Once upon a time, malicious attacks in the online marketplace were few and far between, however many online news sources are predicting that 2011 is set to be “The Year of the Hacker.”

Over the past 12 months, there have been several high profile cases in which hackers have been portrayed as silent heroes. Hacktivists defending Julian Assenge in the controversial Wikileaks case, or those involved in music downloading battles with large legal corporations were represented by the media as freedom fighters – bending the law to retain justice.

However it is important to remember that in the vast majority of cases, any kind of unauthorised entry gained to a third party’s web presence is illegal, dangerous and often extremely damaging.

From our privileged online position here at UKFast, we have certainly noticed an increase in the number of hack attacks. We also witness the extent of problems a company deals with when they do fall victim to such attack and the harm caused is often astronomical and difficult to recover from.

Our latest industry round table covers this very topic. These discussions bring experts together to look at how the internet has changed the way we do business, and on the 9th March our guests will focus on the increase in online “Hacktivity” and its implications.

If you have any questions you would like us to pose to our panel of experts, please do get in touch.

Also, if you feel you would be well placed to attend this discussion yourself, or would like to learn more about our round table events, please get in touch with Jonathan Bowers at jonathan.bowers@ukfast.co.uk, or give him a call on 0844 576 3909.

The report’s authors identify several obstacles in this industry, including a lack of educational support for the skills required to succeed in technology-based industries, such as maths, physics, art and design.

Findings show that only 25 per cent of graduates who studied video games design at university were taught maths as part of their degree, despite it being considered an essential skill by industry leaders.

“Growth in the UK is being held back by a lack of people with the right skills,” said Alex Hope, the review’s other author and MD of leading visual effects company Double Negative.

“We need people with the specialist skills, computer science, physics, maths and art on which our industry relies,” he added.

But it is not all doom and gloom…

The study suggests that Britain could enjoy a “golden age” of success if we start correctly investing in our young tech talent.

At UKFast we couldn’t agree more.  Our company is reliant upon people with technological expertise as these team members are absolutely crucial to the service we deliver.

As certified Investors in People, we aim to develop technologically-trained members of the team and offer a range of incentives for outstanding service.

One idea raised by the report, suggests making computer science a compulsory element of the national curriculum as well as breaking down boundaries that currently exist between creative subjects like art and hard scientific subjects such as maths.

Below is a drawing by one of our top techies Kelvyn, who is just one example of the way both technology and creativity can co-exist happily side by side.

Now we just have to hope that the powers that be are spurred into action by these findings and technically-minded students will be enabled to develop their skills for a bright British future!

Amongst company streamlining, profit targets and recruitment issues, it’s a priority that can easily get lost in the day-to-day running of a business. But the consequences of neglecting it are potentially huge.

Data Privacy Day – this Friday and on the 28^th January every year – highlights the reasons for businesses to put the protection of data at the top of their to-do list.

Customers’ data is incredibly important to a business – more so now than ever. Failing to protect it can have a bearing on customer service; it can attract negative press attention and give your competitors an advantage – all of which ultimately affects the bottom line.

Take cosmetic retailer Lush as an example. Last week it was forced to close its website after repeated hacking attempts. The retailer had to advise its customers who had placed online orders to contact their banks for advice as their card details “may have been compromised”. It led to angry customers venting their anger on Facebook and telling others not to consider using the retailer in future. How much damage the event caused to Lush’s finances and its reputation? One can only hazard a guess but it’s probably severe.

And hackers aren’t only motivated by financial gain. Security expert McAfee has warned those who strive to protect their data that they are at a higher risk of so-called hactivists who will attack corporate systems for political reasons.

Amongst the advice that’s brought to the fore on Data Privacy Day will be the need for businesses to carry out a risk assessment of the data they hold and that should be protected. The wisest will take heed.

Britain’s manufacturing sector has moved on from its metal bashing days and is, in fact, the industry that spends biggest on IT. But the economic uncertainty of the last three years has meant they, like many other businesses, have reined in their spending and waited for the recovery to be in full swing before they loosened the purse strings.

But the latest Annual Manufacturing Report, carried out by The Manufacturer Magazine and Barclays Corporate, suggests there has been an improvement in confidence in the sector compared to last year. Fewer are looking to shave costs (54 per cent compared with 60 per cent in the previous years) and 65 per cent are planning to buy new computers/software, compared to 55 per cent in 2009.

Could it be that manufacturers have realised that the downturn and a tough business environment shouldn’t put  a halt  on growth altogether? Let’s hope so.

I agree with the head of manufacturing at Barclays Corporate who said: “There is an opportunity cost associated with putting off investment; maintenance costs and lagging behind in efficiency compared with competitors eventually outweigh the direct benefit.

“There is also only so long an entrepreneurial management team want to sit on their hands, and this drive to grow may explain some of the disconnect between economic outlook and investment intentions within the industry.”

The pace of development in technology makes it all too easy for businesses to be left behind. And those that realise it, and fear it, will be best placed to take advantage of opportunities when they finally present themselves.

Traditionally, electronic recording equipment hasn’t been allowed in British courtrooms. It’s meant the coverage of British court cases has developed in a very different way to that in the US where the use of TV cameras in courtrooms has allowed many a case to turn into a media circus.

Video cameras are still strictly prohibited in all British courtrooms but social media commentators have suggested the leniency towards the use of mobile equipment could pave the way for the long-standing ban to be removed.

There are also issues related to the nature of Twitter’s posts. Can journalists really portray an accurate and balanced assessment of a court’s proceedings in posts of less than 140 characters?

What’s more, if Twitter proves a popular medium for consumers to be updated on court cases, how will the market for a full newspaper report of court cases – drafted from a reporter’s shorthand notes – be affected? Is this another nail in the coffin for the traditional newspaper?

The new ruling states that using “virtually silent” electronic gadgets to fire off tweets and other text messages is permissible but only journalists are allowed to use the gadgets and they must apply in advance for the permission to do so. It is also not a hard and fast rule – it remains at the judge’s discretion to decide, on a case-by-case basis, whether the use of Twitter is appropriate.

Of course, the landmark decision is recognising the prevalence of social networks – and the internet – in today’s society but how the change affects the treatment of cases within Britain’s legal system should be watched with caution.

If Jumo works, it could be a great step for Social Enterprise, as Chris Hughes has a undoubtably gained a wealth of skills from one of the biggest entrepreneurial opportunities of the past decade.

Social Media has proven to be one of the single biggest opportunities for social good and fundraising. This has become evident on a number of occasions including the earthquake that occurred earlier this year in Haiti which killed 230,000 people and rendered 1.6 million more homeless. Social Media and text messaging alone reportedly succeeded in raising over $10 million for Haiti victim relief.

With this in mind, a social networking website geared around just this is bound to be a success. JustGiving is already a fantastic platform for people to contribute, but with Chris Hughes’s experience and knowledge of the social web, Jumo could be a catalyst for Social Enterprise to really take off online. The press and media attention already surrounding the launch of the website should hopefully encourage people to try the new platform out, particularly considering it only requires an existing Facebook account which most people already have.

At UKFast we like to contribute to charity events throughout the company and this new tool could be a great one.  We will keep our eyes on its progression as it could be a great internal fundraising opportunity for the future.

Until then, we encourage you all to try out Jumo in the hope it takes off and becomes a catalyst for social good online.

All the best,
DB

Social Media has become such a prominent aspect of contemporary society and the issue of how our privacy is respected is a big concern to many people.

Facebook in particular has received heavy criticism regarding its privacy policy but as their global dominance is as strong as ever, this doesn’t seem to be discouraging people from using the social network. Facebook encourages us to share as much information as possible with as many people as possible and whilst it has made some changes to the site to give us more control, users are still a long way away from having total control over their online privacy.

