Wow - this is way cool. According to Amazon's Developer Connection Newsletter, users of EC2 can now share machine images with one another.
In case you're not familiar with EC2, it's an utility computing service that sells processing power by the hour. $0.10 gets you a "server instance" with the equivalent of a 1.7 Ghz x86 processor, 1.75 GB RAM, 160 GB storage and 250Mbps of bandwidth capacity. You can deploy and terminate any number of instances on the fly using "machine images" of anything from an OS, a database server, or your entire application.
Amazon offers a set of public machine images which you can use as is or customize. You can also create your own from scratch - then open source it to the EC2 developer community! The ability to share, reuse and build upon each other's work is a compelling value proposition that will make EC2 an attractive development environment. Not that the still-in-beta service hasn't already generated a great deal of interest.
In contrast, when a developer leases a dedicated server, his only option is to configure it from scratch. It's time consuming, for one. But more importantly, he works in isolation. There are no opportunities for leveraging other developers' knowledge and expertise.
Well, ok. Most dedicated server providers have customer forums, which are *intended* to foster community. But how do any of these recent discussions help enhance my productivity??
* Continued credit card problems with EV1
* ServerBeach connection problems
* Bandwidth upgrade prices too high on LayeredTech Vast servers
* Superb.net customer's server has been blacklisted
When I first mentioned that it takes more than vBulletin to build community, Rackspace founder Richard Yoo responded that "the Internet is not that way". EV1 and ServerBeach aren't MySpace; dedicated server customers aren't out to meet each other online.
I agree with half of what he said. ServerBeach isn't MySpace - but could it become more like LinkedIn, or a sort of YouTube for reusable code? And customers aren't out to meet people online - but what if other community members could help them make money or save time?
The web hosting industry has remained strangely immune to the outside world's drive to leverage the power of network effects, the wisdom of crowds. Isn't it time that we start catching up? There are synergies waiting to happen within your customer base. If you can help uncover opportunities to share knowledge, to collaborate, you will create a REAL "new world of benefits". Before you know it, your "broad portfolio of latest generation hardware" will be obsolete. A successful community, on the other hand, can expand and evolve - and bring you business.
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