Live chat, in one way, shape or form seems to be a perk that many web hosting customers are looking for.  If you are a web host though, how do you know which live chat tools are the best?  Here are some of my favorite live chat providers out there that seem to get a lot of love from the web hosting community.

Kayako Live Response - When it comes to live chat support, Kayako is one of the best.  Not only do they provide the web interface for it, they also have a desktop client to interact with the service too.  Other nice features include desktop sharing, quick responses and a VoIP softphone add-on.

ProvideSupport.com - This tool is one of the cheaper ones out there, but don’t let that fool you.  They too provide some visually appealing tools as well as chat transcripts, multiple chat support, and easy integration into any web hosting site.

LiveZilla - For those web hosts out there on a budget, I do have one free live chat support option for you.  LiveZilla might have a few less frills than the paid for applications, but still deserve consideration.  The fact that it is free gives it a big green check mark in the “good things about it” column too.

What live chat solutions do you use?

Another domain name term you often hear tossed out in conversation is domain name speculation.  What is it?  Well this refers to buying a domain name with the intent of selling it later at a higher price.  Now not just any domain name is a good one to speculate on.

The main focus of this type of practice would be domain names that have some sort of keyword in them.  Having some sort of generic term in there promises a greater reward such as insurance, travel, poker and the like.  Just look at situations like what happened with broadcast.com.

Yahoo purchased that domain name for $5.04 billion.

Since it is the largest top level domain, .com has gotten a lot of business as far as domain name speculation goes.  Everybody wants the .com version, due to the fact it is the domain name extension everybody knows.  Other extensions are growing in popularity though so grabbing the right one mixed with the right keyword could (keyword could) gain you a lot of the green stuff down the road.

Not a lot going on this week, but there are a few nuggets of goodness as far as web hosting news goes.  Here are just a handful of some of the hottest web hosting stories from the week.

cPanel Staff Working Longer Hours

The control panel gurus at cPanel announced that as of Monday, July 21st customer service hours will be extended from 7am to 7pm EST.  So if you are a customer looking to get your questions about cPanel answered, they will be available to help.

China Has More Web Users than US

19.1 percent of China has web access.  How much is that?  Oh roughly 253-million people.

HostingCon Gets Going

The biggest news story of the week would be that HostingCon is taking place July 28th through the 30th at the Navy Pier in Chicago.  I have skipped out on the festivities yet again, but looks like a great show all around.  HostingCon is the yearly meet up for all the biggest players in the hosting industry.  This year Parallels and Microsoft seem to be keynoting the conference and I am sure we will hear more about it from those who were “on the inside” soon.

Do you have any hosting news to share?

Drop me an e-mail at mitch@mitchkeeler.com and I’ll be more than happy to share it with the rest of the web hosting industry right here, next week on this very podcast.

Get up, get down and get ready to do that web hosting boogie! Today we are getting down with our bad self with some hosting news, domain name speculation and a little talk about how badly China is beating as far as web users go. The Web Hosting Show (only in English, sorry China!) is on the air.

Download the Web Hosting Show, Episode 159!
Running Time: 10 minutes | File Size: 4.61 MB

Here are just a few topics from this week’s episode of the Web Hosting Show.

• Joyent’s Tool for Online Collaboration!
• China has more Web Users than US?
• HostingCon Gets Going!
• What is Domain Name Speculation?
• For Web Hosts: the Best Live Chat Providers?

Back again for episode 159, and I think I might be getting the hang of this… almost. From HostingCon to some great live chat suggestions, there is yet again a little for everybody to love and learn from here on today’s show.

Have you taken the Web Hosting Show’s fan survey yet? If not, listen to the show and then get it done. Your feedback given there could dramatically change the production of this podcast! Be heard and give me you thoughts!

Sub-domains (such as mitchisawesome.mitchkeeler.com) gives you an entirely new way to view your Online creations. Lets say you wanted to add something new, like a blog or forum script to your hosting account but didn’t want to change domains a sub-domain would be a good way to go. Video now fixed, thanks for the e-mails!

Have any other interesting hosting videos to share? Sent ‘em to me at mitch@mitchkeeler.com and I’ll share them with the web hosting world.

The cPanel File Manager can be as handy to have as any FTP client out there. In fact, that would be a good way to think of it, as an FTP program on the Web. This week we have another nice video tutorial from the people at Audio and Video in WordPress.

Have any other interesting hosting videos to share? Sent ‘em to me at mitch@mitchkeeler.com and I’ll share them with the web hosting world.

Previously I told you about an awesome web site status tool that could help you tell if your web site was up or not.  Down for everyone or just me looks to have become a real success.  I have one better though, thanks to a suggestion from a Web Hosting Show listener named John.

I’ve been using DFEOJM a long time, and have found it to be a great tool.  You’re right that the URL is a tad long. I came across this web site:

http://www.checksite.us

It’s almost identical, except it’s a shorter URL, easier to remember. It doesn’t have the instant site checking, but at least the URL is shorter.

All you have to do is type in the domain you want to check into the text box on the site, and hit the “Enter” key on your keyboard.  Then the web site tells you if the web site is up or down for them.  A very nice alternative to use if you want to check to see if others can see your web site.