So what are your thoughts? Are our expectations becoming more lenient towards the availability of our personal information or is demand growing for services and features that give us control over our lives?

Well, both points can be argued equally it seems. Whilst Facebook is growing at an extraordinary rate, the media attention generated by their controversial stance on privacy has even prompted the creation of an alternative social network called Diaspora.

Diaspora is said to be a response to the Facebook privacy crisis over the summer. The site was started by four University students and could be a great answer to the privacy issue as it prides itself on choice, ownership and simplicity. The idea is that you chose who see’s your information, you own your pictures and it is made very simple to change your privacy settings and is “inherently private”.

Whilst this new social network is not expected to dent Facebook’s incredible success it does prompt my original question: Do we need to change our expectations about online privacy or is there an alternative?

I will let you make your own opinion on this subject and would love to hear your thoughts.
Personally, I don’t like the fact I don’t have ownership over my own pictures and find Diaspora an interesting project, unfortunately I can’t see it ever threatening Facebook’s domination but maybe it could prompt them to revisit their stance on privacy.

Thanks for reading,
Let me know your thoughts,
DB

I’m not sure I can think of a single elite athlete who hasn’t worked incredibly hard to achieve their goals. Whilst Muhammad Ali was probably born with a certain genetic structure that facilitated the acquisition of certain skills (such as speed and fast twitch muscle fibres), he was definitely not born with a special boxing chromosome!

As he said himself: “The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses – behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.” In my opinion, this message of hard work is common amongst all successful people and whilst we are born with different faculties from birth, hard work is a common factor to all successes.

Last week I was lucky enough to attend a discussion on this topic hosted by Saffrey’s Champness which featured Lawrence Jones and Hazel Carter. Both presentations were extremely interesting but the thing I came away thinking is that development is something that happens from the moment we are born (some would even say slightly before) and is ongoing from then on.

This means that a person’s family life, their school education, the sports they played, the people they have met, the friends they have had…etc and every single other experience is a factor in their development and maturation. What I took away from this presentation (other than points for my personal improvement) was the vital role of education in a person’s life and development.

The intriguing thing about Lawrence’s presentation was that he described his development chronologically and on a very honest, personal level. He told us stories from when he was 7 years old selling tuck at school, to his small ventures at high school, to his near death experience and how he later met his life-long partner. All of these events and experiences have shaped him into the successful man he is today, and from the latter part of his presentation, he is clearly still on this journey of discovery.

Lawrence is extremely astute to the fact that we learn and develop every day, a message that he elegantly put forward as he explained that he once intervened when Gail (his wife) tried stopping their young daughter from painting her nails all different colours. His argument is that personal development should never be stifled but rather freed and encouraged.

Hazel Carter was next to speak and took a far more theoretical approach which was quite eye opening thanks to the research used to support her theories. Hazel mentioned several attributes that are commonly owned amongst successful entrepreneurs one of them being the very characteristic Lawrence was trying to develop in his daughter by letting her play with her nails. Hazel, also illustrated this very nicely in a story she told of a company that created a special division for those with entrepreneurial traits. She told us how this division became so successful through the freedom of thought they developed that the big company gobbled them up again which then undid all of their hard work. What a great shame!

So to conclude, I believe that almost any characteristic can be developed in a person and that these entrepreneurial traits are no exceptions. We are shaped by everything we have done, everything we do and everything we aspire to do. It is no surprise that many successful people like Lawrence have had to overcome obstacles and adversity in order to get where they are and to me this is proof that everything we do is there to shape our development.

Lawrence is a living example of somebody who encourages this energy into a business which is why web hosting provider UKFast continues to win awards year on year on year. His constant desire to set goals and rise to challenges has made him one of the most respected technology entrepreneurs and an example to many businessmen.

I’d love to know your thoughts on this topic that so many people seem passionate about. I am of the optimistic view that we are to a degree masters of our own destiny but what do you think?

Thank you for reading,

DB

P.S. If you’d like to know about our MD, Lawrence Jones, visit his website where he posts weekly blogs.

But by sociable, I don’t mean to socialise. No, I mean to communicate, work together, share experiences and much more. These tools are being used to great effect by even some of the most traditional of companies and industries. For me, this is a natural step for internal communications and one that comes with many benefits such as:

• ease of communication,
• participative cultures,
• knowledge sharing,
• better productivity,
• enhanced creativity,
• work collaboration,
• internal comms,
• team environments
• … and more.

I have in the past used my Google Account because of the collaborative functionality that comes with this. I can share my calendar with colleagues, I can use the chat functionality for conversations, I can share and create documents with them in real time, I can share folders with them, create discussion groups, maps/itineraries, photos…

I’m even worried that I’m not using these tools to their full potential and that I’m missing out on plenty more tools and functionality (mobile integration for instance). The extent to which these tools can allow us to increase our productivity at work is incredible, but what this also allows is for colleagues to work from different places and therefore bring more flexibility to the work environment.

There is nothing better than face to face communication, but I think that society and contemporary business practices have evolved towards an era of increased flexibility, in terms of working hours, working location and communication methods. Collaborative and shared tools which are hosted online facilitate this and are essential as modern working lives move into this new era.

To conclude, I think that we need to stop seeing Social Media simply as Facebook and Twitter. It is the idea of using web 2.0 type technologies in order to better connect people whether at work or in their personal lives. There is fantastic potential for these tools to enhance productivity, collaboration and creativity within companies but what are your thoughts on the use of web 2.0 technology and Social Media type tools in the workplace? Do you use them yourselves or have you thought of doing so?

I’d love to hear from you with your thoughts on this topic, so please don’t hesitate on commenting below.

Thanks for reading,
DB

Last weekend, I went to watch “The Social Network” at the cinema with my girlfriend (highly recommended by the way, 4 stars from me!) and I just thought that Mark Zuckerberg came across as such an ambitious person (although maybe slightly sad). It was really a story of world domination in a way, Facebook has become such a modern social phenomenon that in a reasonably short amount of time, it has also become extremely influential online.

Email integration into Facebook is just common sense really and it even makes you think, why hasn’t this been done before now?! What this has made me realise is how the big players online seem to be trying to compete in so many different sectors now. If you think about Microsoft, they are in Search (with Bing), Operating Systems (Windows), Office Software (MS Office), Gaming/TV/Internet/Social (The Xbox), Mobile, Productivity Software (Calendars, Outlook, CRM…). The list goes on and on…

Then take Google who have GDocs, GCalendar, Gmail, Chrome (soon to be an OS too), Buzz, Mobile, Search (really?!), TV (in partnership with Sony I believe) and again the list goes on…

Facebook invites press companies to their special announcement

Facebook is also a big contender for all of these markets. It was rumoured they were to bring out a phone but whether or not this amounts to anything, the site is attracting 400,000 new users a day! Having seen the movie now, it has just emphasised for me how ambitious Zuckerberg and Facebook are and this is just a natural step for them. Their influence on the technology and computing industry is incredible, they have changed the internet and will no doubt continue to do so in the future, starting with this addition.

A Facebook press event is going on today in California and no doubt a lot of people will be looking out for any breaking news that comes from there. We will keep you updated in our news section with any big changes.

Some may think it is slightly worrying that such few players are playing such a pivotal role online. Others may be thinking that this rivalry is extremely healthy as they constantly push to innovate and improve the services they provide. Either way, I’d love to know what you think of this event and the impact it could have on Email in the future.

Please don’t hesitate to comment below.

Does libel law apply to Twitter?

