Being Candid About Being Green
Green is vital, but so is pragmatism
Right up there with “The Cloud”, Green hosting has been a heavily trafficked buzzword in our industry for nearly 3 years.
In 2008, ServInt began retrofitting its data centers and, in combination with a massive investment in reforestation projects all over the world, we became climate positive within one year. We strive to be green because we know we have to, we have a responsibility to do so as a growing business with international clientele who expect their hosting company to understand the impact it has on the world around them.
In other words, we get it and want to do our part for the right reasons.
More after the jump.
Reminder: Indie Music for Haiti Concert Tonight in D.C.!
Hey Everyone!
We’re all really excited about the concert tonight, it’s going to be a blast and we’re looking forward to hanging out in what is already my personal favorite night spot for a great cause.
In anticipation, I thought I’d shed some light on a few of the performers who are slated to appear tonight and hopefully entice those on the fence to come out and see the show!
Let me go act by act and explain why this show is going to be so awesome.
Indie Music For Haiti: ServInt Sponsoring Haiti Benefit Concert on Feb. 2nd in Washington, D.C.
Voices For Haiti Promotional Poster
We at ServInt are working with one of our clients, D.C. area recording studio and custom music house Asparagus Media, to put together a fundraising concert to benefit Voice Of Haiti, a charity that’s been working for years to promote sustainable development in the country. The wonderful folks at DC9 join us as sponsors and hosts for the evening.
We believe in the power of the Internet, and so we’re asking you to help us make this project a success. Our goal was to gather up the best grassroots, indie musicians we knew in the area to help make a difference. The concert benefits a charity that fits this grassroots theme. This group is Washington, D.C. based, and has spent years building sustainable development projects in Haiti, trying to help people develop resources such as drinking water wells that allow them to move from populated areas like Port Au Prince. We are incredibly excited to be a part of this, and hope to use this as a template for future projects. Spread the word, and help us pack the house!
Here’s a look at the lineup, a great mix of punk, ska and world music stylings:
-Tommy T (of Gogol Bordello) and his Abyssinia Roots Collective
-The Ambitions
-Sitali (vocalist from Thievery Corporation)
-Eastern Standard Time
-David “Spoonboy” Combs (of The Max Levine Ensemble)
-Rosemond Jolissaint (award-winning Haitian musician)
Tickets are $15, with every penny going to http://www.voiceofhaiti.org.
If you will be in or around the Washington, D.C. area on February 2nd, please come join us for a night of great indie music for a wonderful cause. Stop by the event’s Facebook page to RSVP.
And remember: if you can’t make it… DONATE ANYWAY! Voice of Haiti is an organization that will provide long term, sustainable development long after the media spotlight recedes.
Hosting for Haiti
The internet is a market of ideas; a true democratization of knowledge. That democratization has also brought an unparalleled connection to the goings on in the world around us. On January 12th, 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck just a few miles from the capital of Port-au-Prince, ravaging the capital city and killing an estimated 200,000 people while displacing millions.
The web of ideas brought us images of the suffering, social media provided context and stories of individuals and families who have been directly affected by this disaster, and individuals and organizations worldwide opened their hearts to those affected through innovative donation mechanisms and sheer generosity.
However, many of those donations are unable to be distributed for 90 days. That means 3 long months of toil and recovery in the face of frustrating bureacracy. As an industry that truly understands how investment and resources are utilized on the web we knew we could do better and we’re proud to announce this unprecedented initiative.
In an effort to give back as effectively as possible, the most influential players in webhosting have banded together with the American Red Cross to give aid directly to those suffering in Haiti right now. Along with our friends at Rackspace, The Planet, Peer1, and GoGrid, all of us at ServInt are urging our supporters, customers, friends, families, and employees to donate to Hosting for Haiti.
There are no ulterior motives here. YOU can choose precisely how your tax-deductible gift will be used. You can donate directly to the relief fund in Haiti or you can help the American Red Cross’ International Response fund, as we have done. The choice is yours.
ServInt is proud to stand side by side with our esteemed colleagues in the webhosting world in encouraging you to join us and consider making a donation. Every little bit counts and we feel honored to do our part helping this small nation in a big way.
Please visit HostingforHaiti.com for more information.
Win a Flip from ServInt!
Wow, I look great in that video thumbnail, kudos to YouTube for ensuring that folks question my state of consciousness. Anyway, we have some really exciting news to tell you, so without further ado:
In a connected world, we’re always striving to better capture the adventures that happen around us. At ServInt, we help connect businesses and clients every day, so it’s only fitting that we embrace a world of ubiquitous connectivity and change.
In honor of our upcoming 15 year anniversary, ServInt is giving one lucky winner a new, ServInt branded Flip Mino HD 120!
Anyone 18 or older can enter, so why wait?
There are two ways to enter the sweepstakes:
1. Through ServInt’s Facebook Page. Don’t forget to become a Fan of ServInt!
2. Through Twitter. Simply click here or click the big green button below! Follow ServInt, enter our contest, and retweet it to your friends in one fell swoop!
