exceptionally. When looking at engagement channels being promoted on the website, a phone number was the most commonly advertised (79%), followed by a web form (55%) and an email address (43%). But a mere 5% of the brands offer a much more interactive experience through live chat.
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David Dunlap
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ot a day goes by that I don’t read about several market leaders clashing. Google is going after Apple; Apple hates Adobe; Adobe gives Apple the finger and jumps into bed with Microsoft and Google; Google tells Microsoft to stick it; and I can go on for days. But if there is one thing we can learn from the Apple vs. Adobe vs. Microsoft vs. Google and “whoever else gets in the way” turf war is that there is more than one way to lead a market.
Adobe: Buy it
Adobe will always hold a warm spot in my heart. I have used Photoshop longer than any other software program period. For almost two decades I have used Adobe Photoshop. I started using it when it began working on Windows back in '93 and I have yet to find any sort of image editing software that beats it. Adobe is a market leader in several areas. Whereas Photoshop is a market leader through the normal methods, Adobe Flash on the other hand gave Adobe a market leading position through a very different method; they bought it. Macromedia did not create Flash oddly enough. Even though Adobe bought Macromedia and hence Flash, Macromedia received the initial technology for Flash from a company called FutureWave Software. What was funny with that acquisition is the technology behind Flash was not meant for the web, it was going to be used for pen-based computing devices such as PDAs and tablets. Macromedia rebranding the software (FutureWave called if FutureSplash) to Flash and began to expand on it as a graphics and media tool. As it gained popularity on the Internet as a lightweight highly portable video player, Macromedia shift the focus of Flash from graphics design to Web application. Under Macromedia, Flash was the most installed media viewer, beating out QuickTime, Real Player, and Windows Media Player. It was this popularity that peeked Adobe's interest. g
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Adobe has a long standing reputation when it comes to digital design media. Adobe recognized that the future of graphical design lay in the web and therefore they needed to break into the market. When looking at breaking into the online media player market, Adobe was looking at a very tough battle. The Flash player had been downloaded on more than 90% of all personal computers. Not only would they face off against Flash though, they also had to deal with QuickTime, Real Player, and WMP. Also Adobe did not have any sort of good foot in the fast growing market of online development tools. The dominance of both Microsoft's FrontPage and Macromedia Dreamweaver seemed unassailable.
killers? Why is the iPhone held to the status it is?
Macromedia owned two properties that were market leaders, Flash and Dreamweaver. After looking at the costs of creating their own products, the effort involved in marketing them so they would achieve a decent level of success, and further costs for marketing and such, Adobe found that buying Macromedia would be well worth the expense. The acquisition took place in December 2005 and cost Adobe $3.4 billion.
Apple has been a media darling. Every new version of the iPhone has been released amidst fanfare, a true media event. RIM, Nokia, they don't have a media event for every phone they release (which is kind of a good thing when you think about it, considering how many phones they make).
Market leadership can be purchased, however the lesson here is not necessarily that if you have a few billion you can become a market leader, though it doesn't hurt. Adobe found a company whose intellectual properly fit with their own branding. Adobe was deeply entrenched with media and they purchased another media editing company, so the users of Dreamweaver and Flash knew that they were still in good hands. They were reassured that Adobe would take care of both of these brands. The next thing was Adobe kept the product's name. They didn't try rebranding the products to something like FlashShop or DreamShop to bring it in-line with Photoshop. So when you make acquisitions (whether market leader or not) be sure they make sense to your company's identity, reassure customers that quality of the product will continue, and lastly, try not to rebrand. Rebranding a market leader is the fastest way to not own the market.
apple: Perceived
market leader
1st Quarter of last year, Apple sold 4 million iPhones. Pretty high numbers right? Well that same quarter RIM sold 7.2 million Blackberries and Nokia sold nearly 15 million phones. But the Apple iPhone has been called the market leader for a long time. By the definition of being a market leader the iPhone fails. It does not have the most users. It hasn't sold the most units. It hasn't made the most money. It wasn't the first to present such "new" ideas as a touch screen. The only thing that the iPhone has going for it, from a traditional perspective, is the App Store, which is a market leader. So why do we constantly hear about iPhone
It is a matter of perception. The difference between Nokia (the actual market leader) and iPhone (a perceived market leader) comes down to how the company is perceived in various markets. Nokia is a superstar in Europe, China, and India. Some of their phones are considered signs of taste and polish in other markets, but in North America, they are considered cheap with a horribly weak brand name, supporting an OS that is considered ancient and bloated. BlackBerry who also owns more share than the iPhone is considered a business only phone and therefore misses out on the casual consumer market.