Sarah from our Communications Team has been writing this week about an article she is submitting to .Net magazine about a topic that I find particularly interesting:

Should libel law treat social media differently from other published work?

We’ve spoken about this quite a lot and it’s interesting the different thoughts that arise during the process as it doesn’t seem as clear cut as one would think.

An informal medium
My initial, gut reaction to this question was, yes. Yes, because social media is just informal medium where people chat and interact. Conversations shouldn’t always be taken literally and shouldn’t hold too much weight.

A very influential medium
However, I quickly changed my mind, I thought “then again, it is a place to communicate with a wide audience and can be an incredibly powerful tool.”
The influence Social Media can have in modern society is incredible as has been proven on many occasions, such as when Barack Obama became the first black President of the United Sates of America, the recent situation with Gap’s new logo, last year’s controversy over Greenpeace’s Social Media attack on Nestle, during the UK General Elections or when Rage Against The Machine got to Christmas Number 1 in 2009.

Conserving transparency and varied opinion
The point that really makes me think that is essential that Social Media be subject to libel law is to conserve the good things about this modern societal phenomenon. Social Media is by definition about user generated content which, in my opinion plays an extremely important part in making transparent, honest content available online. It has meant that brands can no longer rely solely on their marketing output, because the truth about their service will be readily available on Twitter, Facebook, review sites… When looking into buying a product nowadays, I more often than not will look into it on Twitter to see what people are saying about it first.

If Social Media weren’t subjected to libel law, then people would be free to say anything which would in my opinion, take away the very thing that makes this such an incredibly valuable and transparent tool.

Dealing with detachment
To conclude, I would like to raise the issue of “detachment” (I couldn’t think of another term). This is what I call the fact that these messages are published in an impersonal environment (ie. through a computer screen) which can cause the author to feel detached from real life and the real situation. Consequently, this can lead people to write things they would otherwise never say.
This is a psychological state that exists in film for instance whereby the cameraman doesn’t feel a part of the real life situation he is documenting. Tristan, from our Film Department enlightened me more about this as he told me of a book called “War Junkie” written by Jon Steele where he describes feeling detached, removed and maybe even emotionally disconnected from the incredibly difficult scenes he films on the front line of a battlefield. I think that this can often be the case in Social Media and with this being such an influential medium, these “hiccups” should still be subject to libel law in order to force people to think twice before publishing their sometimes impulsive thoughts the rest of the world.

The event which reportedly started in Australia in 2001, has now become a worldwide phenomenon endorsed by multi-national brands, celebrities and is attracting a lot of attention on social media. The Movember website itself is sponsored by Marshall, Old Spice and Snickers who have done a fantastic job of aligning this with their brand image.

The Old Spice guy is one of the world’s most impressive social media phenomenons and whilst we haven’t seen the man himself sporting a mo, I’d hope that this would come during the course of the month. Old Spice’s manly image is a perfect match for Movember and so is the man who claims to “smell like Zeus’ bigger & more handsome brother”.

Snickers have also done a good job of associating its brand with Movember. Their ads with “Mr T” are a perfect match for the charity event and they have made use of this on the Official Movember website with the Mr T banner ads saying “Get some nuts. Grow a MO!”

It’s great to see such respected global brands showing they have a sense of humour and are in touch with modern trends. Movember is a fantastic cause and thanks to its humorous approach, it raises a significant amount of funding and awareness for charities such as The Prostate Cancer Charity.

Unfortunately, I am not blessed with ability to grow a moustache, not even without shaving for a whole month but at UKFast, we have quite a few guys with incredible moustache growing skills and even at this early stage we can already see some great Mo’s starting to take shape. You can follow their progress in the picture gallery on our website: http://www.ukfast.co.uk/movember.html

Here are the pictures of our clean shaven candidates Monday 1st November at 9am. We will update you as they groom and sculpt their facial hair, all in the aid of a great cause.

It’s not too late to register if you fancy joining in. For more information and to donate to the Movember cause, visit http://uk.movember.com/.

Unless you’ve been fairly well hidden under a rock, you’ll probably know that tickets for Take That went on sale earlier this week. Naturally, those lucky online businesses who sell the tickets have been ready and prepared for the onslaught of fans – or have they?

In actual fact, it seems that all the big name ticket sites have failed to prepare for the demand and none of them had the vision to see the opportunity ahead.

Users want immediacy and when a site is slow or unavailable, they will simple try the next one in the search results – especially when they are trying to get hold of something that is in limited supply. It’s not just today’s loss that the initial site sustains but the next time that user tries to buy tickets they will go back to the last place they were successful. Buying tickets is a race against time!

It’s not just about tickets however, when the news of the Northern Rock crash happened, customers raced to their computers and all tried to gain information. The site was not ready for such traffic and the bank’s servers simply collapsed. Customers panicked, phone lines became jammed and queues formed outside local branches.

Companies can sustain huge brand damage when they do not anticipate demand accurately. While not many businesses experience the kind of spikes in traffic that ticket sites have just had, or Northern Rock suffered in Autumn 2007, we all have busy times online. It pays to make sure you are ready to deliver a great service to every enthusiastic user.

At UKFast we host gaming sites and large corporates that appear in TV commercials during the UK’s most popular programmes. They work closely with us to make sure that their hosting is good enough to maximise on the peaks in traffic this exposure brings. It’s always wise to plan ahead and make sure that you’ve got the ammo you need to collect as much as possible on your biggest pay days.

Don’t leave things to chance and lose out to a more prepared rival. I think there’ll be a few ticket company execs shaking their heads this week and wishing they had anticipated just how big the reforming of the band would be.

And from one form of musical entertainment to another, the best answer to the following question will win two tickets to join UKFast at a Manchester Camerata concert this season. The Camerata are the North West’s premier Chamber Orchestra and watching them is an incredible experience. The new season is full of adventurous world firsts and we’d love to treat you to a truly memorable evening.

So, please send me your online shopping stories about sites that lost out because they simply weren’t there when you needed them. Maybe you’ve tried to buy Take That tickets yourself this week and ended up buying from one of the smaller vendors because the big players were out of action? Or perhaps you actually have a retailer that you always shop at because they are always there? Place your comments here and the best can join UKFast and the Camerata this season.

This means that not only our company itself, but also all of the solutions we offer to our clients, are entirely carbon neutral – free of charge and starting now!

We have been pushing boundaries with regards to our reduced impact on the environment behind closed doors for some time now, but I think I speak for the whole team when I say that I am incredibly proud to be able to tell the world exactly what we have been up to.

The benefits of this scheme are numerous. Obviously there are incredibly positive environmental repercussions to our scheme, but increased employee satisfaction is also a powerful benefit.

Nowadays, people are far more aware of the world around them and many see Corporate and Social Responsibility as a must. The fact that UKFast is at the forefront of this movement within the industry is something we are all really proud of as well as something we hope will continue to attract more fantastic people – both clients, and new recruits.

To say that our whole business is 100% carbon neutral is great, but knowing that we are also over the moon to be able to say that we are the first PAS 2060 Certified hosting provider!

And this is just the beginning…

With this launch of UKFast Energy, we can now reveal that we have been working on a series of Hydro electric power plants with the help and support of The Co-operative Bank. This means that soon, we will not only be a Carbon Neutral company, but by creating our own clean energy, UKFast will be providing eco-friendly power back into the grid!

We look forward to telling the world about our great achievements at E-Commerce Expo this week! If you’re around for a quick chat, come and meet us at Stand 508.

Read our official statement here

This recent campaign by Corona Light is in my opinion, an excellent example of how to use a joined up marketing approach and reminds me of a comment made by Paul Harris, in March’s Marketing Mix Round Table Video. “In my experience, nothing works better than a joined up approach, where you use multiple tactics…”

It conforms to some of the most traditional of marketing principles and applies them using a mixture of conventional and contemporary marketing channels.

