It really is a sign of a strong and mature market place when quality sites regularly hit the market, and BlogCatalog proves the point. The site is currently for saleThe site sold in 1 day at Sitepoint for $40,000 USD. Congrats to all involved.
(thanks to David for the tip).
Bryanboy shares his experiences with MidPhase. It’s a case of the Shared Hosting scam striking again, the one where by so-called high use shared hosting packages aren’t really because usually buried somewhere in the fine print (never in an easy place, nor disclosed up front) is a clause about CPU/ server usage which states they can cut you off for using too much of a server, usually without warning and with no redress. It’s not just MidPhase, most hosting companies are in on this in one form or another, they sell their high use packages on the basis that most people will never use those levels, and when they do they get suspend accounts, or terminate them: the exact problem I had with Site5 back in 05.
Dreamhost is the only company I’m aware of at the moment that has an open policy on CPU usage where they promise NOT to disable your account, but where necessary to talk to people hosting with them about alternatives should issues arise.
To any people in the hosting business reading this: I’m not anti-shared hosting, and I do understand that you guys have to balance your server loads on shared accounts, but it’s the fraud in promoting memory and traffic levels that could NEVER be met without using a decent portion of CPU on a shared box that I’m against, exactly what has happened here with Bryanboy. If you want to be an honest hosting company, disclose upfront straight away (upfront, not in the fine print) any limits you put in terms of server usage for shared host accounts, and most of all, promise never to suspend or take off line an account without first discussing options with your client (ie talk first, instead of acting first). If you’re doing this, or plan to, let me know, and I’ll happily give you a plug.
Tags: Midphase
The first of the blog directories…and I mean *THE FIRST*, the EatonWeb Portal is up for sale at Sitepoint, current bid at the time of writing is $4k with a BIN of $15k. From what I can read it’s fallen on tough times, zero revenue, although it’s still got a PR of 7. At $15k I don’t think it’s good buying, but if I had a spare 4-5k it would be a good buy…and of course anyone out there who buys the site is literally buying a slice of blogging history.
From the only in America files:
A teacher is convicted of endangering minors after porn popups appeared on her computer.
A 16 year old kid has his life ruined in Arizona after child porn is found on his computer. A forensics specialist finds 200 separate trojans, malware and spyware.
All US based podcasters could be forced to apply DRM to their podcasts if they include music of any form.
Is it any wonder that they can’t get Iraq right? or is that a very, very long bow 😉
Multichannel Merchant reports on the expansion of UK gadget merchant Firebox into the US market. Unremarkable you’d think, accept for these juicy parts:
Bill Linn, a partner with Sandbox Strategies [Firebox’s PR firm], says his firm looked for blogs popular with techies or pop culture enthusiasts, then e-mailed them messages about unique products, deals, and contests offered by Firebox.com. The company started with major blogs such as Boing Boing, Engadget, and Gizmodo; news of Firebox then circulated among smaller blogs that linked to the larger ones.
“Not every one of our clients can get away with that, but when you have product lines like gizmos and toys, you can feed the blogs and generate sales,” Linn says. “We found that blogs don’t respond well if your message is too corporate, so we cut that out and got to what’s important to the reader.”
Yep, that’s 3 of the biggest names in the blogosphere: Engadget (Weblogs Inc), Gizmodo (Gawker Media) and Boing Boing, all happy participants in a scheme that was nothing more than a marketing ploy to make sales.
Before any one tut tut’s me though, I’m not necessarily saying this is wrong, and indeed it’s something that’s been going on for a couple of years now, but many in the blogosphere still hold themselves high upon the dais of perfect morality, when the truth is we all get spinned to, all the time, and some of the time we nibble on the bait.
Tags: Gizmodo, Engadget, Boing Boing
This is big news! It’s fair to say that its taken long enough, but at long last Blogger supports private URL’s, beyond the previous abilities to use your own URL for posting but hosting it elsewhere, but to use it with Blogger (or Google as the case may be) as the host. The quote from Blogger via Steve Garfield:
“Blogger added a new feature: Bring your own domain. All you have to do is buy a domain, anywhere, at any price you can find, set up your Blogger account and point your DNS at Google?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s server at ghs.google.com, and viola*! Now your Blogger blog appears at its own domain name, and all you had to do was pay less than ten bucks a year for the domain. You don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t need hosting, because Blogger handles all the traffic, you just bring the domain.”
Good stuff.
Bill Gates has announced Windows Home Server at CES. Sounds like a good idea and it’s something I’d think about buying, however how rapped up in DRM is it going to be? Will I be able to store my ripped music on it without any hassles?
The Sydney Morning Herald reports on the fake MySpace page authored under the name of leading Australian High Court Activist Judge Michael Kirby. I wonder what gave it away? Was it the “I’m a Pimp” headline?, or the friends list?. The really hilarious thing is the quote from the the MySpace people.
The case, which MySpace Australia said could be the first confirmed instance of identity fraud on the site, underlines the unreliability of much of the internet’s so-called “citizen journalism”.
OK. Lets take a look at Justice Kirby’s friends and commenters list. Ronald McDonald is a friend. Must be the real Ronald McDonald. Leaving comments include Great Garbo, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Papa Pio XII, King Louis XVI, Friedrich W. Nietzsche and my favourite Joseph Stalin…. and yet the Kirby MySpace page is apparently a world first!
Of course any good conspiracy theory isn’t complete without Right Wing Extremists, the report stating that “the online profile, which is accessible without a password…contains links to an American right-wing extremist group”. Um yeh, in the comments section which virtually anyone can say as they please!
Another great unresearched, alarmist hatchet job from the Australian MSM.
I’d been hoping to bring this up in Gday World this week, but I never got the chance, because I’ve always seen the Microsoft Vista Laptop Bloggers scandal for what it is, aside from a marketing ploy, but a marketing ploy that had a focus..on hardware. The reason Microsoft sent out those laptops wasn’t alone to get publicity for Vista, but get get publicity for Vista based on the premium hardware requirements the OS demands for optimimum use…other wise they would have just sent out DVD’s with the OS on it for people to review. And now Dave Taylor agrees.
