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For me, it’s been a month of discovery. February has been about the best ways to improve communication with you. I’m discovering more channels through which I can keep the wide world informed about UKFast and I’ll be reaching into this mighty vat of knowledge periodically as the newsletter progresses. Also, this evening we discover whether we are once again the ISPA’s Best Hosting Provider. I hope you will join me with fingers crossed that we can take it one step further this year and bring home the Best Business ISP trophy as well. But pomp aside, let’s get down to the useful stuff… |
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February @ UKFast – New deals mean an early spring clean Well it was indeed a record breaking January. Our sales figures were up 250% on the same period last year, which makes February a month for scrutiny across all tech systems. It’s always number one on the list for Neil Lathwood and his team to make sure that the Network is ready and prepared to take on new solutions. And they’ve been hot on the button this month with router, firewall and switch upgrades as well as cross network bandwidth analysis ensuring that we continue to supply the quality of service you all signed up for. There has been similar vigour coming from the Research & Development lab this month. However, they’re keeping the new plans pretty quiet and are refusing to let me in on the party. From the sparks escaping under the door I think it’s best to stay clear, but hope to have more news on this next month. That’s unless I get myself some protective clothing and sneak in before then!
We continue to sponsor Charlie Hodgson as an individual player and look forward to having as many of you as possible along to the games over the next 3 years. With the Sharks almost certain to finish in the top two this year, it’s possible that we will have an extra semi-final fixture to invite you along to. I also have a smattering of places left for the April games against Gloucester and Bath Rugby, so please get in touch if you’d like to try and join us before the end of the season. I look forward to hearing from you.   Sharpen your search skills This month’s tip is all about getting the best out of those search engines. After all, the figures show that they are getting the best out of us! So here are five cunning ways you can harness the power of Yahoo, MSN, Google and Ask Jeeves: 1. Search within a Site 2. Link search 3. Search within a date range 4. Word definition 5. Convert stuff: Vote for UKFast
Aggregate to stay informed Many of you will already be subscribing to RSS feeds. Some of you will also be providing an RSS feed from your own website in order to help Internet users access your content. You lot are the truly savvy ones! For those who don’t know, Really Simple Syndication is definitely the Net’s most efficient way to inform and to keep informed. Already there are over a hundred aggregators that sort your selected feeds and present them for you. This should give you an indication of the traffic out there. From web based to desk top, from email based to mobile device, aggregators are becoming a necessity if you wish to read news and blogs and listen to podcasts and videocasts online. And as we all know, information is power – so why not try these three for size? 1. Gregarius is web-based, so you can access your feeds from anywhere. It ticks all the important boxes on www.aggcompare.com. 2. Blogbridge downloads to your desktop and is not just for blogs. It’s a good choice if you want a multitude of feeds. 3. Sage is a Mozilla Firefox extension ideal as a small scale RSS aggregator. I’d love to know if you have good things to say about particular aggregators. Also, with RSS feeds becoming so popular, it was only going to be a matter of time before advertising would come into question. What do you think about this? Do you provide an RSS feed? Would you mind your RSS feeds being bombarded with adverts? Would you allow others to advertise on your RSS feed? Maybe you would advertise on other people’s RSS feeds? Email me at jonathan.bowers@ukfast.net and let me know. Spotlight on the Client – Regional sites cover the distance On the other side of the community coin however, is the non-profit resource site. Success here often relies upon collaboration between organisers and the communities they serve. NWJazzworks.org is a new project in the North West of England out to prove that regional sites can make more of a mark than their national counterparts, by not only looking better, but also providing a rich database of up-to-date information. The site is the online home of a new regional jazz development organisation. They commissioned Lucy Power, the voice behind established website getintojazz.com, to ensure their ambitions for the music reach the far corners of the North West. The result is an intelligent, comprehensive site to serve and enhance the jazz community. “The Internet is the best tool the industry has to encourage interest not only in playing the music, but listening to it as well,” says Lucy. “The North West region is a large area incorporating five separate counties. NWjazzworks.org is a central platform for jazz music promotion bringing together users from across the region.” UKFast’s Lawrence Jones has been an advisor on the project. “The site offers visitors the entire jazz experience bar a live performance!” he says. “It’s got a fantastic dedicated jazz MP3 player offering free downloads of regional artists. This gives music lovers the chance to sample the bands before they click across and discover where they are playing.” The site now faces its most crucial period and Lucy is looking for bands and venues from the tip of South Cheshire to the Northern borders of Cumbria to visit the site and upload their