The campaign fulfils several objectives all within a very simple, engaging, fun and original process. It reaches and engages Corona Light’s target audience in the very place they like to hang out – Facebook. As users have to “Like” the brand, there is a fantastic opportunity for Data Capture, while the use of social media adds a viral effect to the campaign which then ends up in a very traditional form of advertising: on a billboard.

As Paul then says in the video mentioned above, whether measurable or non-measurable, it is important to take the user on a journey. Corona Light has done this to great effect, with a truly engaging experience for the user which satisfies all of their aims:

• Brand exposure
• Viral exposure (which also means mass word of mouth recommendations!)
• Targeted audience engagement
• Data capture

Have a go, it’s good fun! Just search for Corona Light on Facebook.

A great campaign for a beer that tastes great!

In the last few years, the popularity of social networking sites such as Twitter has been well documented by bloggers around the world and businesses have become more and more intrigued by the commercial potential of these websites.

Unfortunately, where a lot of businesses have gone wrong is that they fail to realise that these sites aren’t intended to be used by companies. Organisations have tried using the same marketing techniques that they apply to billboard advertising and have failed to truly listen to their audience or engage them.

The key to this post is in the word “listen”.

For a business to adopt social media successfully it must start off by listening, otherwise it’s simply jumping into the lions pit, putting itself at risk of being attacked and losing brand credibility online (think of the Greenpeace attack on Nestle earlier this year).

At UKFast, we see Twitter as a great communication channel and use it to engage with many clients. This week is “National Customer Service Week”, an event we are happy to promote as we believe the service we offer our customers is what sets us apart from our competition.

On this journey, we recognise that, much like Social Media, Customer Service begins with listening. It starts by understanding areas of your business that need improvement, areas where you excel and also discovering new opportunities that haven’t yet been explored.

I couldn’t agree more with Ross Keeping’s opening remark in his blog earlier this week: “It is not enough to have satisfied customers. At UKFast we want Raving Fans.” By ensuring our customers are so happy that they become our best advocates, we are allowing them to do a lot of the hard work for us, and on Social Media there is no more powerful tool than a big following of “Raving Fans”.

For more information regarding some of this week’s events, read our Head of Customer Service’s thoughts from earlier this week.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this subject.

Imagine people telling their friends over a drink how great we are. To drive this vision and find more fans we are using National Customer Service week to focus our efforts and passion. I am amazed that more companies do not use the opportunity to reflect on their service, reward it and ask themselves ‘what more can we do?’. Super star service separates the great from the good and yet most people I ask find it hard to recall a company who have really blown them away with excellent service.

I joined UKFast a month ago in the new role of Head of Customer Service. I’ve been blown away by the boundless energy of the team here and their willingness to continually improve. Yes … we’ve won customer service awards before. Yes … we’ve established sustainable service training. Yes … we’ve got an escalation process. Yes … this is only the beginning.

There is a well known saying “What gets measured gets managed and what gets managed gets better”. I am focussed on measuring the right things. Raving Fans is my most valued metric. Creating a Raving Fan is confirmation we are doing things right, establishes pride and genuinely makes our hard work worthwhile. On the flip side we truly value clients with issues which may get escalated to the management layer. They are an opportunity to demonstrate we care and that we can handle problems and learn lessons to improve our people and processes for the future.

In computer software and hardware you can never promise there will not be issues, but you can promise you will provide your clients with a world class service that pro-actively handles situations in a professional and flexible manner. I want to share some of the actions we are taking this week in our mission to create UKFast Raving Fans.

Our National Customer Service Week Plan:

• Present ‘Service Superstar’ awards to our greatest service advocates. This includes all our staff. We don’t just serve our clients, we serve each other. We want to reward the supportive, passionate, professional and consistent members of our team and promote them as role models.
• Produce a book of “UKFast – Service Stories To Sing About”. A collection of UKFast staff comments on which companies they love and why. The title may change once I’ve spoken with our PR team!
• Run a set of workshops with staff to draft a set of client promises also known as a customer credo.
• Visit some local clients for donut drop-offs to simply say “hello” and ask them the three most important customer service things to them.
• Produce a video of all our service activities and release it as a summary for everyone to view online.
• Deliver improvements to our internal tools and processes. Our clients and marketing team may not rave about this milestone. But, world class service is not just the product of polite professional staff. Companies require a flexible infrastructure to deliver to client expectations.

Steven Tyler of Aerosmith once sung that ‘life is a journey not a destination’. Customer service is a journey and we’ve hit a new crossroads. There is a tremendous energy focussed on steering us down the road filled with Raving Fans where we over deliver and ensure we are continually improving our service. I feel like I’ve been handed the keys to an Aston Martin with a few scratches, but thankfully it’s full of fuel and each time I press the accelerator my smile turns into a boyish grin. We are measuring our service, we are passionate about great service and we are committed to taking action to continually improve our service. With these three key ingredients it is going to be one fantastic ride.

Ross Keeping

Head of Customer Service

The R&D team here at UKFast have been working behind the scenes making all of our lives easier, as usual; and ensuring we can sleep easy at night knowing for sure that our solutions are working correctly. We’re constantly increasing the number of services and applications we can monitor and also making the reporting off the back of the alerting more and more advanced.

Here’s a little snapshot of what we’re monitoring these days and whether this monitoring is “basic” or “advanced”.

Basic monitoring essentially means we are just checking if something is responding (but does not guarantee the service is 100% operational) and is a good basic and simple check.

The Advanced checks go into a bit more detail and check for specific responses, values or limits.

DNS                      Basic                Monitor DNS service is up
FTP                       Basic                Monitor FTP service is up
HTTP                    Basic                 Monitor Port 80 (http) is up
HTTPS                 Basic                 Monitor Port 443 (https) is up
IMAP                     Basic                Monitor IMAP is up
MySQL                 Basic                 Monitor MySQL is up
Ping                      Basic                 Monitor device is up
POP3                    Basic                 Monitor POP3 is up
SMTP                    Basic                Monitor SMTP is up
JBOSS                  Basic                Monitor JBOSS is up on port 8080
SQL                       Basic                Monitor MSSQL is up
UKFSQL               Basic                Monitor MSSQL is up on port 1334
PROCESS            Basic                Monitor a process is running
MYSQLCONN      Advanced       Monitor the number of MySQL connections (warning can be issued at 2 thresholds)
MYSQLREPL       Advanced       Monitor MySQL replication delay (warning can be issue at 2 separate thresholds)
URL                       Advanced       Monitor a URL (supports both HTTP & HTTPS and can check for contents on page)

Not only can we monitor all of the above with no difficulty, but our IT Director has also laid down the gauntlet stating that he believes that there is nothing in a server that we cannot monitor!

The revelation came just days before the ICO acquired new powers to impose up to a £500,000 fine for a data breach. However, if the people at Zurich thought they’d got off with a written warning and some public shame, they were wrong.

The UK operation of Zurich Insurance has been fined £2.27m by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) for losing personal details of 46,000 customers. This is the highest fine levied on a single firm for data security failings.

Margaret Cole, the FSA’s director of enforcement and financial crime, said: “Zurich UK let its customers down badly.”

The data on policyholders, including in some cases bank account and credit card information, went missing in August 2008.  However, Zurich did not become aware of the loss until a year later, and only then began notifying customers.

The FSA said in a statement: “Zurich UK failed to take reasonable care to ensure it had effective systems and controls to manage the risks relating to the security of customer data resulting from the outsourcing arrangement.

The size of this fine should send a signal to all those responsible for ensuring the security of customer data that the authorities will crack down hard on any data loss.

