by Lou Honick - Monday, September 19, 2011

Ok, apparently I’m a lot more influential than I thought.  I’d like to apologize to Netflix subscribers for the price increase.  Apparently, their CEO would like to apologize too.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/BUSINESS/09/19/netflix.ceo.apology/

In case you missed it, I’m sure it was my blog post that set Netflix on the path to ruin. Check it out here:

http://bit.ly/pUxWEq - Three Surefire Ways to Really Juice Your Business

Apparently, the sarcasm was lost on Reed Hastings.  Don’t worry Reed, you’re not alone. After that post, I got a lot of emails and calls asking if I was going to raise my customers’ merchant services rates. I also had a lot of people tell me how great those ideas were – you know who you are (Derek). All of that prompted my follow-up post revealing my sarcastic intent and the real message of taking care of your customers for the long haul.

So anyway, since the Netflix CEO apologized, being the culprit for this big mess, I thought I should apologize too! Luckily Reed announced there would be no more price hikes, however those of you that stream too much, call support too often, or exchange too many DVD’s will have your service terminated.

by Liam Eagle - Thursday, September 15, 2011

At HostingCon 2011 in San Diego in August, WHIR TV had the opportunity to speak to Duke Skarda, chief technology at SoftLayer, about some of the new technology the company was introducing to customers at the event.

The first tool he discussed was the company’s customer portal, one of the key contributors to SoftLayer’s rapid rise to prominence in the hosting business, and a critical facet of the company. In particular, he discussed some of the development work the company is doing on its portal, and the new portal functions it is introducing.

He says SoftLayer is rolling out the portal upgrade piece-by-piece, on an extremely regular basis (every couple of weeks), as the development work is completed.

He also discussed the introduction of Flex Images, a new system the company is introducing for creating server images that can be quickly applied to any of the company’s services, including both cloud and dedicated servers.

Skarda says the flex servers can be useful in cases where a company might need to scale up quickly from a few servers to dozens or even hundreds of servers, and then back down, even move some of that workload on to dedicated servers.

He also says they can be useful for resellers, who can set up images to represent their “packages” and then use them to quickly create virtual servers when they receive orders from customers.

by pjhile - Thursday, September 15, 2011

September 15, 2011 — Duke Skarda, chief technology officer of SoftLayer, talks to WHIR TV about some of the new technology the company introduced at HostingCon 2011, including a redeveloped user portal and i

by Liam Eagle - Tuesday, September 13, 2011

At HostingCon 2011 in San Diego, California, WHIR TV had the opportunity to sit down with Christian Dawson, COO of web hosting provider ServInt, and discuss a project that had taken some major strides at the conference – the “Save Hosting” movement, intended to educate hosting providers about the impact some current and future legislation can have in the hosting industry.

Through a panel discussion and a more informal meeting at the show, Dawson and a few collaborators gathered together hosting providers interested in discussing how hosts might work together to get a seat at the table when the US congress is discussing legislation that could have a significant impact on the hosting business.

Some of the specific pieces of legislation, he says, that could negatively (even catastrophically) impact the hosting business are the Protect IP Act (formerly known as COICA), and the Protecting Children From Online Pornography Act. In both cases, the acts as currently written place what hosts would probably consider unfair requirements on their role in the operation of the Internet – including treating hosts as complicit in the posting of copyrighted material (in the case of Protect IP) and potentially imposing impossible requirements for data retention (in the case of Protecting Children).

Along with describing some of the threats in detail, Dawson makes the case for hosts to get involved, as well as offering some advice on where hosting providers can look for additional information, or to join the cause.

Save Hosting has a twitter account at @savehosting, and a Facebook page at www.facebook.com/savehosting

It’s probably worth noting that the interview was conducted (perhaps foolishly) outside, during the closing reception at the event. Hopefully the background music and the sound of children playing aren’t too disruptive.

by pjhile - Tuesday, September 13, 2011

September 13, 2011 — At HostingCon 2011, WHIR TV spoke to Christian Dawson of Servint on the “Save Hosting” project led by him and a few others, to educate hosting providers on some of the legislative threats

by Liam Eagle - Friday, September 9, 2011

At HostingCon 2011 in San Diego, WHIR TV caught up with Chris Sheridan, VP of business development at eNom, who talked about a few key areas of promotion for the company, as well as a few other big projects.

