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Photos from PubCon 2009

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:38:25 PST

By WHIR Happenings PubCon 2009 wraps up today, at least the sessions do and I must admit this conference has been excellent for learning more about Search Marketing, Social Media trends and meeting interesting people in the industry. Here are a few photos from PubCon 2009.

Seeding the Cloud

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:29:10 PST

By Joshua Beil It seems that not a day goes by without another cloud-related update in the hosting industry. While there is general consensus within the industry on the taxonomy of cloud services (IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS), and there is some public market sizing/forecasting on cloud services by the good folks at IDC, I have not seen much discussion on the key components of enabling a cloud service. To that end, I have put together the following illustration to represent my point of view. Below the dotted line is the physical layer and above the line is the virtual layer (pun intended), or more specifically the cloud software layer. I see four critical software components needed to enable a cloud service: virtualization, provisioning/automation, billing, and self-service.

New Video on WHIR tv - WHIR networking event: Seattle, WA

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:17:44 PST

By Larissa Primeau Today's video features our latest networking event from Seattle. It was our last one of 2009 and we definitely went out with a bang. The Seattle event, like all others before it, was a gigantic success. Having started the WHIR networking events this year, we've realized that there is a real benefit to them. Everyone in the hosting industry who has attended has nothing but positive things to say about the evenings, which is why we'll continue to host them in 2010. For a list of upcoming events, stay tuned to www.whirevents.com.

Negotiating the Value of Your Services

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:50:54 PST

By Paul Hirsch Earlier today, a server administrator friend of mine shared a quick gripe about a potential client for whom he quoted $150 to perform some necessary server management. He was figuring on a couple hours of work, and came up with a fair price for everything he was going to handle, a downright steal of a price if you know just how good he is at what he does (and I do!). The potential client came back to him and let him know another administration team quoted them $75. My friend told the potential client that if he was that concerned about the price, he should go ahead and work with the other company, but he couldn't guarantee that his price for the work would remain the same if he had to clean up after someone else too. This got me thinking about how we, as Web professonals, are valued by our customers. I understand clients wanting to spend less, particularly in today's tenuous economy. But at some point, you have to ask yourself whether you're really doing yourself any favors putting so much stock in price like this. Would you walk into a Lexus dealership, price out a $40,000 car and then complain because Toyota was willing to sell you a car for $20,000? Certainly Lexus would tell you very calmly that you probably belonged in a Toyota, and should go down the street and purchase one.

Register for a Panel Discussion with Telecity, Proofpoint and The Planet

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:39:46 PST

By Liam Eagle As I mentioned last week, we're ramping up the frequency of webinars here at the WHIR. Yesterday we had a great presentation from Neustar on traffic management and its UltraDNS collection of products. And we've got another one lined up for next week. (If you want to cut to the chase and register, follow this link straight to the webinar registration page)

PubCon Day 1 chock full of sessions

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:13:44 PST

By WHIR Happenings Boy am I glad that I decided to come out to Las Vegas for PubCon 2009. The highlight of my day began with meeting Zappos CEO Tony Heish I wrote about his opening keynote here. He left us with some valuable insight into what makes Zappos such a success, information I believe that would be valuable to any web hosting provider or any growing organization for that matter. I moved from session to session and picked up a few nuggets of information and tips along the way, some of which I think you might find interesting.

Opening Keynote at PubCon by Zappos CEO, Tony Heish

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:19:35 PST

By WHIR Happenings As promised I am going to try and bring you some highlights from PubCon 2009. Brett Tabke conference organizer said a few opening words and declared that PubCon is the best conference ever in the tech industry and not just because he is the organizer but because of the great people behind the conference. It certainly ranks up there especially for Search and Social Media Marketing. Tony opened his keynote with a little history of how he started in the business:

Website Hosting CEO's

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:30:21 PST

By Derek Vaughan I have had the pleasure of speaking with several website hosting small business CEO's in the past few days and I have come to realize that there are four basic types of small business CEO's in my experience. Of course there are CEO's with multiple characteristics mixed together, but they almost always seem to fall under one of the four basic types. Here are my categories - based on real-world experience and conversations. I'd like to acknowledge the help of a small business CEO who helped to formulate this model, Mr. Daniel Foster, co-owner at UK website hosting company 34SP.com. Here are the four basic website hosting small business CEO personas. The ''People Person'' CEO - All CEO's have charisma of some description. People are naturally drawn to those individuals who make people feel good about themselves as well. The ''People Person'' CEO is at the highest end of this scale. I was speaking in a conference call this week with a small business CEO and he was constantly asking those on the conference call questions like, ''Do you remember that guy? He was really fun. Remember how he used to do this thing and we would all laugh?''. His point of reference was clearly on the people side of the equation. Which brings us to his opposite - The ''Number Cruncher'' CEO.

The Internet Marketing Event of the Year

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 19:22:49 PST

By WHIR Happenings I am thoroughly excited to be attending PubCon 2009, not only because it is taking place in one of my favorite cities but because the sessions look exceptionally interesting. I am eager to listen, learn and enjoy this year's event from November 10-13th at the Las Vegas Convention Center. In it's 8th year PubCon promises to be four days of leading edge education and networking in over 90 sessions featuring 200 event speakers in Social Media, Affiliate Programs, Search, SEO/SEM and more.

Register for Next Week's UltraDNS Webinar

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:29:27 PST

By Liam Eagle Thought I'd give you an update on an upcoming WHIR webinar, as well as a bit of urging to get you to register for the event. We're planning to up the frequency of our webinar schedule in the coming months. I know we've only done a few up to this point, so "more frequent" could mean anything, but we're specifically planning to host two free-to-attend informative sessions every month.