Liam Eagle: LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

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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