Perception is a key factor as well. In the US, the iPhone is carried by AT&T. What would happen if they were carried by Sprint, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, etc? Also there is only one iPhone with several versions. What would happen if they sold tens or hundreds of phone models? Using a loose form of logic one might conclude that the iPhone would be the market leader if it wasn't exclusive to some carriers worldwide or if they created multiple models. The other piece to perception is that each version is extremely similar. By being similar, the brand is set in stone. They are all non-flip, no keyboard, few buttons, touch screen, the list goes on. Where Nokias and Blackberries come in a variety of different flavors, the iPhone's brand is perpetuated from one version to the next. Lastly, the iPhone wins when it comes to customer care. The amount of satisfied customers for the iPhone is a large majority, which translates to brand loyalty. Other companies want to copy iPhone's interface and simple design because of how happy consumers are with it. Unfortunately, every phone that looks like the iPhone ends up giving Apple free publicity in the form of media outlets gracing their pages with "<fill in the blank> iPhone Killer <fill in the blank>." This increases the perception that iPhone must be the market leader. Why make an iPhone killer if the iPhone isn't the market leader? The lesson from Apple is if you can play your marketing cards right, partner with media outlets (essentially treat the media well), produce a quality product, and act like you are the market leader, then people might consider you to be the market leader regardless of the real numbers. Whether this perception helps you sell more products is another story, but you cannot underestimate the amount of free publicity that can be gained from it. g
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Google:
Redefine the Market
To this day I am still amazed at how rapidly Google rose to become the number 1 search engine amidst a sea of competitors. One of the fundamental rules of marketing is that you cannot go head-to-head against the market leader. In a nutshell, it's a case of anything you can do, they can do better. They have the money, they have mindshare, so any competitor who wants to go toe-to-toe with them has an uphill battle. This especially holds true when it comes to innovation. The bigger companies have the money to copy the innovation of smaller competitors, mass produce it, and mass market it. So how did Google prosper with such search engine notables as AltaVista, Excite, AlltheWeb and the like? At the time, the accepted means for which websites were ranked in search engines was by quantity of keyword terms. Other "search engines" contained page after page of links. Link listings like Yahoo provided a means to have a sort of weighted scale. On one side of the spectrum we have large sections of the Internet indexed by their key terms and on the other side we have link lists that carry the best in class pages.
Innovation is not the key to becoming market leader. The lesson that should be learned here is that once you redefine a market, you must be in a position to get the maximum amount of benefit from it and continue to push hard. Google, when they first came out, were years ahead of their competition and yet they continued to refine their search algorithm and they continued to gain venture capital. They made their business profitable and every acquisition they did down the road was done to strengthen their brand. In short, the race isn't won when you release a new innovation. Quite the contrary, the race has just begun.
Traditionally, market leaders emerge when companies build new niche markets. However, as we have seen with Adobe, Apple, and Google, there is more than one way to obtain the title market leader. P!
Google began in 1996 as a research project. According to Salon.com, in two years, the Google search engine had 60 million pages indexed, which I might add was outrageously big. To give you a state of reference, four years prior in 1994, Lycos had made a splash by amassing an index of 390... thousand pages. One of the largest indexes notwithstanding, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, came up with something extraordinary and that was PageRank, the algorithm that creates a standard and semi-accurate method for determining quality of a page. Google certainly refreshed the search engine market with innovation. So why didn't the market leaders copy Google's technology and use their influence to increase their own coffers? First off, the Google algorithm to this day remains a black box. Sure MSN and Yahoo have found ways of getting very close to the same results as Google, but that was after several years worth of their own R&D. Second, Google had an extreme head start. They had spent several years at Stanford, building the technology and creating their ranked index of millions of pages. Even if the market leaders could convert their engines the first day Google began building their following they still would be behind. Lastly, and more importantly, Google received huge amounts of funding and immediately put it to use in the form of making the search engine profitable through the use of text ads. Five years after their first round of funding, Google had (this figure is combined with their IPO profits) $23 billion at their disposal.
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Writer's Bio: David Dunlap has been both a Web host industry analyst and commentator for the past nine years. Prior to his active writing career, David was a network and communications technician for four years for the U.S. government. He currently is the Editor-in-Chief for WebHostMagazine.com.
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he Future of Ping! Zine Web Hosting Magazine has begun. With technology rapidly growing, such as the release of the iPad and other slate products on the way, it allows us to present our publication to our readers in a whole new format. Introducing the all new Ping! Zine Digital Edition and interactive website! The New Ping! Zine Digital Edition will host interactive features including animation, video tours, and interviews with leading CEOs and Executives from all over the Hosting World. The new interactive website brings you, our subscribers, up to date information on the latest technologies that is sure to keep you clicking for hours. The staff of Ping! Zine is gearing up to bring to our readers many new and exciting innovations for the hosting and technology world. Stay in touch and find out what the most cutting edge and exciting web hosting & resource magazine is setting forth in motion to bring to the brightest generation of the New Digital Age.
EXECUTIVE STAFF Publisher: KEITH A. DUNCAN Managing Editor: DEREK MORRIS Executive Editor: DAVE YOUNG Senior Editor: DAVID DUNLAP Media Editor: WADE HENDERSON EDITORIAL / PRODUCTION STAFF MITCH KEELER ROB MOORE DEREK VAUGHAN FRANK FEINGOLD ASHLEY KAMRATH LIRETTE NICOLE DOMIANO BLAIN SANCHEZ ASHTON STOCKWELL ANGELA BOUDREAUX RIKKI HEGWOOD ADMINSTRATIVE STAFF Financial Director: SHERYL HEUGHAN Sales/Marketing Director: DANIEL HEMBREE Production Manager: GARY CROSSLAND
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Evan Kamlet
Need to preview your site on a new server before DNS propagates? Here is the best method (assuming you are running Microsoft Windows).