Good luck to all!
Does Online Advertising Work?
Where does your message best get seen?
Just about every company worth its salt has some sort of online advertising component as part of its marketing budget. With the ubiquity and ease of use of platforms such as Google’s Adwords and Facebook ads, online marketing has truly become an accessible avenue for a lot of novice advertisers.
But there’s another question that has nagged advertisers in all mediums for as long as there has been marketing, does it work?
Online advertising, whether it’s in the form of a banner ad or text ad, seems inherently impersonal. You’re creating and placing ads that are viewed by nameless, faceless people who could literally be anywhere in the world…the task to reach them seems daunting doesn’t it?
What a lot of people forget is that this is exactly the same with all advertising, regardless of the medium. You don’t really know who’s looking at an ad on a billboard, or who is listening to the radio, or who is watching your commercial on television. Sure, there are demographic studies you could perform that could help you make intelligent guesses, but the truth is that data is useless if your product has a narrow or hyper-competitive market. In this respect webhosting is an excellent example, as costs per click (CPC’s) for popular keywords in our industry regularly hit the $25 mark in Google Adwords, the most popular ad network online by far.
comScore, a tech marketing analytics firm and a great source of genuinely interesting internet marketing info has performed a spate of studies recently that bring up some great points on this very topic.
In August, the firm released the findings of a study it conducted with dunnhumbyUSA that focused on the difference between television and online advertising. You can checkout a detailed press release about the study here, but I’ll do my best to summarize the findings.
The two firms used the example of consumer packaged goods, things such as food and snacks, to test whether online advertising actually worked. By tracking the buying habits of thousands of shoppers using their supermarket discount cards the firm was able to obtain fascinating, and to some extent unexpected results.
The study found that, in a sample size of roughly 200,000 shoppers, the brands who were exposed to consumers via ads on the web saw a 9% sales lift over a three month period with 80% of the campaigns showing a statistical increase. Those exposed through television ads saw an 8% sales lift over twelve months with only 36% of the campaigns showing a statistical increase. This is staggering data, it means nearly 1 in 10 consumers will change their buying habits in the affirmative after being exposed to an ad online and in a very short amount of time as well.
Of course, there are plenty of things to take issue with, the study doesn’t comment on the frequency of ad delivery or what percentage of ads were static vs flash, but it does at least validate the concerns of many advertisers out there.
What’s your take on the status quo in online advertising? Let us know in the comments, on our Facebook page, and on Twitter.
Photo by kevindooley.
2009: The Year of ServInt. Happy New Year!
Should Auld Acquaintance be forgot...
This has been an incredible year for ServInt. Despite one of the messiest economic downturns in history, we’ve been able to grow bigger, stronger, and more global, all the while maintaining the quality of service our customers have come to expect from us.
This isn’t always easy. Staying competitive in this industry requires a tremendous understanding of just how to properly create, build, promote, and launch a product or solution. Judging by the number of fly-by-night companies that started, and ended, in 2009; it serves as a powerful reminder that a good network, copious experience and open accountability are the most important aspects of any business and they are especially important to ServInt.
Here is a quick recap detailing a few of the biggest events this year for ServInt!
More after the jump…
Happy Holidays from ServInt!
As we approach the last batch of holidays this year, all of us at ServInt wanted to wish everyone happy holidays!
Thank you for your time, your support, your business, and your competition.
Data Centers and Your Hosting Business
Free Tip: Invest in cable management.
The data center is the most important tool in a web host’s arsenal.
That might sound painfully obvious, and it is, but for those looking to get into this industry it’s an important item to remember. Competitors brag about which bits of software they use to push product out the door but they often forget to mention the necessity of maintaining a powerful, scaleable, stay-in-business-able data center to actually store that information.
After our most recent expansion into ServInt LA, I thought I’d share a few insights into the choices we had to make when building our infrastructure to give folks a better understanding of our corporate goals as well as offer advice to those looking to get into the hosting biz.
Here goes.
More after the jump…
Sometimes Sometimes Redundancy Redundancy Fails
Redundancy is as complex as it is necessary
Stuff happens.
Of course, we all know that. Everyone has bad days where everything seems to go wrong and businesses are no different.
In our case, the hosting industry relies on thousands of pieces of ever-changing, ever-evolving hardware that need to be married with new standards and updated software. Problems do happen, even to those who plan carefully while building their infrastructure, but how a company responds when problems occur is far more important than whether problems happen at all.
At ServInt, we have always prided ourselves on being the kind of company that plans extensively. That being said, we are still faced with a serious, and slightly philosophical question:
Why do problems occur and how do we prevent them?
Our industry has always loved to tout how easy it is to be up all the time, immune to problems, and how technology can solve just about anything. Because the industry has been so successful at selling this message, we frequently hear comments like, “Well, if my server has RAID and you have redundant routers, how can anything go wrong?” Many assume, and justifiably so, that if something fails, the redundant resource should take over automatically.
More after the jump…