Up until now too many companies and organisations have failed to take data loss seriously.  This has largely stemmed from the fact that data protection law has never really had any bite to it. Up until now that is…

The use of an information security management system certified to the ISO27001 standard is a simple way to ensure: encryption of data, password protection, and measures to prevent large files from being downloaded to external devices.

Organisations employing the use of third parties for their hosting or data storage requirements (e.g. UKFast) must insure that such organisations are suitably qualified and secure – as UKFast are with ISO27001 certification across all of its operations.

All data custodians must make certain that they have a suitable information security management system in place to ensure adequate security controls.

The survey, carried out by Texas-based security company SailPoint Technologies Inc., questioned over 1,000 UK workers.

The research shows that 53% of workers would take some company property with them – such as office stationery – while 23% admitted they would also take company data with them.

However, the motive does not appear to be monetary gain. The survey asked the workers what they would do if they were given access to a confidential file by mistake. While 57% said they would look at the file, only 1% said they would attempt to sell the information.

Jackie Gilbert, vice president of marketing for SailPoint, said, “It poses a problem for companies, as they tend to keep their intellectual property in electronic form – customer lists, sales plans, production pipelines, even software.”

She said it remains a “moral grey area” that employers need to clarify. “Companies need to be more heavy-handed with policy and education. They should make people aware that the company’s policy absolutely forbids this. If you make the policy explicit and make it clear you will be monitoring to enforce it, it has a psychological impact,” Gilbert said.

She added that companies tend to allow users access to more information than they need. “You tend to get entitlement creep. Someone gets a new job so they just acquire the same privileges as some similar workers. You end up giving people far more access than they really need. It’s common because it is hard to manage,” she said.

This could prove particularly concerning amongst third party services such as managed  hosting and it is for this reason that UKFast employs the controls set out in the ISO 27001 information security standard.

As well as providing a blueprint for managing how much information users can access, ISO 27001 also provides a checklist of actions employers should take when employees leave. This includes making sure all equipment is returned as well as sending out a letter to remind the former employee that terms of confidentiality and information ownership still apply, even after they have left the company.

After interviewing 2,000 online consumers, ecommerce trading solutions provider eCommera found that nearly half of consumers (42 per cent) prefer to buy from an aggregated online retailer offering a choice of brands. Just 13.6 per cent of shoppers actually go directly to a brand’s website with one-stop shops such as Amazon their preferred first point of call.

Despite brand building inspiring trust among consumers, ultimately convenience appears to be the main incentive for shoppers online.

The report also revealed that consumers are more likely to visit a website that is recommended by family or friends, with word of mouth one of the two key factors in online browsing. While 7 out of 10 identified personal recommendations as influential to their decision, just 21 per cent said advertising on TV, radio and print had played a part and 35 per cent of consumers said Google search is one of the top two factors when choosing a website to buy products online.

Fortunately for H&M and Zara, the brand’s high street presence was cited as the second most important factor by 46 per cent of those surveyed.

H&M’s online store will go live on 16 September and will sell clothing for men, women and children as well as soft furnishings, which are currently unavailable in its 168 UK high-street stores. Zara will also complement its 65 UK stores by selling fashion online for the first time.

The industry regulator has discovered that the average customer is now charged for a speed of up to 11.5 mbit/s, but receives just 5.2 mbit/s.

For over a decade UKFast has been focussed on the importance of speed online and as such we were relatively unsurprised by Google’s revelation that speed plays a part in SEO. Google webmaster’s blog states: “Like us, our users place a lot of value in speed – that’s why we’ve decided to take site speed into account in our search rankings.”

However if we are to listen to the latest from Ofcom, it seems that irrespective of Google’s attempts to prioritise companies with fast page load speeds, many internet users are still facing a frustratingly slow experience when surfing the web.

Ofcom’s research has also revealed that the majority of customers questioned now consider broadband to be “as essential as a utility” and that users of Orange and BT broadband packages routinely receive less than one-third of the speeds they were paying for at peak times.

As a leading hosting provider, we understand the importance of having the right tools for the job. If top broadband speeds are to be achieved, companies need a firm foundation on which to build their network, and this is what the government has been promising the UK for some time.

Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who is ultimately responsible for broadband, has recently delayed a commitment for a universal broadband service of 2 mbit/s until 2015, pushing it back from 2012.

The Government maintains, however, that Britain will have “the best broadband network in Europe” by the end of the parliament. Mr Hunt has promised that the focus will be on the next-generation of fibre networks, which BT has said it will deliver to two-thirds of the country by 2015.

Essentially it is still very much open for debate whose responsibility it is to keep the web running at top speed. However, at UKFast we are keen to grab the bull by its horns and work with web based companies, broadband providers and the government alike to create an infrastructure which ensures top speeds online.

If you want to find out more about how we are planning to build online Britain or apply for a £1000 hosting fund, check out the details of our ‘Growth Through Innovation’ fund.

As bargain-hunting reaches fever pitch, it is estimated that web sales now account for 33p of every £1 spent in the summer sales.

With 62 per cent of consumers quizzed reporting that buying online is less hassle than on the high street, avoiding the stress of crowds and long queues seems to be the greatest pull of online shopping.

Grabbing the best bargains also appears to be a cause for the migration online, with 53 per cent of shoppers believing that web sales offer more choice and better discounts.

Highlighting the change in shopping patterns encouraged by the unstable economic climate, in addition to shopping online, users also appear to be spending longer researching purchases with the busiest online shopping day arriving over a month after the sales began.

With the report by Opinion Matters for Kelkoo finding that 51 per cent of consumers believe there is ultimately a better range of products available online, it is not surprising that Accessorize is the latest High Street store to launch a standalone website this week.

HMV has also unveiled its attempt to diversify its entertainment brand with the launch of a new digital download service, HMV Digital. Complementing its nationwide stores, the download service will see the brand challenge Apple’s iTunes in the digital download market.

After the coalition government abandoned plans to roll out nationwide broadband fibre in its emergency budget, BT has now revealed that the actual cost to realise the government’s vision would be around £2bn.

With the cost of delivering basic broadband in rural areas also expected to rocket, there is little money, except for the £175m allocated from the Digital Switchover, to fund the roll out.

Consequently, Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has suggested that a more realistic target for achieving universal 2 Mbps access will be in the lifetime of the Parliament rather than 2012 as originally suggested.

Unfortunately without the suggested £2bn, Britain can only expect to fall further behind Scandinavia, Germany and the Netherlands in the super-fast broadband league if someone doesn’t step in.

Supporting the results of our recent round table on Building Online Britain, the government is therefore placing the onus on the industry to drive this forward. Although industry experts decided a collective approach is better for growing the UK’s online offering, it was widely regarded that businesses, entrepreneurs and educational institutions should be left to develop things with little government input.

Despite firms like Rutland Telecom taking the initiative and raising money from householders to improve broadband services, resistance from BT et al means that it may be an uphill battle to reach the two million homes needed though.

As grandparents join social media sites as a new way to connect with their family and friends, the presence of over 50s online has resulted in a five per cent increase in the total number of UK online users.

With 14 million images uploaded to Facebook every day, social networking sites have become a valuable resource connecting older generations with the outside world.

Behind community sites, the 50-plus internet audience is also interested in health and videos online, with RealAge and Flixxy possessing the largest market share, according to the recent study.

In the research by UKOM almost two million more Britons were shown to have gone online since May 2009, totaling 38.8million. While men over 50 were found to show the largest growth, accounting for 38 per cent of all new users, women over 50 represented just 15 per cent of new users followed closely by women aged 21- 34 (14 per cent) and females aged between 12-20 (12 per cent).

