By Justin Lee, theWHIR.com
February 24, 2006 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- Attendees of the second annual HostingCon 2006 (hostingcon.com), set to take place July 17 to 19, can expect some significant changes and improvements over last year's event.
The organizers of the Web hosting industry conference have added an extra day to the two-day format, allowing for eight more conference sessions this year and bringing the total number to 32.
And, of course, the conference has moved from the Hyatt Regency O'Hare in Rosemont, Illinois to Las Vegas' luxurious Mirage Hotel and Casino, in anticipation of an increase from last year's attendance of 600 to 1200.
George A. Roberts IV, executive director of HostingCon, cites the geographical and venue setbacks of last year's HostingCon 2005 as additional incentive for the move.
"We're based in Chicago, so we obviously love this city," says Roberts. "Unfortunately, for events our size the number of sites available in Chicago is fairly small. Also, we received a lot of feedback from attendees of HostingCon 2005 [saying] it was too difficult to get to the city because our venue was located in the suburbs about 20 miles outside of downtown Chicago."
Roberts is confident that the move will enhance this year's HostingCon experience. He praises the Mirage Hotel and Casino for its technologically-focused conference center and overall aesthetics - the venue includes an indoor oasis and outdoor volcano.
The conference's exhibit hall is roughly twice the size of last year's, allowing the organizers to accommodate a greater number of exhibitors for HostingCon 2006.
"This year there will be over 50 exhibitors at HostingCon," says Roberts. "We still have some open space in our exhibit hall for 2006, so I'm not sure what the final number will be, but we estimate 75 to 85 exhibitors."
However, the new venue, city and additional conference date are not the only changes attendees can expect from this HostingCon 2006; Roberts promises that this year's conference will offer invaluable information on both present and future issues concerning the Web hosting industry.
"This year, we're really focusing on delivering information that hosts can use to grow and expand their business," says Roberts. "We're also bringing people from outside the industry to talk to attendees about how the hosting industry fits into the IT industry as a whole."
The conference includes a lineup of daily keynote presentations. IT Leadership Academy executive director and dean Thornton May kicks off day one with his presentation "Understanding and Connecting with the Future Computational Mainstream."
On the second day, four CEOs will share their insights on the dos and don'ts of today's market in "Lessons from the Trenches - What Works NOW." The panel is comprised of FastServers president and CEO Ian Andrusyk, HostMySite CEO Lou Honick, EV1Servers CEO Robert Marsh, and Interland president and CEO Jeffrey Stibel, and will be moderated by attorney David Snead.
Tier1 Research president Andrew Schroepfer will deliver the conferences final keynote address, entitled "What the Other Analysts Won't Tell You about the Hosting Industry." Schroepfer will discuss the current transformation that is taking place in Web hosting, and outline relevant strategies for becoming an industry leader.
"The focus this year is on helping hosting companies learn what they need to do to succeed in the future," says Roberts. "We'll have topics related to business issues, shared services hosting, enterprise and data center, and application hosting."
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.