LIAM EAGLE: LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

WHIR Magazine, March 2005 - Hosting In the Heart of Texas

In publishing a magazine, there are certain things that take a great deal of planning. This issue, for instance, and its focus on automation insert and Texas cover story, has been months in the making.

And there are things that take a quick response - that can't be anticipated or prepared for. The tsunami that struck at the end of December, an impossibly tragic event that demanded the attention of media outlets of every kind, presented a Web hosting story that couldn't be ignored.

We had other things planned, but as the Internet's key role in the ubiquitous recovery eff ort became clear, it also became clear that the Web Host Industry Review should highlight the important work that Web hosts, and other Internet companies, were doing to support that recovery, and we arranged to make space for a piece on the disaster.

Dennis McCaff erty's feature on the disaster discusses the complex requirements of non-profi t sites and the Web hosting eff ort behind one of the largest, and most successful, fundraising eff orts ever undertaken. Immediately following the event, online news sites and weblogs helped to fi ll the worldwide demand for news and help locate missing people. Web hosts were closely involved in supporting these eff orts, some of them donating resources for the creation of information sites. When the world wanted to lend a hand, some non-profi t sites involved in accepting donations slowed under the outpouring of goodwill, but ultimately enabled the contribution of more than $750 million.

While the disaster story certainly caught our attention, it ran next to a story that has had our attention for quite some time. Esther M. Bauer's feature "Hosting in the Heart of Texas" looks at the particular business climate in the Lone Star state that makes it such fertile ground for Web hosting that it has produced Rackspace, The Planet, VeriCenter, C I Host and EV1Servers.

Texas was where we chose to focus. But, of course, there are other areas of hosting concentration in the US. In his feature "Hosting Hotspots," Wayne Epperson looks at some of the issues that might lead a hosting provider to set up shop in a particular location, and some of the advantages that have created hosting hotspots around the country - the cost of real estate, access to skilled labor and proximity to an Internet backbone among them.

In his first article for Web Host Industry Review magazine, Web hosting consultant and author Carl Burnham off ers Web hosts advice on insuring their businesses against liability, whether in the case of service failures or customer content violations. There are a variety of service agreements, organizational structures and Insurance policies that can help to protect a host from being liable for the eff ects of its service on a client, or the eff ects of a client's content.

And in a further exploration of some of the ideas represented in our last issue's Super Bowl feature, WHIR staff writer Philbert Shih examines some of the complexities involved in meeting the sudden traffi c demands of a major annual media event with his feature on hosting the Grammys.

While six months ago, we couldn't have imagined a story lineup that involved a disaster of the tsunami's magnitude, perhaps our quick turnaround serves as a microcosm of the remarkable work hosting companies everywhere did in supporting the sudden demand of the disaster relief effort.

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