Edit Windows hosts File to Preview Content In some versions of Windows XP or below, go to: Start u Programs u Accessories Click "notepad" or in Windows 7, Vista, right click notepad and "Run As Administrator" In notepad, go to file u open and put in filename: c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts Add the following lines to the BOTTOM of that file: ############################# xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx yourdomain.com xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx www.yourdomain.com ############################### (replace xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx with the IP address of the new server and "yourdomain.com" with the actual domain name you want to preview) Save the file - keep the window open In some versions of Windows XP or below, go to: Start u Programs u Accessories and click "Command Prompt" or in Windows 7, Vista, right click Command Prompt and "Run As Administrator") Type: ipconfig /flushdns Once you are done with that try pinging any of the domains. They should respond from the new IP: ================= ping www.yourdomain.com Reply from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx ================= If you see that, your computer has been fooled into seeing the domains on the new server, while the rest of the world sees the old server. You should then exit all open browers, clear cookies/ cache, and then re-open your webbrowser and test the domains. Once you are done testing, to return to normal, go back into the window with the "hosts" file and remove all of the lines with the IP addresses and hostnames that you added (but leave 127.0.0.1). Run the ipconfig /flushdns command again and re-ping the sites to make sure you see the old IP. That way, when you transfer DNS and change the A records on the old server, you can accurately tell when it has propagated. P!
036
events
Dave Young
HOSTINGCON 2010 be there Get ready for HostingCon 2010 in Austin, TX with three days of all-out sessions, keynote speakers, and networking events that will have you begging for more. Monday, July 19 to Wednesday, July 21, exhibitors, speakers, attendees, and guests will be gathering to showcase new products and services, discuss the latest trends in web hosting, and meet new people at some of the best parties you will experience all year. Will you be there? Read on to find out what’s happening at this year’s event. Whether you are a hosting veteran or new to the hosting industry, you cannot miss this exciting opportunity to learn how you can benefit from the latest technologies, marketing techniques, and business development opportunities. Sessions include how to add value to your business, leverage content delivery networks, strategies for building a customer-focused company, cloud storage adoption, how to establish a strong cloud hosting business, and so much more.
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Theme: Cloud Hosting & Cloud Technology There are nearly 30 sessions scheduled this year on cloud hosting and cloud technology alone. There’s a session that gives you a roadmap to the clouds with tools, guidance, and best practices. Cloud hosting experts will be discussing the anatomy of a cloud, the legal risks and uncertainties in cloud computing, and how to launch your own cloud reseller hosting business. One hosting expert will show you a real world case study on moving to the cloud. Other sessions include: · Becoming Profitable in the Cloud · Choosing a Secure Cloud Services Provider · Hosting and Cloud Computing: The United States Defense Department · Building and Managing Cloud Applications online · The Future of Cloud Hosting · Hosters and Cloud Architecture If cloud hosting and cloud technology is or will be part of your organization, there are plenty of cloud related sessions spread across all three days. Business Development Hosting companies attending HostingCon 2010 will have plenty of sessions to learn how to improve business. Sessions on business development include opportunities and advantages for hosting resellers, how to boot strap a start-up, how to expand your business internationally, and how to build your most effective data center. There’s also a session on outsourcing infrastructure, a case study for success and a session on understanding data center’s evolution: cloud, colocation, and managed services. You can learn how to differentiate your hosting business in a saturated market, outsource IT management, leverage hybrid computing for scalability and cost-effectiveness, add online backup as a service, and learn about the future of hosting trends for the small business market. So if you’re into enhancing your business with the latest insight into what the experts are doing in 2010. The future of hosting, not just the cloud Is your mind saturated with endless cloud hosting and cloud technology knowledge? Maybe you want to get your head out of the cloud and learn about hosting in general, or more specifically, the future of hosting. Learn how to be profitable with green hosting or learn how to implement backup strategies to protect your data. Expert hosting companies will be presenting new software where you can manage your dedicated server from anywhere – cool, isn’t it?
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Know anything about IPv6? If not, there’s a session on preparing for IPv6 deployment. Or learn more about hosting IP-based telecommunications. And if you’re an ecommerce hosting company, software company, or you accept payments from customers, there’s a session on PCI standards and compliance. Trust us, you will want to be PCI compliant. Marketing, marketing, and more marketing From social media marketing to search engine optimization to Twitter and Facebook, hosting marketing experts are on hand to show you how to get the most out of today’s marketing trends. Want to find customers through local and mobile search, there’s a session for that too. Want to learn how to engage customers with email marketing techniques? There’s a session for that. Pay Per Click (PPC) has been popular with hosting companies, but now you can learn to go beyond PPC by learning new SEO techniques. Like most businesses, you want to increase profits. Learn how to increase profits with best marketing practices. Take sales to a new level by optimizing social media for branding, traffic, and sales. Marketing is always a topic of interest to hosting companies and supporting vendors so make sure you attend a couple of marketing sessions and learn how you can improve your own marketing. Fighting spam Spam, we’ve all received spam at one point or another. There are multiple sessions scheduled where you can learn how to conquer web-based malware. Or learn how to enhance email and messaging security and performance. And you can even step inside the world of an email spammer and learn their tricks and techniques so you can be better prepared to fight those unwanted emails. Will you be there? According to iNet Interactive, this year’s HostingCon 2010 will see even greater numbers of attendees compared to last year’s HostingCon 2009. If you haven’t booked your reservations, now is the time. Don’t delay, otherwise you’ll miss one of the most exciting events in the hosting industry. We look forward to seeing you there. Stop by the Ping! Zine booth and say hi and make sure you enter your name for a chance to win one of six prizes including an iPad, PDA, digital camera, and other exciting gadgets you can claim as your own at this year’s HostingCon 2010. P!
