Liam Eagle

Sign Up Now For Our Webinar with VeriSign's Bob Angus

We’ve nailed down the date for our upcoming webcast with Bob Angus of VeriSign, and I wanted to mention it in this space along with wherever else we end up promoting it.

[If you’re not in the mood to read my pitch, want to jump right to the registration page, here’s a link. There’s no fee to attend. Just a simple signup page.]

You may remember we did one of these before with Dave Cummings of Agile Equity, in which we discussed the process of estimating a valuation for your hosting business, and discussed how hosts can prepare their businesses to make them more attractive to buyers. It was quite successful, and we’ve been looking forward to doing another one since.

The new podcast, “Boost Margins and Retain Valuable Customers with Security and Trust” will take place Thursday, July 16, from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Eastern time. As communicated rather effectively by the title, Bob Angus will be presenting on the opportunity that exists for hosting providers in selling security and trust services.

Obviously, Bob’s specific area of expertise is the VeriSign line of SSL products (VeriSign, GeoTrust and Thawte), but the session isn’t meant to be a product pitch. He’ll be talking strategies and tactics for selling these services, as well as sharing some examples of how his company’s partners have succeeded by putting some of these strategies into practice.

I had the chance to see Bob present “11 Simple Things You Can Do to Make More Money Selling SSL” earlier this year at the Parallels conference in February. In addition to being a nice respite after a long day of describing what people were getting at (as you can see from my blog post, he left no room for interpretation), it was an especially to-the-point and – for want of a less jargony but similarly concise word – actionable bit of information.

I also had a chance to talk to Bob at last week’s WHIR Event in Los Angeles and can confirm that he is either a cool guy, or a master of deception. Furthermore, he is a newly minted WHIR blogger.

All of this is to say that Bob Angus is an excellent resource on SSL strategies for hosting providers, and that you can expect a great webinar. Registration is free, and I suggest you get on top of that immediately, please. The registration page is right here.

I’ll be participating as a sort of moderator, and I’ll be gathering up attendee questions to ask during the Q&A portion of the presentation (along with a few questions of my own).

Earlier this month, Bob delivered a similarly themed (but by no means identical) webinar to OpenSRS resellers. I can’t seem to find a link to an archived presentation, but if I do find it at some point, I’ll update the post here so you can get an idea of what to expect from the WHIR webinar.

See you there. Well, not “see,” exactly, but you get what I mean.

WHIR Networking Event Tonight: Fun Times and some Cool Prizes

We got into Los Angeles last night and are doing a bit of preparation in advance of tonight’s WHIR networking event.

Tonight’s event is happening at the House of Blues on the Sunset Strip. I think it’s a little late to register at this point (it starts in a couple of hours), but if the last two events – in Dallas and New York – are any indication, these events are getting bigger and more successful.

If you’re going to be there tonight, I look forward to seeing you. And I’m expecting an excellent time, courtesy of our excellent sponsors. Remember, these things are really made possible by their sponsorship, so we definitely owe them a thank you.

So, in the context of delivering that thank-you, I wanted to fill everyone in on some of the cool prizes the sponsors will be giving away tonight at the event.

The prize list includes the usual suspects  of small and cool modern electronics – along with a few other things – which means that they’re all pretty excellent prizes.

Parallels will be giving away a Flip HD video camera; OpenSRS will have a WiFi Internet Radio to give away; Mzima is bringing a select bottle of wine; BandCon will be giving away an 8GB iPod Touch; Net2ez will give away a Sony PSP; and ActualMetrics, though it hasn’t officially filed its plans, will undoubtedly do something cool.

So bring your business card. That’s how we pick our winners, you see.

Here's a shot of the sponsor's table from the New York event, which as you can see had a few different sponsors. Same general idea.

And for those of you still waiting to get to one of these WHIR networking events, we’ve got two more scheduled for the fall, in Miami and in Washington DC. You can check out the schedule and get other information at the events section of the WHIR website.

WHIR Networking Event in NYC - Good Times and Giveaways

Just landed in New York a couple of hours ago, and I’m just about to get ready for tonight’s WHIR Networking event, which starts in a couple of hours at the lounge The Park.

I have every reason (a list of registered attendees, and some really nice weather, basically) to believe that tonight’s will have the largest attendance of any of the events we’ve held so far.

Before I head over, though, I wanted to take one more opportunity to thank our sponsors for making these events possible. We have a couple of new sponsors (locals, no less) on board for this one, along with a couple sponsors that have been on board for a while.

It’s too late to sign up at this point, but if you signed up and are on the fence about coming, you might be interested to know there are a few very cool prizes being given away.

The sponsors for this particular event include Parallels (www.parallels.com), OpenSRS (www.opensrs.com), New York Internet (www.nyi.net), Atlantic Metro (www.atlanticmetro.com) and Mzima (www.mzima.net). So, if you’re planning to attend, you know who to thank for the good time and the free drinks.

