The web hosting world’s equivalent to the crazy old uncle is at it again. Bob Parsons, the many behind the brand at GoDaddy, recently got in trouble for shooting Elephants while on a trip in Zimbabwe. PETA along with many other critics are urging people to transfer their hosting and domain registrations elsewhere.
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Daily Tip: Don’t Kill Elephants
Hosting News Facelift
It is not often that I highlight other sources of hosting information here, but I do feel like something should be said for the hard work and dedication that has gone into turning The Hosting News website around. For years, the Hosting News was a good source for finding hosting information – but the website interface was badly designed, ugly and hard to navigate through.
Web Hosting Show on Stitcher
Need smarter radio for your mobile phone? With Sticher’s free mobile phone app, BlackBerry, iPhone and Pam webOS users can listen to the Web Hosting Show podcast anytime, anywhere. You can stream this podcast any many others on-demand from anywhere. No wires or syncing involved.
Web Hosts Helping Haiti Victims
It is always a good thing when you can share some positive news about web hosts joining web hosts for a good cause. Hosting for Haiti is all about the biggest and brightest web hosting companies in the world coming together to support the victims of the earthquakes that happened in Haiti last month.
Selling Web Hosting and Design at Retail
How would you like to drive down town and pick up a web hosting account?
The web host Slamdot hopes you’d very much like the idea of doing that. They announced they will begin selling professionally designed web site packages very soon through a retail store. The first store will be open in Knoxville, Tennesee offering web site design packages, support, and in-store training.
Web Hosting is a Falling Search Trend?
According to Google Trends, the web site that helps watch trends for search results via Google, the phrase “web hosting” has been in a steady decline since 2004.
You can see the chart for yourself here.
So what does this mean? Well, a hundred different people could read into that data a hundred different ways.
Negative View – I would say the main reason why web hosting is down, is because social networks like MySpace and Facebook have kind of taking the place for some people of a standard web site.
Positive View – People don’t search for “web hosting” when looking for a place to start their web site. Doing a search for “blog hosting” shows it has stayed steady since 2005. People are looking for ways to host a particular type of site, rather than just general web hosting these days. It is a much more niche market now.
As you can see, there are arguments to be made for either side on why web hosting is such a falling trend in Google searches. Which way do you see it?
One Host Stands Up to Torrent Killing IFPI
It looks like after the people involved with the Pirate Bay web site were convicted of copyright infringement earlier this year, the IFPI is starting to threaten other torrent sharing sites by threatening their web hosts.
To give you a little more information about the key players here, the Pirate Bay, a torrent sharing web site, provides what you could call the “path” to be able to download copyrighted materials. The IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) is the music industry’s lobby group who is doing some of their heavy handed grunt work when it comes to shutting down web sites like the Pirate Bay.
The new tactic here is that the IFPI are skipping over the web site owners and are now going directly to the web hosts who host the torrent web sites in question. They want to get the web hosts on a charge of assisting copyright infringement, which is a decision that has yet to be appealed.
There is one web host who has yet to given into the demands of the IFPI. The Swedish provider Portlane has filed a complaint in the Swedish Market Court. Now true, sharing copyrighted materials might be wrong, I will leave that judgment call up to you.
What is to be admired here is a small guy standing up against the establishment, showing the IFPI and the world that we should be a society who serves the people’s best interest and not the best interest of the one with the biggest wallet.
Saving Geocities for Future Generations
In an effort to save the content that was on Geocities, a group calling themselves the Archive Team is working hard to save the Web that way it once was. Time to pack away the animated gifs, blinking text, and web rings into their own individual boxes, so that someday we can look back what was once considered, “cool” in web site design.
Why Should We Save Geocities?
The Archive Team’s goal is to save as much of Geocities as they can before Yahoo! pulls it down later this year. Think of what they want to do as a time capsule of the Web from the mid 1990’s. At the time, some of these web sites were the best the world had to offer, and some might have been the worst. I have a feeling those who are against the idea of saving Geocities, probably have a web site dedicated to ALF somewhere in there they don’t want the world to see.
When it comes to copyright concerns, the idea isn’t to take credit or resell the content. At this time there are no plans for releasing the data, but in the future it might be rolled out for the world to look back upon.
How can you help? Be sure to check out the Archive Team’s FAQ.
Is Geocities worth saving? Well, that is a point up for debate. Sure, there might not be any real value to the content that is being archived, however others may argue that any and all historical content must be saved so we can learn from our past mistakes, or laugh at them.
Be sure to catch the rest of our Geocities Tribute on Podcast 186 of the Web Hosting Show!
First Virtual Web Hosting Conference
Are you going to be a part of the Web Host Boot Camp? This conference for those people out there interested in or apart of the web hosting industry looks to be a lot of fun, and very informative. Where’s the twist? No conference hall or long trip will be needed. The boot camp will be all virtual.
Now how is this going to work? From their press release:
Attendees will have access to vendors, sponsors, exhibit booths, and other web hosting enthusiasts through live chat. There is no software to install. Attendees log in from their computer and listen to the sessions directly, pick-up a chat, read about exhibitor’s product and services information and network – all through the live chat. Representatives will be available via live chat to answer questions and provide further information.
If you are interested in reserving your spot, you can do so free here. Now I haven’t been contacted by anybody involved yet, so that is pretty much all the details I know, however I do have to say it is nice to see people trying to something new out there, and the more we can all share and learn from each other the better the web hosting industry will be.
The WHIR Gets Redesigned
I just noticed that the WHIR has a totally redesigned web site.
Overall, I like the new look and feel of the layout. It surely beats the old design, that looks like it was pulled right out of 1995. However there are a few things that nag me. Here are both the good and the bad about the new look for one of the more popular web hosting web sites out there.
The Positives
- Lots more attention paid to the WHIR TV project and RSS. Two things I am happy to see them highlighting.
- No more black and white! The colors they picked are a nice update to the old look without seeming like the entire thing is boring.
- The membership feature is cool and a welcomed addition.
The Negatives
- It is a little ad crazy. Now I realize people have to make money as much as the next guy (that is why I have ads on my own web sites) however it seems a little like they were just tossed everywhere without much organization.
- Some of the pages (jumping from section to section) change layouts so quickly, it is a little easy to get lost. Maybe the inclusion of a breadcrumb trail at the top could help this. Something like: (Front Page > Features > The Story Headline)
Overall, I would have to say they have done a fine job at the new paint job. How do you feel about it? Do you miss the old layout at all? When was the last time you visited? You can check it all out at theWHIR.com.
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