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Protecting you. Protecting the environment. Protecting your wallet.
LotusCloud VM from Black Lotus is the first environmentally friendly distributed denial of service protection service and the only option to come in at under $100.00 per month for a full gigabit of protection. Your own fully scalable virtual machine functions just like a dedicated server and uses less than 7 watts of electricity (thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 16 times more efficient). Find out more about becoming DDoS protected and reducing your carbon footprint at http://www.blacklotus.net or by calling (800) 789-1977. http://ww
MARKETING
Dave Young
Are You Blogging Yet? Facebook and Twitter are all the rage today in marketing, but nothing beats solid blog writing on a regular basis to help you attract more customers and increase your revenue. Blogging takes time, especially if you are doing it correctly. I still see businesses that have not started blogging for others or even started a blog on their own site. Those businesses are missing out on one of the best forms of marketing.
Are you blogging yet or have you even considered starting a blog? If not, now is the time to get started. Or if you do not have the time to blog, hire a professional writer with marketing experience to write your blog posts and maintain your blog to generate more qualified traffic to your website.
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Blogs are great for SEO and credibility
Why? Multiple reasons. First: Search engines like Google, where you should get most of your organic search traffic, place high value on fresh content. By maintaining a well-written blog, you are feeding fresh content to Google. As a result, Google will help your website get ranked higher in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). But not just any blog posts will get you ranked higher in the SERPs. Your blog posts need to be optimized based on how your website is performing on a monthly basis. A keyword and key phrase strategy `can be developed by a professional writer with SEO marketing and blog writing experience. Second: Well-written, optimized blog posts generate links throughout your website and can often generate links from other popular websites that link to your blog posts and website. Again, search engines like Google place high value on inbound links to your website that are quality (authoritative). Humans also read your blog and will link back to your website or blog posts, thereby generating a constant flow of buzz about your posts’ content or your products and services. Third: Well-written blog posts help you develop
credibility and authority in your niche market. By publishing posts regularly on your blog, your readers will learn what you do and what makes you the best at what you do. As you continue to build your brand and gain popularity in your niche markets, your blog will establish more readers and generate more qualified prospects interested in purchasing your products and services.
Types of content you can blog about
News such as events your company is attending, information or status on products and services your company offers, information on employees and what they do within your organization, and just about anything your current and prospective customers, partners, and vendors would want to know about your company. And if you are the CEO or any high-level executive, you definitely need to be posting regularly. People want to know what the CEO is doing and how the CEO is paving the way for future products and services development. Blog writing can go beyond news and topics from executives. Blogs are a great way to showcase the products and services your company offers. But take it a step further and showcase how your products and
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services have helped a particular client or customer. In most cases, clients and customers want the free publicity, especially if your company plays a vital role in your industry or has significant brand equity. Additionally, when prospective clients and customers, partners and vendors read a blog post showcasing what you have done or how you have helped another organization, you build credibility. Blogs are great for educating your readers. When you publish posts regularly, you build credibility. And when you build credibility, your readers will continue to read your blog. Take it a step further by educating your readers, clients, customers, prospective clients and customers, partners, vendors, employees, media, and other bloggers who may be interested in learning from you. That does not mean you need to tell your audience how you do everything. Instead, educate your audience on how you resolve issues or how you can help organizations use your products and services.
Easy to get started
WordPress is the most popular platform for blogging. If your website is using a content management system (CMS) that has a blog built-in, all you need to do is start posting. If your website is using WordPress as a CMS, all you need to do is start posting. But if your
website is not using a CMS, installing WordPress is the fastest, easiest option. Customizing WordPress to your company’s brand is easy too. Just modify the header and footer and you are done.
Building a community
Once your blog is up and running and you are publishing posts regularly, you may want to open your blog up for comments. Make sure you monitor comments as spammers enjoy posting unrelated content. By opening your blog to readers to post comments, you establish a sense of community to your audience. However, building a community really depends on your target market. Some target markets prefer not to post comments, but will read comments posted by other people. So if you are ready to start blogging, take a look at WordPress or any blogging platform. And if you need help creating topics, interviewing your employees, partners, and vendors for content, and writing your blog posts optimized for search engines, hire a professional writer with blog writing experience. P! Writer's Bio: Dave Young is a professional writer, technical writer, website auditor, marketing consultant, SEO guru, and founder of Young Copy, a leading promotional and technical writing services firm. Visit www.youngcopy.com to learn how you can boost your company’s revenues.
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MARKETING
JOE WHYTE
THEART
Forum
OF
Marketing
S
ince the very beginning
of social media, this bright, new and exciting avenue for online marketing has exploded all over the Web and is on the minds of almost every Internet marketer. First categorized as leveraging sites like digg. com for traffic and links, social marketing has matured. And with it comes a broader scope of Internet marketing. If it has something to do with being social or conversational and there is a marketing aspect behind it ... it can be categorized as social media marketing. That being said, forum and blog marketing are some areas within social media marketing that have been used for a while but not as effectively as they could be.