In the “cool prizes” department, Parallels is giving away a Mino Flip HD camera; Open SRS is giving away a Grace Internet wifi radio; New York Internet is giving away a pair of Oakley ROKR PRO Bluetooth sunglasses; Atlantic Metro is giving away a Nabaztag WiFi Rabbit, and Mzima is giving away a nice bottle of wine (sorry, I don't have a link for this one.

Who doesn’t like prizes? Nobody I want to hang out with. The only thing I don’t find compelling about them is that I, obviously, am not allowed to win them – which is good news for you, technically.

See you there.

DreamHost Posts Voicemail from Customer Online – Out of Line?

It seems like word’s spreading about this via Twitter and a few other means, so you may have already heard about this, but yesterday DreamHost posted an audio clip on its blog of what was apparently a customer calling to beg them for help recovering a domain that appeared to have been taken from him.

DreamHost is pretty well known for being “irreverent” in its blog. The approach that has earned it a loyal following and praise for its transparency (and I think the blog is sort of emblematic of an admirable sense of approachability at the company, something a lot of other hosts try to emulate). And it has also been the cause of the occasional bad PR move, as in the case of the blog post that “irreverently” took a “whoops!” approach to apologizing for an accident that saw the company mistakenly bill customer for millions of dollars.

In this case, DreamHost uses the voicemail as a jumping off point for a discussion about security:

“This customer of ours had their domain registration transferred away from DreamHost to another registrar (in this case, GoDaddy.com) without their consent. This can only happen if an unauthorized party gains access to our customer’s account control panel to authorize the transfer, and we’ve indeed logged the actions and IP address of this individual.”

But it would be tough to argue that the purpose of the post is really anything other than to laugh at the expense of the customer leaving the message. In case you don’t feel like downloading it and listening, it’s a two-minute clip of a man who sounds very timid and very upset begging for their help. It seems like the last minute is just the man gently sobbing. That’s just my guess, because after 15 seconds I couldn’t take any more.

Now, it’s not DreamHost’s fault that somebody got hold of the guy’s password and stole his domain. And by the sounds of the post, they’ve done everything they can to help him get his domain back (even, apparently, sending him “a huge bouquet of flowers”). But this seems like a pretty humiliating way to treat a guy who is already clearly having a very bad day, customer or otherwise.

To be fair, the post does point out that the company doesn’t have telephone support, so the message in question was left on the company’s general office voicemail line. And, certainly, the message itself seems to be a bit of an overreaction to the situation. And, yes, if you call a company’s phone line and leave a message on their voicemail when nobody picks up, you definitely have no grounds to assume confidentiality, or even courtesy.

But, I mean, come on. Give the poor guy a break.

I hesitate to take to strong a stance one way or the other, since the comments on the blog post itself seem to be split pretty evenly between “hilarious” and “completely unprofessional.”

Let’s say my personal reaction is a little closer to the “unprofessional” end of that spectrum. Were I a customer, it wouldn’t worry too much. It’s not a situation I expect to find myself in (the sobbing voicemail, not the stolen domain). But I suppose it would be nice to know my host would avoid mean-spirited humor at my expense across the board.

I have to imagine most hosting companies would avoid doing something like this. I don’t get the sense that this is a calculated move by DreamHost to appear “irreverent.” So it does add to the genuine feel of that approachability that characterizes the company. However, it might also make them seem a little less like the kind of company you’d want to approach.

Anyhow,  the whole point of this post is that I was pretty curious how people felt about this. Anyone care to comment?

WHIR Networking Event – Chicago – Pictures and Prize Winners

It’s been a week already, I know, but rest assured it has been an extremely busy week for me, or you would have seen this blog post much sooner.

We had a great time heading down to Chicago last week to hold the most recent of our WHIR Networking Events – the fourth in the series, and another really successful showing. We had a great turnout, and a great time, thanks once again to our sponsors: GigaPark (www.gigapark-va.com) OpenSRS (www.opensrs.com), Parallels (www.parallels.com) and Mezeo Software (www.mezeo.com).

And once again, our sponsors set a few lucky attendees up with some very cool prizes, via a draw held during the event. Winners are listed below.

Daniel Salcedo from SingleHop won a Flip video recorder from Mezeo.

Keith Gerald from DPSciences Corporation won an Internet radio from OpenSRS.

Christopher Niedojadlo from Carat Networks won a Flip video recorder from Parallels.

Tad Deriso of GigaPark was on the road and unable to attend (and consequently unable to give away a prize) but GigaPark's support as a sponsor was nonetheless invaluable.

I’ve put about ten pictures I took at the event up on the website. A couple of them are a little bit blurry, so my apologies for that, but this was by far the darkest venue we’ve had and the most difficult in which to take pictures.

As you can see from the content of the pictures, however, the darkness didn’t get in the way of a good party. You can see the rest of the pictures in the WHIR Photos section of the website.

We’re heading down two New York City in approximately two weeks (May 6) to host another WHIR Networking Event. I’ve grown accustomed to good times, and I expect nothing less from New York. In fact, I might begin to expect more.

You don’t want to miss that. So I’d advise you to head over and sign up for the WHIR Networking Event – New York City. See you there.