First and foremost, he says, eNom was intent on pushing its partnership with domain registry operator Verisign around the re-branding (or renewed focus on branding) the .com and .net domains. While .com and .net are certainly the most used and best known domains on the Internet, Verisign feels it can do a lot more to communicate the value around the domains to customers, and eNom is getting involved.

Sheridan also discusses eNom’s efforts to promote its recently-launched offering of TRUSTe hosted privacy policy services to resellers and their customers. He says the service is a great compliment to SSL certificates, which is an extremely important product to eNom.

Finally, he discusses eNom’s relationship with parent company Demand Media, and the ongoing cross-promotion of products between the two, particularly the rich content service, which he says can be a great value-add that a hosting provider can offer to its customers.

by pjhile - Thursday, September 8, 2011

September 8, 2011 — Chris Sheridan, VP of business devleopment at domain registrar eNom talks to WHIR TV about the .com and .net domains, as well as some other key new products at eNom.

by Hartland Ross - Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Many businesses are jumping on the Twitter bandwagon. They are excited by the prospect of this free marketing tool, and all the success stories they have seen in the media. They eagerly anticipate the traffic spikes and hoards of followers that will help them promote their businesses. But it doesn’t happen. The traffic doesn’t come. The visitors that do come don’t stay. The number of followers doesn’t budge.

One of the biggest mistakes that businesses make in the Twitter world can explain what is going on. Instead of engaging and interacting, businesses are strictly self-promoting. Only sharing their own news and information. Creating what is essentially an advertising stream on Twitter. And the majority of people on Twitter are not interested in that. That’s not what they are there for.

How to break out of this cycle of constant self-promotion? Here are some ideas for what you can tweet about to help boost engagement and visibility for your company on Twitter. 

- Share industry news that is not specifically about your company, but is related and would be of interest to your followers.

- Share tweets from others in your industry or from your partners. This helps to foster relevant relationships.

- Respond to @ mentions. Even a simple “thanks for the retweet” goes a long way.

Ask questions. You can gain some valuable insight and maybe get some conversations going.

- Reveal a more personal side to your business. Share information or comments that are in line with your values and mission. Give people a peek inside the day to day workings of your company.

- Participate in conversations. Create lists with your customers, partners, industry contacts etc… and then interact with them as appropriate. You’ll boost your visibility and help establish a stronger connection.

By keeping the above tips in mind when managing your Twitter account and avoiding only self-promotion, you’re sure to see more activity and interaction. When tweets come to your Twitter stream, they’ll see a company that is interested in engaging and building relationships. And that will make them that more likely to click that follow button. 

by Tom Millitzer - Thursday, September 1, 2011

The other day I received an invite from a cable television organization inviting me to a Webinar “Cable Everywhere”. When I read this I went back to one of my mantras “We are going to need a lot more servers”.  Listen in.

The impetus for this blog started with this weeks announcement that Cogeco Cable (BTW: Rodgers is sort of the Comcast of Canada making Cogeco the Time-Warner of Canada) was buying MTO INTERNET, a fairly large Canadian fibre transit company you probably never heard of. This is some 60 days after Cogeco’s announcement that it is  buying the Canadian data center and hosting provider Quiettouch.

Last week ComScore announced “180 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in July for an average of 18.5 hours per viewer. The total U.S. Internet audience engaged in a record 6.9 billion viewing sessions.” Getting back to my mantra… We are gong to need a lot more servers.

