News: Inside VeriSign's New Trust Seal
News: Q&A: Jeremy Hartley on the EU Code of Conduct Data Centre Efficiency
News: eFileCabinet Signs Colocation Deal with C7 Data Centers
News: Web Hosting Sales and Promos - March 12 2010
By Liam Eagle, theWHIR.com
February 28, 2006 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- Apparently there is still no shortage of regular folks leading the sort of lives in which it is acceptable to have the logos of Web hosting companies prominently inscribed on their heads.
Taking a page directly from the marketing manual of C I Host (cihost.com), which has already experimented with product placements on both the fronts and backs of the heads of walking, talking human beings, Web hosting provider Globat (globat.com) announced this week that 25-year-old Maine man Mark Greenlaw has agreed to become a "human billboard" for the company.
Greenlaw, a father of three, put the space on the back of his neck up for auction on eBay in January, an outlandish effort that drew media attention and resulted in several interviews.
While Globat did not disclose the payment agreed to, Greenlaw's eBay auction ended January 25, with a high bid of $5,299. The final bid was well short of the original reserve price of $10,000 set for the auction. But it was reported that the reserve had been lowered to $5,300.
"At Globat.com, we love inventive ideas like Mark's," said Globat president and CEO Ben R. Neumann, in a press release. "Our company helps people promote, develop, and host business ideas 24 hours a day, and we think Mark gives us a great way to demonstrate our love of fresh ideas. We also think this represents the ultimate in company loyalty!"
Globat says the tattoo plan is part of a "wave of unique sponsorships and events" planned under the banner of the company's "Defying Gravity" project (defyinggravity.com).
As the Defying Gravity project is just getting started, its greater purpose may not yet be clear, but so far it definitely appears to involve bizarre and unconnected eBay purchases.
The idea is likely inspired by the publicity generated by some outrageous eBay purchases made by online casino Golden Palace, which acquired, among other things, a perogi apparently bearing the image of Jesus, a kidney stone passed by actor William Shatner and a car formerly belonging to Michael Jackson. The casino has also sponsored many tattoo advertisements and has been known to sponsor streakers at major sporting events.
On Monday, the company announced that it had purchased a 131-year-old housefly in a separate eBay auction. "The fly was caught in St. Joseph, Missouri," says the company's announcement, "when it landed in a book that was slammed shut by a sleeping frontiersman."
In the press release, Neumann provides some explanation for the company's motives in acquiring the fly.
"Some people might wonder why anyone would want a 131-year-old fly," he says. "But how many people can claim to have a fly that's over 100 years old? We can, and, who knows, perhaps it will become an important part of natural science in years to come."
In a promotion with a more explicitly rewarding outcome, Globat announced last week that it had sponsored the MBA term paper of a student, Jesse Fernandez, who then focused the project on the company.
Fernandez said he sought sponsorship for the paper in an effort to help finance his education. According to Globat, the paper received an A+ grade.
It remains to be seen the bizarre lengths to which the Defying Gravity project, only a few weeks old, will take Globat. Currently, the Web site also mentions a hair cut and a birth to be sponsored by the company.
Read Back Issues of WHIR Magazine
October 2009 - Web Hosting's All Star Team
This has been, for us, one of the most interesting, exciting and challenging build-ups to an issue of the magazine yet, Web Hosting's All Star Team. The balloting process was our first experiment with a kind of user participation we're planning to do a lot more with in the months to come. We had thousands of ballots submitted, with hundreds of write-in suggestions and a demonstration of user engagement that has us feeling super positive about the project.
About This Issue | Read Digital Edition
July 2009 - What am I Worth?
One of the interesting luxuries of working on a project like the printed WHIR magazine is that it allows us to play with things like our point of view from one issue to the next. In recent months we've been giving added attention to the kind of practical and applicable advice aimed at smaller hosts and resellers. This issue carries on with that point of view, asking, in our cover story, "what am I worth?" It's a complicated question without a clear-cut answer.
About This Issue | Read Digital Edition
May 2009 - The Blueprint for a Small Web Host
I was a little surprised by how difficult it became to see this idea through. We set out to assemble a blueprint for a small hosting business, but butted up pretty quickly against the general impossibility of covering all the territory that was out there to be covered. The basic constraints of a printed magazine, and the less-than-infinite amount of time we had available forced us to face the fact that we could never produce an exhaustive guide to starting a hosting company.
About This Issue | Read Digital Edition
Comment anonymously or log into your WHIR account
Logging in allows enhanced commenting features (such as external linking) in news, features, blogs and more.