Hosting: February 2006 Archives

Although consumers may have been following the pricing of domains that they pay ie. the retail rates they should be aware of what is going on behind the scenes. A lot of the bloggers who are involved in the domain industry have been commenting in recent months about the new contracts that Verisign is getting from ICANN.

As part of our sponsorship of the inaugaral Irish Blog Awards we'd like to offer all nominees a little something. We are offering all nominees a blog hosting plan + FREE domain (com/net/org/info/biz/co.uk) for one year. The package details are as follows:

• 200 MB diskspace
• 2.5 Gb monthly transfer
• FREE domain name*
• FREE email filtering
• Choice of Wordpress or Drupal preinstalled

I'll be giving Damien a special coupon code for the nominees to use. If you already have your own domain and hosting then you can either transfer it or setup a second blog. Small print: This offer is non-transferrable and is only available to nominees. It may not be exchanged for other services to the same value and is valid for the first 12 months of hosting and domain registration (for co.uk domains the initial 2 year registration period is covered)

Anyone wishing to draw comparisons between the IEDR and the Spanish domain registry probably needs to get their head examined: - the site's SSL seems to be self-signed - there is no whois server - the web based whois uses captcha

I was contacted earlier this evening by a prominent Irish podcaster who was interested in my thoughts on podcast hosting. While I would normally have replied to them directly via email I thought it worthwhile to share some of my (random) thoughts in public. When a number of the Irish podcasters got together late last year to discuss setting up a podcasting body I signed up also. Why? Well it's the kind of thing I am interested in. I don't podcast and I may never do so, but I do like to keep abreast of technologies and especially those that are in my "circle" I've looked at podcast hosting and it could be a growth area in the future if you "do it right". Like so many other niches in hosting there is a demand out there for it, but it also comes with certain caveats. Apart from a small group of business podcasters the bulk of podcasts are run by hobbyists, so you cannot apply the same pricing models as you would to say music streams for commercial music groups. Under current Irish legislation it would be all too easy for a podcast host to run afoul of IRMA if a podcaster were to abuse (knowingly or otherwise) an artist's copyright. Of course that's a risk you run with "normal" hosting, but it might be worse with podcasts. I have been mulling over the idea of podcast hosting, but trying to come up with a workable business model for the Irish market is not an easy feat. Hosting, like many businesses, is a numbers game. If you have enough subscribers to a service you can oversell happily as only a small percentage of the userbase is going to use their allocation. Combine that with cheap and plentiful bandwidth and it can be viable. Some people have issues with the concept of overselling, but it's the cornerstone of so many business models. Airlines oversell, hotels oversell - they just call it by a different name. It's only an issue when you oversubscribe If you oversubscribe a number of things can happen. First off, as a provider, you could end up with your costs exceeding your income by a factor in excess of what you may consider acceptable. If that happens then continuing to provide the service may no longer be financially viable. From a technical point of view this may lead to capping, which would, obviously have a tangible effect on your subscribers (unlimited bandwidth is a figment of a marketer's imagination) Either of these would lead to unhappy clients. Unhappy clients lead to not only a loss of existing business, but can also hit both your recurring revenue and new business. For example, many Irish users would have subscribed to a "no limits" service some years ago. Many of us actually used the service to its fulll extent, but then found that the provider had labelled us as "abusers". The resulting uproar led to the formation of a pressure group for Irish broadband / internet users, but I digress. The point being that any such service if badly served would have a very negative impact on the provider. Is that the case in the Irish market? Hard to say, but from what I've seen the number of active Irish podcasters is quite small compared to that of "traditional" bloggers. At present we're treating it all on a very ad-hoc basis. Tom Raftery, for example, has been podcasting for several months, so we offered him space and bandwidth on one of our servers. He can podcast to his heart's content and not have to worry about bandwidth costs. It's probably an area that will have to be investigated further and I am, as always, open to suggestions and feedback from podcasters.