Commonality and considerations, you fill in the blanks:

• Recurring Revenue Model
• VOIP
• Cable TV really wants to buy into SMB’s – you are already there.
• YouTube, Hulu – “I think its time to compete”
• Comcast wants me to control my TV and watch content on my phone.
• If your not wireless you are running on someones IP network and the cable guys go all the way to the home and SMBs. At the same time saying “I will ride the wireless”.
• Isn’t Verizon wireless?
• Comcast also wants me to bundle by entire business under its umbrella.
• Frankly cable ,wireless, who really cares? My billing, Nelson ratings and advertising revenues do!

As the Verizons of this world want to compete with Cable, Cable needs to compete with the Verizons. They each need hosting, colocation and understanding that cloud thing to compete with each other. The hosting industry is the nexus.

As Time-Warner purchased Navisite, Verizon picks up Terremark, Cogeco gulps Quiettouch and CenturyLink snatches up Savvis, the trend continues. I am all for creating value and competition.

In the end the cable and telephone industries want to use a lot of servers. The great thing is you know how to use them.

Later – Tom

Find out more about Tom: NCC International – the Hosting Business Broker   Twitter: TomNCC and NCC WebHostBusiness

E-Mail Tom Direct

by Derek Vaughan - Tuesday, August 30, 2011

If there was any doubt at all that web hosting is still a huge growth business, those doubts were erased with the resounding success of HostingCon 2011 in San Diego recently. The general tenure of the 1,800 web hosting business people on hand was overwhelmingly positive as observed anecdotally during the networking events and educational sessions. Exhibit hall space was sold out – despite the addition of booths from last year’s HostingCon. Particularly, the emergence of Cloud vendors on the show floor was quite evident.

Below are the observations of longtime attendees and web hosting industry veterans in the fields of web hosting M&A, Linux web hosting, and ASP.NET web hosting. Each of the three perspectives are distinct and influenced by their industry focus – nonetheless all confirm the growth and positive momentum of the web hosting industry in 2011.

Cheval Capital is a company in a great position to understand the ebbs and flows of the web hosting industry. Principals Frank and Hillary Stiff of Cheval have completed 189 web hosting, ISP and related Internet services transactions including 26 deals closed in 2007, 33 in 2008, 16 in 2009, 22 in 2010 and 11 web hosting-related sales so far in 2011. Here are Hillary Stiff’s thoughts on this year’s HostingCon event:

”Overall, HostingCon continues to improve each year and 2011 was no exception. There was a great vibrancy to the event and there seemed to be a wider variety of companies attending. (iNet also seems to do a good job minimizing the number of talks that are pure sales pitches.) In terms of activities, the three events we enjoyed the most were the two networking session cocktail parties and the DreamHost party. All were set up in a way that let folks mingle and talk. We met a number of new companies at each of these events. As for sessions, Simon Wardley’s keynote was great and if you missed it, there some video of him online that’s worth looking at.

Being financial types, there is a lot going on on the exhibit floor we don’t understand. Having said that, it was clear there were more exhibitors and a wider variety companies. It has also been great to see the continued emergence of companies like OnApp from idea to major industry participant. Overall, despite the changes, the industry is still quite vibrant and we’re seeing a lot of interest among folks looking to buy hosting companies and related businesses.”

Stuart Melling is co-founder of WordPress hosting company 34SP.com. Mr. Melling has been operating his hosting Linux company for over a decade. Here are his thoughts on HostingCon in San Diego:

”Talk of the cloud was more prevalent than ever. From the sessions through to the exhibit hall, everyone seemed focused on what the cloud means to the industry and how that ultimately works its way down to clients. While for some, the cloud might simply feel like a new spin on the buzz of SaaS from years ago, its obvious that highly scalable, redundant and reliable computing is something everyone needs to increasingly consider. Industry consolidation seems to be a growing area too, with ever more content aimed at M&A. Frank Stiff of Cheval Capital led a great presentation on the subject, which was as always, a fascinating insight into what is happening right now. I also find HostingCon to be a great networking opportunity. Whether it is to meet up with existing vendors or just to pick the brains of others in the industry. I can’t recall a year I haven’t returned from HostingCon full of excitement for the industry.”