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Forums have been around since Alta Vista was hot. They are places where people can post questions and get answers, share comments and concerns and the search engines love them. AskJeeves, before it was turned to just Ask.com used to pride itself on allowing the searcher to ask a question and return a relevant answer. This is often how users decide to search and now that Google and other popular search engines are more adequately indexing and ranking results they can provide this service to the end user. Often times, search results contain a large number of forums. A Google search for â&#x20AC;&#x153;looking for a good affiliate programâ&#x20AC;? returns a slew of forums and answer sites. And if we expand the definition of forums to include user reviews, recommendations and social conversations the list grows longer. Take these statistics under consideration:
71% of online shoppers read reviews before making a purchase. (Forrester Research Group) Reviews drive 21% higher purchase satisfaction and 18% higher loyalty (Foresee Results Study, January 2007) In a study of 2,000 shoppers, 92% deem customer reviews as "extremely" or "very" helpful. (eTailing Group) 63% of consumers indicate they are more likely to purchase from a site if it has product ratings and reviews. (CompUSA & iPerceptions study) 86.9% of respondents say they would trust a friend's recommendation over a review by a critic, while 83.8% say they would trust user reviews over a critic. (MarketingSherpa) 92.5% of adults say they regularly or occasionally research products online before buying them in a store. (BIGresearch) 26% of search results link to consumer-generated content (Nielsen BuzzMetrics) These studies show the market is engaged in a constant discussion. This means putting your company in the middle those discussions in a positive manner can greatly influence buyers. But getting involved in forum and conversational marketing requires some research, tact and plenty of time to be an active member of the community. Because I am an Apple computer fanatic I will use Macs as an example through the different areas of forum marketing. If you are marketing for Apple and you want to find your audience, start by finding keywords that people are using. Google Keyword Selector: This tool provides a look into the search volume for related keywords in Google. Knowing this, you can better target the current most active forums. KeywordDiscovery.com: This site allows us to find keywords related to a phrase we enter as well as the search volume of these terms. Google’s LIVE search keyword suggestion: This is a great tool for Internet marketers. It allows us to see other searches that might help us find what we are looking for, therefore finding relevant results and more of them. IceRocket.com, Boardtracker.com & Boardreader. com: These sites allows you to type in a search term like “iPhone reviews” and get a list of forums that are discussing this topic, in order of freshness. Purchase Sites: Diving into sites that sell these products and posting reviews is a great way to get involved into conversational marketing. For example, check out the comment section for a particular product on a popular retail site like BestBuy.com. When you are doing any type of forum and conversational marketing the first rule is to stay under the radar. If you
get called out for openly promoting your company, the conversation is going to get ugly. And because these are third-party sites you won’t have control over what is said. Do not over promote. Add valuable feedback on threads and, where appropriate, give your two cents on product reviews. If you are marketing on a Mac forum I would not suggest going to 30 threads and saying “the iPhone is wicked awesome!” Instead, find threads that talk about the iPhone but also the iMac, G5, iPods and other topics. iPods too outdated? Comment that there are newer iPods out there and that the iPod shuffle just had a price decrease. If someone is slamming G5s for being to expensive say “They are expensive but I have one I use for video editing and I wouldn't want any other piece of equipment.” Just be careful to not oversell. Also for forum marketing, if all you do is go around to different threads and talk about one topic you will get banned – its important to also write posts on unrelated topics or a different vertical than what your company is working on. orum Marketing for Link Building Link building within forums can be a great way to get new links. The best part is that there is a cornucopia of forums out there. This means that you will be able to obtain one way links with specific anchor text not only in your signatures but also embedded within your content. The key here is finding sites that allow “dofollow” links. Try the “search status” Firefox plugin – it shows you which sites allow “dofollow” links. dded Benefits from Forum Marketing An added benefit of forum marketing will be search engine result pages pulling up your threads that you started or in which you contributed. We build backlinks to forum threads we have started to help in two areas. The first is to increase the positioning of our positive comments in the search engine results pages for a particular term like “iPhone user reviews.” The second is to increase the power of our backlinks on these forums by building backlinks to these threads which increase the power and effectiveness behind this technique. When administering the forum and conversational marketing technique for your clients you will often find negative comments about a product or service. This is a great time to use your accounts and your team members to leave at least comments with some type of positive spin on the thread. Be careful of the time in between posts – each profile should not have this as their first post, so that each profile appears to have been active before finding and commenting this specific post. This shows that you are an active user, not just a marketer doing damage control. With these guidelines you will find success with forum and conversational marketing. If you’re using forum marketing for your clients, you will want to be able to show a return on their investment. Choose an analytics system that shows your engagement marketing and viral marketing stats or contact a company that can guide you and work with you to make this tactic a success. P!
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business
Paul Goldstone
Is your Domain Name a Spam Magnet? Reduce spam and protect your identity with whois privacy
Spammers set up automated robots that scrape whois contact records, gathering contacts and email addresses
ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the governing body for most Internet domain names, requires that the contact details of your domain name be publicly available. As a result, your contact information is stored on “whois” servers where your information is available to anyone with an Internet connection. If you are thinking “whois” opens you up to potential identity theft and an influx of spam, you would be right. In fact, anyone who has registered a domain name knows that shortly after creating the domain, you are often inundated with spam, telesales, and junk mail. Spammers set up automated robots that scrape whois contact records, gathering contacts and email addresses in order to advise you of your recent lottery win, advise you of your surprise inheritance, or help you to last for hours in bed. There is a solution. In an effort to combat these pitfalls, some domain name registrars offer a service known as whois privacy or whois proxy, which will shield your personal information from the public whois database. Think of it like getting an unlisted phone number to avoid telemarketers. It’s often a very affordable service, costing less than the price of the registration itself. g
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What type of Whois privacy is available?