As this study demonstrates the increasing value of the Grey Pound, a number of industries, in particular travel, are already showing a desire to take advantage.

The Times is taking a tiered approach to the paywall. Currently, it does not cost us to read news from the site, but we must register. Already this is causing a fairly substantial drop in traffic according to the data collected by Hitwise, the Experian owned web monitor.

Early indications suggest that the site, which has always ranked in competition with rivals like the Telegraph and the Guardian, has in a matter of weeks lost visitor share to fall into line with less busy websites such as the Independent, the Mirror and the FT. A steady decline over the last two weeks has seen the sites traffic share reduce by more than 50% in comparison to its position at the start of this month.

Looking at the data, the Telegraph appears to have benefited from the new registration process the most out of the other dailies. Although, downstream data from thetimes.co.uk shows that a quarter of all traffic is going direct to register. The question is – how many of those are completing the process and going on to read the news and how many of these will be willing to continue doing that when they also have to pay for it?

It will be interesting to see whether further developments drop the Times below the FT.com which already has a paywall in place for much of its news. The FT being more niche in its content could have the upper hand.

We’ll keep an eye on this and let you know more results once the paywall has gone in place.

While green IT and the National Programme for IT took a back seat in George Osborne’s economic plans, the IT industry has emerged relatively unscathed from the coalition’s first budget.

IT entrepreneurs in particular look to benefit from an increase in their tax free income allowance, as the government hopes to combat public spending cuts with tax breaks for the private sector. A concern close to our own hearts, these tax incentives will help to keep talent in the UK and compete on a global level. The commitment to review tax regulation around intellectual property and technological research and development will also enhance the competitiveness of the UK.

Additional positive effects of the Budget will see the capital gains tax rate of 10 per cent for entrepreneurs extended from the first £2million to £5million. North West start ups will also enjoy a holiday from national insurance contributions for their first year of business for the first 10 employees.

Chancellor George Osborne has confirmed that the 50p a month landline tax will also be scrapped with the onus for rolling-out super-fast broadband placed back on the private sector.

Despite an obvious focus on encouraging growth within the industry over the next five years, the Chancellor did announce that the Northwest Regional Development Agency will have many of its powers stripped in lieu of a new ‘local enterprise partnership’. Private sector initiatives such as UKFast’s ‘Growth Through Innovation’ scheme will therefore become more important than ever for aspiring SMEs.

Following its influential role in Barack Obama’s 2008 US election campaign, the key party leaders have all identified Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as ways to engage new voters.

From The Conservative Party’s ad takeover of the YouTube homepage today to Labour’s application which enables supporters to update their Facebook and Twitter status, this general election has identified how important this new medium is to political campaigning.

While the first ever election TV debates drew audiences in excess of 10 million, social networking has engaged audiences on a global scale providing a critical arena where politicians are questioned directly by those entering the polling stations and not just in the studio audience.

By identifying online opportunities through their media specialists Windfall Media, the Liberal Democrats (who boasted the most Facebook friends) felt they were able to better understand the online audience and their needs. As a result of listening to voters through blogs, forums and micro-communities, ultimately they felt more able to convey their message. Whether they have done this effectively remains to be seen…

Of course with the benefits social media has brought there have also been repercussions, with candidates falling foul of inappropriate tweeting and the immediacy and transparency social media offers.

Fundamentally, as users become increasingly concerned with engaging with each other, and disinterested with the political parties who represent them, Twitter and Facebook have given the power back to the voters and now must be an essential part of any election campaign.

Experts are largely attributing the shift to the security concerns surrounding IE, combined with the successful advertising and ever faster new releases from Google. That’s right; it seems speed is an important factor yet again.

While Internet Explorer held a huge 95 per cent of the market share in 2003, today’s study reveals that it now has only 60 per cent.

Google Chrome however may have a comparatively small 6.7 per cent of the market, but this marks a vast increase on the 1.7 per cent they held last year.

Gartner researcher Jeffrey Mann said there could be several reasons behind the demise of internet explorer.

“There are more viable alternatives now.” he said, “Google has been advertising and there is just a great awareness that there are alternatives.”

He went on to say that the recent security issues with IE 6 could have also played a role as many people using this version of the browser were advised to find an alternative.

“There were a lot of people using IE6 and some will have said that if they are going to change, they may as well look at some alternatives,” he stated.

With Google advertising Chrome heavily, and the “browser ballot” in Europe offering millions of consumers the chance to change their browser easily, it is clear to see why the market has begun to shift.

The news of this shift has proved to be rather timely as Google announced the release of another, even speedier Chrome offering earlier this week.

According to Google, the new beta version represents a 30 to 35 per cent rise in performance across the two of the most important browser benchmarks, the V8 Benchmark Suite and the SunSpider Benchmark.

Seth Rosenblatt of CNET said in his review of the new Chrome release: “Chrome 4 is blazingly fast, more stable than previous versions, and introduces support for extensions, bookmark syncing, and some HTML5 innovations.”

He continued: “Chrome’s interface is a drastic departure from other browsers. Minimal design with sophisticated technology make the Web faster, safer, and easier.” And it seems that these qualities are exactly what customers are now demanding of their internet browsers.

Jeffrey Mann feels that Microsoft may remain dominant in the browser market for quite some time, however he predicts a “long, slow rise” for rivals to Internet Explorer.

According to a blog post published on Friday, faster sites not only improve user experience and reduce operating costs, but now thanks to Google, appear higher in search rankings.

While changes to the algorithm are usually closely guarded, the transparency of this latest update offers a refreshing insight into Google’s attempt to create a better experience for users.

With research suggesting that even a half-second delay can encourage users to look elsewhere, speeding up websites has been confirmed as an essential factor in customer retention and helping site owners achieve that elusive page 1 spot. If only someone had figured this out before…

Already in place for US searches, speed will now be considered across the board. As you would expect, relevance will still weigh most heavily but it is great to see that Google is encouraging other businesses to take speed and in turn the customer experience very seriously.

For more information, visit http://code.google.com/speed.

With UKFast’s network consistently rated as the fastest by Webperf, visit http://www.ukfast.co.uk/fast-host.html to find out how you can take advantage of Google’s latest change.

Travel experts at the UKFast round table

Earlier this week we held a very illuminating round table discussion on the travel industry online at UKFast’s offices in City Tower Manchester.

Bringing in experts from around the UK, we had:

• Joel Brandon Bravo, UK MD of TravelZoo
• Richard Nash, business director at CSI Media
• James Brooke, MD of Rooster
• Brian Povey, tourism project manager, Mersey Partnership
• Lawrence Jones, MD of UKFast

With a wealth of experience from non-conflicted areas of the industry we were able to have an open and comprehensive debate about the development of travel since the advent of the web.

It’s an incredible industry to profile. One of the fastest growing and quickest to adopt new technologies, travel has set pace for e-commerce online and experienced a more extensive online development than others.

And the general consensus was that the industry is in a saturated state with real change needed. Not because of the last few years of global recession but because of a lack of exclusivity and an evolution that has removed consumer trust.

With the collapse of XL, last year saw consumers return in droves to the trusted brands of the high street, they still brought their travel online in growing proportions, but they did it with the likes of Thomas Cook and Thomson. A growing fear of online travel brands – and there are thousands of them – has made it a tough environment to operate in.

That is, unless you are offering a level of exclusivity. According to our experts, finding a niche has been one way to continue growing. We shouldn’t forget that the web grew in its infancy through the opportunities it brought for every single niche project to reach a large audience. The travel industry appears now to be recognising this potential. It is forecast to be one of the hottest strategies for 2010.