While talking to a friend last night the conversation swung round to that of analogies and how best to explain "our" world to the non-technical. Using an analogy can help, as for some people the concept of websites, hosting and domains is far too intangible and abstract for them to comprehend. Hosting companies sell or rent online real estate (space). They can help mark out your plots of land (domains) before you bring in architects (designers?) and engineers (developers?) to build your house or office Now how far can I take the analogy? :)

Interesting to see that the European ApacheCon will be held in Dublin this year from June 26th to June 30th in the Burlington. More information will probably be available over the next few days / weeks

Over the last few months there has been a certain degree of debate in some circles with regard to the IEDR's pricing and other policies. Some people called for a reduction in pricing, although they did little to pass on any saving to the public. In other quarters there were mutterings about the future of the IE namespace with both the advent of EU looming on the horizon coupled with the likelihood of greater government involvement in the day to day running of the registry. What has the IEDR done about this? On the pricing front there was a significant reduction on both the wholesale and retail rate from 1st January this year. While some people are displeased with this, their displeasure would appear to be tainted by their previous complaints about the high pricing. Prior to January the pricing structure for IE resellers was anything but simple. There were pricing tiers based on the number of domains "held" by a billing contact. Once you got past a particular threshold you qualified for a rebate - not a price reduction - which was given to you quarterly. This obviously benefited some of the larger resellers who were billing for several thousand domains, but even for them this "pay now get moneyback later" scheme must have been quite cumbersome. The new pricing scheme is much simpler for all parties concerned. Instead of tiers you have a nice and simple uniform price, which per unit means that even the larger players do not pay more per unit than they did previously. However, as is so common in Irish business, there are those who are not happy with this pricing structure and would wish to cast doubts on the integrity of companies who have passed on savings to their clients. What ever happened to free market economics? Surely it is up to each company to chose their own business model? Why should taking a gutsy approach be greeted with an attack on a company's integrity or viability? However it is not for me, as a business owner, to make these decisions. Ultimately competitors are free to choose how they wish to react to our marketing tactics as in reality we do not market or sell to them, so their views of us do not really matter. Having said that the IEDR's own policies and procedures should be reviewed, or at least discussed. There are certain apparent inconsistencies between what they claim on the one hand and what they do on the other. What exactly do they mean by a "managed registry"? Which facets of the IE namespace, apart form the zonefiles, are they actually managing? Is it merely a matter of them applying rote to the processes and procedures that have been in place since the IE namespace was moved under the management of the IEDR, or should they be doing more to promote it and defend it from squatters and spammers? While it is possible for an individual to discuss these matters directly with IEDR management surely a more proactive approach is needed? Other registries, such as Nominet, actively encourage feedback from members. While the case of Nominet is hardly a good example to choose, due to the very size of the operation etc., it is also a good role model to follow in some cases.

There are a lot of myths and "old wives tales" surrounding the registration of IE domains. A lot of them may have held some truth in the past, however the current reality is very different.

I forgot to mention that I was recently interviewed by HostInterview, which is a new venture from Irish entrepeneur Fergal Crawley.

Every few weeks the topic of adult content in Ireland raises its head. In some cases people are looking at domain names, whereas in others they are interested in the content itself. I've gone over a number of these topics in the past, as they were topical due to the release and subsequent shelving of the .xxx TLD. So where do people think the line should be drawn? Should a line be drawn? If you draw a line with regard to what occupies Irish web space (and the IE namespace) should you also restrict access to adult content from Irish ISPs? What is "adult" anyway? Where does erotica end and pornography begin? Is there any difference between the two? As a consenting adult should you have the right to view whatever content you wish in the privacy of your home? If an Irish company were to openly host pornographic content would they be able to survive in the marketplace? Why is the opening of a nightclub in Dublin cause of such furore? I wish I had the answers.. I do have my own thoughts and opinions, but most of those are already in the public domain, so little would be served in rehashing them.

We're continuing the offer for the month of February. Maybe it's because it's my birthday on Friday and I was feeling generous! We're having a pretty generous 2006 so far, with free asp.net 2.0 hosting plans up for grabs and a lot more :)