There are three main methods of whois privacy services available in the marketplace today:
Type of Whois Privacy
How Users Contact You
Completely anonymous- In this case, your entire contact record is replaced with contact details provided by your registrar.
Users have no way of contacting you from the whois record.
This method is fine if you never want to be reached via whois, but be careful - some online services confirm your identity by sending an email to your whois contact and this method will prevent you from receiving those emails.
Your name and mailing address are made anonymous and your email address is replaced with something static such as YourDomain@YourRegistrar.
Registrar either forwards email from YourDomain@ YourRegistrar to your local email address or authenticates email requests before sending them on to you. Postal mail forwarding depends on Registrar, usually for a fee.
The only issue with this method is that you are dependent on your registrar’s spam filtering techniques and if not handled correctly you could receive as much spam as you would have done had you not used whois privacy.
Your name and mailing address are made anonymous, your email address is set to something totally random such as 4fa0f9fdds@YourRegistrar and then that email address changes on a regular basis (e.g. every 24 hours).
Registrar forwards email from RandomChangingAddress @YourRegistrar to your local email address via spam filters. Postal mail forwarding depends on Registrar, usually for a fee.
This is preferred by many people because you’re reachable at any time, but if a spammer picks up on your email, it is filtered and spam will only last until the address is changed again.
Points to note
· Each registrar maintains the whois records for their own clients, whether on a local whois server, or at the registry level. For this reason, you can only purchase whois privacy from the same registrar where your domain name is registered. · There are several data storage services that scour the whois servers on a regular basis to store and distribute historical whois contact records from any given point in time. So, if you think you may want to protect your privacy at “any” point, it is recommended you get whois privacy from the day you register the domain name. · Most registrars provide the ability to turn whois privacy on and off, but surprisingly not all registrars turn it on by default. So if you want to use the service, be sure to either check with your registrar or check the whois record to make sure that it is active after your registration. · Before you commit to any specific registrar’s privacy service, find out how they will display the registrant (owner) name. There are some concerns in the marketplace when registrars list their own name or whois privacy service name as it may legally change ownership of the domain. One method used by some registrars is to reference your entity without giving away your contact details, for example “Whois Privacy Service, Attn: YourDomain.com”
Comments
Whois privacy restrictions
Although most domain extensions are not currently restricted, not all domain names are permitted to use whois privacy, so don’t be surprised if your registrar doesn’t offer the service for the domain you register. For example, the .us registry, based on a US governmental law, requires that the contact details reflect the actual owner/manager of the domain. Similarly, Nominet, the .uk registry only permits whois privacy for private owners, not businesses. On the other hand, the Canadian registry for .ca, concerned about personal privacy, no longer displays contact details whatsoever. Keep in mind that whois privacy is not a way to conduct criminal activity and expect anonymity. Most, if not all, domain name registrars that provide whois privacy also have clauses in their terms that state they would provide your real contact info to law enforcement agencies or other entities given a certain set of circumstances. Check your registrar terms for the specific rules. Due to the nature of whois privacy where your postal address will be replaced by all registrars offering the service, you will not receive any postal mail, including legitimate mail. Although legitimate mail via your whois record is few and far between it could happen, and some registrars will even forward postal mail for an additional fee. Check with your registrar for further details.P!
Writer’s Bio: Paul Goldstone is a 14 year veteran in the domain name and hosting industry. President and CEO of DomainIt.com since 1996; Owner and chief editor of domain name guide and resource site iGoldrush.com since 2000; and Founder and owner of DomainSearch.com since 1996.
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business
Jeff Huckaby
Choosing Outsourced IT Management Services
Understaffed? As your organization grows and your servers need more attention, you may want to consider outsourcing your IT management. But how do you know which IT management services is right for your business? How do you
know which IT management services company can provide everything you need to continue growing your business? Hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a top ten list of tips you can use when searching for an outsourced IT management services company. g
10 Tips 053
10
Tips
2 Scope of Services
Choosing Outsourced IT Management Services
1
How They Work
Not all IT service management companies are the same. Even if the description of the services is identical, how they handle issues, response times, resolution times, and methods of accessing your support may differ. One IT management company may require you to ask for server updates. If you don't ask, they do not update. In contrast, other companies automatically update your software within a defined schedule. So check to make sure the IT management services you are considering applies updates or at least offers the option to apply updates without you having to ask.
4 Read those SLAs
If a management company cannot provide you with a Service Level Agreement (SLA) or written terms that describe what they are going to do for you, then look elsewhere. The SLAs should describe what the company will deliver and what happens if they fail to meet those promises. Similar to hosting providers with downtime, management providers should give you some type of compensation if they fail to meet their obligations. If there are no penalties for not meeting objectives, then the SLA is simply a promise that could in turn have serious consequences on your business.
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Some IT service management companies have very narrow, strictly defined programs. For example, they may offer monitoring and updates for specific control panels. But they may not offer advanced email solutions, managed backup and recovery programs, or strategic consulting solutions. If you find yourself needing these other IT management services, then you have to look for another provider. You need to be sure the provider you select can handle your needs today and as you grow.