The big question is – how do you create exclusivity in an industry where hundreds of other companies could be offering the same package, flight, weekend, hotel…?

I’d love to hear people’s thoughts on this.

You can read more about the round table in the UKFast press office.

However, proving that no businesses can do without any advertising, notoriously ad shy Google has just launched a major global campaign.

The search engine giant is famous for building its empire with very little advertising. It was a rare example of a unique product that does an excellent job and therefore ‘sells itself’. But now the “Gone Google” multi media campaign is an attempt to steal away Microsoft business applications customers.

The campaign line “Gone Google” refers to the 1.7m businesses that the company claims have embraced its services, the Guardian reports.

“It is the first and very highly visible integrated ad campaign that we have run,” said Dave Armstrong, head of marketing for Google Enterprise for Europe, Middle East and Africa. “Gone Google is a concept that we are at a tipping point where you [businesses] need to move to a new model. Look at how Google has brought products to the enterprise market, we have done it differently than some of the other competitors.”

The ad campaign reflects the fact that even the Google brand name is not enough when venturing into new markets. Google apps are not its core search engine offering, so users’ acceptance is not guaranteed. They need to be convinced.

Ironically, much of Google’s advertising campaign will use traditional media, such as print and billboard.

In a similar vein, UKFast has been embracing more traditional marketing avenues recently. As a web hosting business we do most of our advertising online. However, last week UKFast was the main attraction at Ecommerce Expo in London.

The show represented a significant investment in offline marketing for us but it was a major success for the business. We met face to face with around 2,000 potential clients and partners of the future and the UKFast brand will certainly resonate even more amongst those engage in ecommerce going forward.

What our attendance at Ecommerce Expo 2009 shows is that when planned and targeted, offline marketing can still be very effective.

The staggeringly large figure reinforces just how incredibly popular YouTube is and it shows that online video is a powerful media for today and for tomorrow.

A billion hits is the equivalent to one in six of all people on Earth visiting the site on a daily basis. In reality the figure does not represent an audience of a billion, instead the viewing numbers will be in the no less impressive millions but that in its self reflects the powerful draw that YouTube now commands. Consider everyone you know who uses the Internet and ponder how many of them never visit the YouTube site. The answer is probably very few.

The reasons for the online channel’s popularity are numerous. Specific content draws a deliberate audience but perhaps the most important factor is the incidental audience. That is those who are draw in by videos and video links posted on other sites. In fact, if we consider our own use of YouTube, probably more often that not we find ourselves on the site without having consciously wanting to end up their when we started browsing.

This indicates the power that streamed video content has to engage the online audience and its potential for boosting visitors to our own sites. UKFast has an in-house film department that’s main purpose is to populate ukfast.co.uk with quality video content.

We have dedicated resources to this endeavour for many years now because we understand the value online video offers. Our videos are very popular but they also uniquely offer a window into our business and the people that make our business tick. They help to show the human face of the company.

YouTube enjoys a significant incidental audience but the reverse can also be true. UKFast has its own YouTube section where all of our videos are posted. Currently, there are hundreds of UKFast titles on the site with a viewing audience of thousands. So YouTube has become a window on UKFast.

If a picture can speak a thousand words, then in 2009 a YouTube streamed video can reach a billion minds (nearly!).

The news reflects the fact that Google continues to be on the up. Microsoft’s Bing briefly made a small dent but seems to be on the decline again, while Yahoo is struggling with a fight back (adverts have started appearing on British TV!). However, many think that their efforts are for nought because Google’s dominance is entrenched.

And don’t be fooled that this is just the result of critical mass. Despite its lofty position, Google is not resting. It continues to innovate to keep its offering fresh and relevant to its user’s requirements today.

The firm has recently added social media posts to its search returns to provide an enhance range of results for users and soon it will introduce electronic books. Furthermore, Google has undertaken a great deal of research into the effects of speed on the user experience, finding that faster is better. Read more on the importance of speed to the user experience online.

In addition to all of this, Google’s impressive profits boost is also a reflection of a strengthening advertising market. Across the world online has been the only growth sector in the advertising market during the recession, while in the UK it has just overtaken TV for total spend. So with Google’s dominance of the pay per click sector, the future continues to forecast rising profits.

Associated articles: Google UK revenues up to £466m

Well they say variety is the spice of life and it terms of delivering a wide scope of options, including social media would be a good thing. This move also allows Google to seem current and with the times as it acknowledges the importance and popularity of social media. At the very least it offers a useful search tool for use on the networking sites themselves.

On the other hand, with literally billions of web pages available, we all know the internet is also crammed full of useless information and all too often we have to filter through it to find what we want. Would linking to social networking opinion threads represent the latest version of this dross?

To give Google and alike their due, the accuracy of their searches is good. They know that presenting users with poor search returns would be bad for business, so relevancy is a major factor for them. This therefore should ensure that what social media additions they make should be pretty relevant and this can only enhance the options available.

The key is maintaining clarity in the presentation of the results. As long as the user knows that they are opinion posts to discussion threads etc, they are empowered to continue to assess the information presented as before.

So variety and more information have to be good things, as long as they are displayed in the right way – and that is surely the goal for any website at any time.

It is no secret that commercial broadcasters have been struggling to maintain revenues with the recession taking its toll. However, the economic downturn does not fully answer the story. Even before the difficult financial times hit home, TV’s ad revenue was already under siege from the rapidly growing Internet market.

To a certain degree the Internet is beating TV at its own game by placing ads on web streamed videos but the online route to the viewer also offers other benefits that TV advertising cannot. This includes targeted ads and click-through ads, and this is to not mention the impact of unique online advertising phenomena such as pay per click.

So, in the first six months of this year 23.5% of all ad spend in the UK was taken by online forms while television commanded just 21.9%.

To date the world’s other major markets have not matched the UK’s milestone. In the US, online ads make up 15.4% of the total market and still trail TV, while globally the web advertising figure stands at 13.2%.

So the UK leads the way in Internet advertising. It seems that our commercial sector is ahead of the curve in appreciating the enhanced opportunities to connect with potential customers that web advertising offers. And while TV is just about holding on in the rest of the world, it is surely only a matter of time before online overtakes TV across the globe.

associated articles: Online advertising ‘overtakes TV’

Despite all the top flight football teams, cricket, ice hockey and rugby league in the Manchester area, Guinness Premiership outfit Sale Sharks match days are officially the best hospitality for meeting real industry heavyweights.

It seems that the difference is the shape of the ball on the field. Rugby attracts the decision makers of business more than football, or any other sport for that matter, and its hospitality costs less. So investing in Sharks hospitality delivers an unmatched ROI.

And it’s not just about getting an opportunity to meet Manchester’s boardroom fillers. Hospitality at the Sharks is legendary for providing a fantastic experience. In addition to prime match seats in the corporate box, attendees receive a three-course meal in the exclusive Insider Suite and, unlike football, get the chance to meet the players after the game.

UKFast is the new main sponsor of the Sale Sharks and as such will be enjoying 28 hospitality seats per home game for the coming season. It all kicks-off this Friday against current champions Leicester Tigers.

UKFast clients can select a match at which to join us by fill in a hospitality form here:http://pdf.ukfast.net/sharks_fixtures09-10.pdf. Meanwhile, for more information on UKFast’s sponsorship of the Sale Sharks visit: http://www.ukfast.co.uk/sale-sharks-press-area.html.

Anyone with a great idea for an online business can get the chance to benefit from six months of free hosting from the UK’s fastest hosting provider by entering the UKFastTrack. However, they must apply by August 31st, that’s just weeks away.

We have already had many applications from entrepreneurs with brilliant ideas for online businesses and we are getting very excited about picking out five finalists in September.