details. This way the site can provide the region with the most comprehensive and up-to-date gig and venue information in the UK cultivating a healthy web community. The North West has an eclectic mix of jazz performers and nwjazzworks.org could well set a new standard in its field. National sites are just too disparate and, unsurprisingly, they try to cover too much geographically. Consequently, information on this scale has not been available before. For the first time, Jazz lovers will be able to organise a complete night out from the comfort of their living room – from a meal beforehand and a gig that suits them right down to the best ways to get there and places to park their cars. Adding venue or band details could not be easier. Whether you are a performer, a music lover, interested in learning or getting to know the genre log on to www.nwjazzworks.org and enjoy a website that is truly involving its community. Back to top
Over a year ago in the Hot Topic, I took a look at the world of blogging. An alien concept to me then, it felt much more like a leisure tool than one I could apply in my working life. Oh how naïve was I?! A handful of companies were employing blogs in early 2005, the vast majority in the US. However, I’ll be surprised if there are more than a handful of businesses ignoring blogs come 2007 – and Podcasts too. Podwhat? Well let me tell you, because now is the time to get involved. I seem to constantly tell people that, “The Internet has changed everything.” And there’s no doubt it has expanded the boundaries for communication for every business. According to many, the future of communication now lies within ‘conversations.’ Blogging is the act of maintaining online diaries that illicit response from others, building a rich tapestry of information and opinion. Bill Gates saw the potential of blogging many years ago and now more than 4000 of Microsoft’s staff actively blog. Writers on the Guardian’s Technology supplement find inspiration for all their features and articles by searching the Blogosphere. So why are they useful within the business world? Quite simply, they are trustworthy and break down barriers between a company and its customers, existing and potential. Research has shown that the modern consumer has become disillusioned by big business and would much more readily trust the opinions of ‘real people’ than faceless organisations. And this is why companies are turning to blogs in their droves – it’s also why they are encouraging their staff to blog. If you need more encouragement, you can look at it another way. Blogs generate a heck of a lot of links – to your site and from it – building up a very good case for Search Engine’s to rank your business higher up their lists. And that’s crucial for any business. Podcasts work in a similar way. Ricky Gervais has recently made his way into the Guinness Book of Records for the most downloaded podcast. At 2.9million downloads the Guardian Podcast hosted by Ricky takes a weekly look at a topic of interest. It’s an entertainment podcast, but one that has brought many people to the Guardian website, doing a lot to boost its business. Podcasts are basically like Radio shows that you create yourself and encourage people to download from your website. An even less tapped market than blogs, in the business world they are set to become another phenomenon that can be as good as a creator’s imagination. Similar to a blog – a podcast should not focus on promoting a company’s products – but gain prominence by acting as a gift to the online community that your business is well placed to offer. As an ISP, UKFast might podcast about ‘Getting the Best out of your Windows OS’. In contrast a bank might podcast about the practical financial issues people need to deal with when moving house. Just this week it has been announced that users will shortly have to subscribe and pay a monthly fee in order to get the Ricky Gervais podcast. It seems inevitable that entertainment podcasts will all follow suit. I wonder if their business cousins will remain free until the Internet begins to take a firmer hold on company communications. I’d love to hear from any of you who actively maintain a blog, or produce a podcast. Please email me at jonathan.bowers@ukfast.net with your URL’s and I will add them to my RSS feeds.
You can check out the whole selection by going to the Google holiday logos page here. Just before we go, I’d like to congratulate Richard Salisbury, our Head of Design on the birth of his baby daughter Freya Grace. He’s just back from paternity leave this week and despite being thrust back into a hectic schedule you can’t stop him smiling – believe me I’ve tried! 
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After discussing the pros of sponsorship last month, I’m thrilled to be able to let you know that UKFast is on the verge of signing a new 3-year deal with the Sale Sharks. Those who have been to Edgeley Park with us will know just how important the association is to the team here. We hold it as crucial that we get to meet as many of you as possible in relaxed surroundings and as last Friday’s game proved – there’s nowhere better to do it than at the Sharks.
Over the last 6 months, I have been working closely with a number of community websites all of whom successfully prove that the genre is no longer the ugly sister to business and retail online. The majority of the above, including Mysinglefriend.com, Airportinsider.com and Freshties.com are entrepreneur led. Here we have businesses with smart ideas looking to create communities that will do more than just fund themselves.
- Google’s Holiday Logos
Back in 2001, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin left this logo on their site to let users know that they had gone to the Burning Man festival. Years on the trend continues. 