3
Positive Company HistorY? A good indication of a reliable support company is longevity. Companies who make their money from delivering support will not last long if they deliver poor support. While discussion forums such as WebHostingTalk may provide quick and easy searches about a company, you will want to turn to better moderated review organizations such as RatePoint or the Better Business Bureau to get a broader picture of the company’s history. Look for reviews in the last six months. If a company is touting a review or reward that is years old, it could be a sign that their services have slipped over the years.
l If you fee ith ble w a t r o f m o c nications u m m o c the your process, ill feel sw customer le as well b comfor ta
Be sure the provid you selec can handl your need today and as you gro
5
Contact Methods
Email, chat, web and telephone based support are all common. If you are a person that must pick up the phone, make sure the company’s support system is geared for phone support. This is very difficult to judge so ask about it. What is the preferred method of communication, and what are the backups and alternatives if the preferred method is getting you nowhere on a support case. Study all the communication options the company has to offer. If you feel comfortable with the communications process, your customers will feel comfortable as well.
7 Off Hours Support
6 Support Similar Businesses?
This is a great question to ask any IT service provider. While servers may share similar technologies, business concerns may vary significantly. If you are running a large discussion forum web site, the technical challenges you face will be very different than a small web development site producing five page business web sites versus a shared hosting company supporting 1000’s of domains.
e der ct le ds d ow
8
While most companies will tout 24/7 support, you need to drill into how they deliver this service. Having staff on-call is not an issue provided the person that gets called can fix your issue. Often, companies will saddle new, entry-level staff with the graveyard shift. You will want to make sure you don’t have to wait around until the next business day to reach someone with more advanced knowledge. Doing so could make your customers angry and possibly damage your reputation.
Full Scope of Support
If you are running a complex web operation that involves many different technologies, make sure that the provider can support your full stack of operations. Having terrific skills tuning an Apache web server will not help you if your database fails and the company does not offer database management. You will want to lay out all of the technical items required to run your operation and be sure the IT provider you select can cover the critical times.
9
Cost Structure If you browse around the Internet, you will find huge ranges in costs for IT management services. The costs often reflect underlying differences in how the companies do business, but even within the same company, you will need to be very clear about what any subscription based plan covers and what it does not cover. You don’t want to find surprises on your invoices, so be sure you get a clear understanding of monthly fees, one time fees, and billing terms before signing up for any service.
ar Get a cle nding understa ly fees, of month fees, one time er ms t g n i l l i b and
10
Cancellation
A server is basically a hardware commodity. You can easily source an identical system from another provider. The same is not true with IT management firms. They may have installed tools on your system, altered configurations, setup security systems or other items that can impact your ability or another IT services management company’s ability to take care of your IT services. Ask up front what happens when you cancel. Does the company revert any non-standard changes? For example, do they remove any added software that they installed? Are they willing to assist with the transfer to a new provider? These are key questions to assure that should your initial outsourcing provider choice not work out you can easily move to another one.
u By following the top ten tips above when choosing an IT
management services company, you can save your company time, money, and reputation. Make sure you follow each tip thoroughly in order to find a company that will take care of your specific needs. You will be thankful you did in the long-run. P!
Writer’s Bio: Jeff Huckaby is the CEO and founder of rackAID, a managed service provider based in Jacksonville, FL. He has been working in the hosting and IT support community for nearly 15 years. When not working to fulfill rackAID's mission of making IT easy for small businesses, Mr. Huckaby enjoys cycling, wine and traveling.
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Case study
Dave Young
Interview with ISPsystem
Web Hosting Automation Software
W
eb hosting automation software has been a popular topic with industry giants over the last several years. With the right solution, hosting companies and service providers can implement hosting automation software quickly. But where do you go for an innovative, affordable, complete line of hosting automation software products?
You go to ISPsystem, a Russian based software development company that’s been delivering hosting automation software since 2004. To learn more about ISPsystem and their web hosting automation products, I interviewed Tatiana Shaidorova, Marketing Manager at ISPsystem. Like all my interviews, I was impressed with what ISPsystem is doing to help hosting companies automate their processes. At first I thought ISPsystem provided a couple of automation products, but it turns out they provide six hosting software products. What does ISPsystem do? “ISPsystem is a web hosting automation software development company that develops six hosting software products ranging from a hosting control panel to VPS management to IP-address management,” says Shaidorova. “Hosting companies favor ISPsystem products because of our lower prices and fast entry-to-market, making it more attractive to hosting companies that want to reduce expenses and increase profits.” The ISPsystem hosting automation software line-up: · hosting control panel (ISPmanager) · hosting billing system (BILLmanager) · VPS management system (VDSmanager) · dedicated server management system (DSmanager) · slave name server management system (DNSmanager) · IP-address management system (IPmanager) ISPsystem serves about 70,000 customers around the world not including partner clients and resellers. Partners and resellers can receive a discount up to 50%.