Takeshi Eto is Vice President of Marketing and Business Development with California-based DiscountASP.NET. Mr. Eto drove straight down the California coast to participate in HostingCon 2011. Here are Mr. Eto’s observations:

”The event was bigger – more people and more booths. I’ve noticed a drop in attendance at many of the other conferences that I’ve been to. The fact that HostingCon is growing in this tough economy is a good sign for the entire hosting enterprise. I enjoyed Simon Wardley’s day one keynote. I liked the insight into historical patterns in technology development and how it relates to what is happening today with ‘the cloud.’ I also saw more cloud enablement vendors on the exhibit hall floor this year whose business model attacked the cloud from different angles – from pure management software solutions, to capex hardware/software solutions, to opex hardware/software subscription solutions. As all hosts think about their own cloud strategy, it’s great to have more choice but that also makes strategy decision making processes more complex too. All hosts will need to make their own cloud bets and a part of this will be around betting on partnerships.”

To learn more about HostingCon you can visit the event website at: http://www.hostingcon.com.

by Tom Millitzer - Friday, August 26, 2011

I rank this as one of the top 4 questions owners of Hosting companies ask me when considering selling their business. First, if I knew the answer to the question “Who will be the buyer?” I would not be in business; I would be a telephone book. I don’t have a set list (oh, I have a great database) or, a top ten list, that would be cutting my clients short. Also, I would be a wizard. Let’s look at the dynamics.

Your company is a unique being. While your hosting company may be similar to some, there is nothing in the world like it. Your marketing, rates, service combinations, ancillary services, looks, margins, account make-up, accounting quality, tech stuff…and yes warts, are unique to you. It is sort of like dating.

In writing these blogs I go through a lot of throw-away concepts and phrases. Some go nowhere, others need no further explanation. These are a few I thought should be tossed into this discussion without further elaboration:

• There are exactly two types of buyers. Buyers that want you and or your employees, and those that don’t.
• There is a subset of each of these. Those that have cash and those that don’t.
• Should we rephrase our question to be: “Who don’t I want to be my buyer?”
• You need to cast a wide net. (This and database were big in the first draft)
• Do you know how interesting state PUC documents can be?
• With each new assignment I try to broaden the potential buyer pool. (Self-serving)

Yes a bunch of catch-all phrases. However getting to the right buyer or “Who do I want to be my buyer?” is the direction we should take, rather than making this a database conversation that thankfully I dumped.

So, “Who do I want to be my buyer?” In the end these transactions have a mathematical equation. Best price often wins. However, getting to the best price is anything but mathematical. And, getting to the “best price” is not exclusive of “who do I want”, which I should note is not a specific company. These are complementary issues.

The best deals are always the ones where both sides are winners. Guess what? If you are a winner you are willing to pay more! Part of my mantra. If you go back to the previous blog in this series “Part 3 – Knowing Thyself” this becomes the translation where that individual buyer (Hidden amongst all that research, database management, personnel and third party contacts) realizes in the presentation that you are “worth it.” Yes your uniqueness and your ability to be a great hosting acquisition determines your buyer. Hard works finds them.

Later – Tom

Find out more about Tom: NCC International – the Hosting Business Broker   Twitter: TomNCC and NCC WebHostBusiness

E-Mail Tom Direct

by Liam Eagle - Thursday, August 25, 2011

At HostingCon 2011, in San Diego, California, WHIR TV caught up with Karla Hakansson, director of global channel marketing at Verisign (www.verisigninc.com), to discuss the company’s plans around creating some new branding for the .com and .net domains.

Since selling off its SSL certificates business last year, Verisign has refocused its energies around the two big TLD registries it operates, along with a range of related services that put the infrastructure behind those domains into practice.

Hakansson says the company wants to associate the Verisign name more directly with the two domains, and to put those domains even closer to the forefront for companies looking to establish their brands online – especially on the international field, where companies are more likely to opt for a country code TLD.

In partnership with eNom, and a few other organizations, she says, Verisign is focusing a lot of its efforts on bringing to light how it helps businesses create their online presences.