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What is your best selling product? According to Shaidorova, ISPsystem’s best selling product is ISPmanager, as easy to use and fully featured control panel with a user friendly interface for complete hosting automation. One of the greatest advantages is high efficiency with low system resources consumption. “ISPmanager is easily installed without changing operating system configuration and the control panel can satisfy the requirements of both novice users and advanced server administrators,” says Shaidorova. “ISPmanager also provides multilevel access to administrative features for increased management flexibility and is updated regularly.” ISPmanager allows you to manage your entire web server through a user friendly and comprehensive multi-language web interface. You can manage users, hosting packages, mail boxes, databases and much more from one centralized location using an intuitive interface. ISPmanager also provides multilevel access to administrative features for increased management flexibility. The multi-level system makes ISPmanager suitable for business web hosting and personal use. ISPmanager is available in three versions: Lite, Pro and Cluster. ISPmanager enables companies to meet different challenges at affordable prices. g
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+1(800) 521-5174
Case Study: Interview with ISPsystem
ISPmanager user hierarchy: · Administrator · Reseller (for ISPmanager Pro and Cluster) · User · FTP account · Mail account ISPmanager is compatible with various operating systems including FreeBSD, Linux, and Windows (Lite only) and manages a wide range of third party software like Apache, Mailman, Awstate, MySQL, and other third party applications. ISPmanager is ideal for utilization. Hosting companies can automate shared hosting. Additionally, ISPmanager can be included in service packages for VPS and dedicated servers.
ISPsystem has a team of programmers dedicated to building the most advanced, easy-to-use, hosting automation software on the market
How is ISPsystem bringing innovation to the hosting industry? “Recently, ISPsystem launched ISPmanager Cluster, a new product designed to build fault-tolerant, scalable systems for shared hosting,” says Shaidorova. “A cluster consists of several physical servers and distributes load and different functionalities among them.” ISPmanager Cluster allows you to duplicate the various roles of different servers and continue providing service even when one server fails. ISPmanager Cluster’s web-based interface is based on ISPmanager Pro and offers a comprehensive list of features to improve any web hosting business. ISPsystem is constantly adding new features, functions, and improvements based on the needs of today’s fast-growing web hosting companies. Why should hosting companies consider using ISPsystem? “ISPsystem has a team of programmers dedicated to building the most advanced, easy-to-use, hosting automation software on the market,” says Shaidorova. “All ISPsystem products are integrated with each other for complete hosting automation. Hosting companies can use all ISPsystem products together from one company.” Additionally, ISPsystem provides documentation, an active forums community, and a complete line of video demonstrations. When visiting the ISPsystem website, click on a camera icon next to a feature you want to learn about. A professional demonstration with voice and music will show you how easy it is to get started with ISPsystem products. To learn more about ISPsystem web hosting automation software, visit http://www.ispsystem.com P! Writer's Bio: Dave Young is a professional writer, technical writer, website auditor, marketing consultant, SEO guru, and founder of Young Copy, a leading promotional and technical writing services firm. Visit www.youngcopy.com to learn how you can boost your company’s revenues.
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finale
David Dunlap
professionals of merit
I have interviewed people from all walks of life, from heads of state to giants of industry, but the interview I present to you now, is one of great importance, nay it will change your very life and shake you to your core. Never have I met someone with such vast working knowledge of the industry. Never have I discussed such a wide range of topics and had answers shot back in such violent clarity. Once again I am joined by my buddy in crime, Ping! Zine's own Derek Morris. Together we present our interview with Aaron Ahnold, Senior Security Analyst for HUSH Security. Dave: This is the right location isn't it? Derek: This is the address but I don't see a building anywhere. Dave: Aaron? AAAARROOOON? Derek: Hey bud, where are you? Just as we were about to give up our interview, a panel in the parking lot in front of us slid to the side. There stood a man decked out in black, sporting night vision goggles, a OQO velcro'd to his wrist, and carrying enough firepower to take down a smallish army. He turned to us and whispered.... Aaron: Come with me if you want to live! Dave: Oh no. Aaron: Oh yes. Aaron handed out guns to me and Derek. Derek: Cool! Dave: It's going to be one of those days. We followed him down into the sewers below the city. The path towards his underground complex was fraught with peril, guarded by a series of traps... Aaron: Step.. carefully. Dave: OH MY GOD GET IT OFF!!! GET IT OFF!! Derek: HIT THE DECK!!! Aaron: NOT THERE!!! Dave: MY TENDERS ARE ON FIRE!!!!! Derek: THE HORROR!!!!
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...which I might add Aaron painstakingly had to reset after we walked through them.. But at the end of the long journey we were singed and a bit soggy, but triumphant. Aaron: I am sorry I had to put you through all of that but these are dangerous times. Dave: Paranoid psycho. Derek: Why the traps anyway I thought you handled IT security. Specifically what do you do Mr. Ahnold? Aaron: That's a tall order Mr. Morris. I handle events such as Google recording WiFi chatter from multiple access points Dave: But wasn't that an accident. Aaron: It is true some things happen by chance and then some things do not happen by chance. They are carefully orchestrated incidents of total mayhem that wreck havoc upon an unsuspecting populace. These actions of pure, unadultered evil can occur at anywhere, anytime, any... how. Dave: Just our luck we land the security expert from Crazytown. Aaron: They are perpetuated by those skilled in the arts of espionage and shadow puppetry. Derek: shadow... Dave: puppetry? Aaron: And only one man can stop it. Wherever data is threatened, I will be there. Wherever small streams of code are being lifted, I will push down against the heavy lifters of crime. WHEREVER INTERNATIONAL GOOGLISM OCCURS.. Derek: I think this is our queue to leave. Aaron: Oh, you should probably take the elevator. Dave: I am going to kill you now... slowly. P!