For those of you who are not totally clued up on the UKFastTrack here are the competition details:

Five lucky finalists will be selected in September from all of the applications received by Aug 31st 09. These finalists will be given a super-fast UKFast SEO Server and associated hosting support for free for six months. That means £15,000 worth of free hosting infrastructure to help the online entrepreneurs to get their ideas off the ground.

After six months, the winner will be the business that enjoys the largest growth over the duration of the competition and their prize will be a further six months free hosting with UKFast.

If you have a winning idea for an online business don’t miss out on this fantastic opportunity to get industry-leading hosting for free. Visit the UKFastTrack web page to apply now.

Finalists will benefit from using the UKFast SEO Server. This is a bespoke server designed to deliver consistently rapid speed. Speed is vital to success online because it delivers high Google rankings and happy customers. And having a faster website than your competitors can make all the difference to your business. Find out more about the SEO Server and how it can help you business to succeed.

But what is Google Love?

Google Love: (Goo gle Love)|goo:gul:luv|noun

What your business experiences when you align it with Google’s speed model. Result – better Google rankings, better quality score, lower PPC costs, more traffic, longer visit duration, more pages visited, more likely to buy, more likely to return.

Phrase: I want my business to have Google Love.

Google Love is what your business experiences when it delivers the attributes that Google believes are key to giving the end users a fantastic experience.

Central to this is speed. The faster your website loads the more Google Love you receive and that could mean that your search links appear higher that rivals who have spent more on their Adword terms.

Find out how to achieve Google Love

Many UKFast clients are enjoying the warm enveloping feeling of Google Love right now. This includes a growth in traffic of 300% in a month for one and a 300% sales growth in just a week for another.

Read about more unbelievable achievements UKFast clients are getting with the speed of our network and the attainment of Google Love.

Watch UKFast clients talking about achieving Google Love through speed.

Therefore, fast hosting can deliver high Google rankings and extremely happy customers. And that means repeat customers, more traffic and bigger profits. And if you host with the fastest around you get a competitive edge on your rivals. An edge than could deliver 300% sales growth in a week. Just ask UKFast client Top Furniture.

After switching to a rapid UKFast server on the high speed UKFast network Top Furniture experienced a phenomenal 300% increase in revenues in just seven days. And they are not the only ones to experience impressive growth with a super-speedy UKFast solution.

All Join On increased site traffic 300% inside the first two months after switching to UKFast, while Lets Stay Together improved to a page 1 Google ranking within six weeks of launch thanks to its faster website.

Read more on how fast hosting can make all the difference to your online business at http://www.ukfast.co.uk/results.html.

And don’t forget what Google has to say on the subject:
Google states that:

• A 0.5 second delay in the page load speed of your website can reduce traffic by 20%.
• A 30% increase in page load speed can result in a 30% increase in customers.
• It’s fair to say that a speedy site will rank better (it’s true for adverts, as well).

The move is an attempt to achieve greater communication between the various national and international agencies and the business and IT worlds to deliver a more intuitive and responsive defence.

An Office of Cyber Security (OCS) will be established in Whitehall, while a Cyber Security Operations Centre (CSOC) will be placed in Cheltenham. Their remit will be to create a united and coherent UK response to the cyber threat.

The news, in conjunction with President Obama’s recent announcements of similar action in the States, represents a significant shift in thinking by governments to a realisation of just how costly cyber crime is.

US President Barack Obama said the cyber threat was “one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation”. Now Gordon Brown’s Government is also catching on.

And a co-ordinated approach is the right course of action. Information is power and we can empower each other by sharing knowledge of cyber crime activity. Furthermore, our online systems are linked so points of weakness can potentially expose us all.

And we are not talking about insignificant operations. The web is now home to big business with millions of pounds traded every day online (adding up to an estimated UK total in 2009 of £68.4 billion). Access to critical infrastructure such as energy and banking networks are also now accessibly online.

This is why tackling cyber crime is vitally important. The potential disruption is huge. So it is gratifying that the UK government, in conjunction with others, is starting to give the issue the focus it needs. But let’s not leave it just to them. We can all play our part by ensuring our systems are fully protected. After all, it benefits us as well.

At UKFast we believe that every business trading on the internet should receive a high level of security at infrastructure level. You can find out more at: http://www.ukfast.co.uk/secure-your-business.html.

The UKFastTrack offers budding entrepreneurs a golden opportunity to give their business idea the best possible start by providing £15,000 worth of top-class hosting support. This includes the use of our revolutionary new SEO Servers, which are built for speed, and our industry-leading technical and marketing support.

We believe the SEO Servers can make the difference between success and failure and the web is buzzing with excitement amongst would-be internet entrepreneurs wanting to test it out. For a taste of the interest check out the UKFast discussion page on Twitter. News of the competition is also spreading amongst online business media as a result of our high-profile launch at the British Grand Prix last week: http://www.startups.co.uk/6678842909712360167/hunt-is-on-for-next-web-success.html.

For anyone not yet up to speed on the rules of the competition, the UKFastTrack will see five finalists selected from an open application process by a UKFast panel in September. The competing candidates will then get six months to build up their businesses using the power of the SEO Servers. The winner will be the business that enjoys the largest growth over the duration of the competition and their prize will be a further six months free hosting with UKFast.

Applications are already flooding in, so to make sure you don’t miss out on a chance to kick-start your business with free hosting from the industry leader, go to http://www.ukfast.co.uk/ukfasttrack.html.

UKFast is at the British Formula 1 Grand Prix today for the first of three days of fun with clients. However, it’s not just about enjoying top class motor sport. The fastest racing cars in the world also form the perfect backdrop to UKFast’s launch of the fastest servers available in the UK.

Today UKFast’s senior management have unveiled the SEO Server, a custom designed hosting unit that is perfect for powering internet business growth. The new hardware, which is guaranteed to revolutionise business online, has everything an operation needs to quickly make a success of their web venture.

It’s most important attribute is its fantastic speed. And that means the SEO Server is perfect for quickly establishing high Google rankings and a large, loyal customer base.

Why is this? Well Google rewards websites that deliver a positive user experience and the search giant rates quick loading sites as the most important factor in a good experience. Similarly, customers are more likely to stay loyal to an online business that gives them a consistently swift service. In fact did you know that a 30% increase in page load speed can result in a 30% increase in customers? Or that 51% of web customers abandon slow loading pages?

We are excited about the difference the SEO Server will have and to make sure everyone knows about it we have also launched today the UKFastTrack, a search for the next big online business venture.

The UKFastTrack will give ten entrepreneurs six months free hosting with a SEO Server and associated support worth in the region of £15,000. The ten finalists will be selected from an open application process which starts today! The winner will be the business that enjoys the largest sustained growth over the duration of the competition and their prize will be a further six months free hosting with UKFast.

For more information on how the SEO Server is set to transform the face of online business or to enter the UKFastTrack competition, visit http://www.ukfast.co.uk/seo-hosting-server.html.

Seriously, the Economist Intelligence Unit global liveability survey (a very highly regarded authority) has classed Manchester as the top UK city to live and work in. Out of a list of 140 worldwide cities scrutinised in the review, Manchester came 46^th, while London was only 51^st. Vancouver was top with Vienna a close second. Manchester also beat New York, Milan and Rome.

The news is fantastic to read as it helps to further put Manchester on the map. At UKFast we have been at the heart of the digital revolution in Manchester and have been talking our great city up for many years. So this is a great help to that cause.

Manchester is definitely the exciting focus for the bourgeoning North West hot bed of media and online talent and business. Soon the city will welcome cohorts of BBC departments to its new Media City in the heavily redeveloped Salford Quays, while the city centre is already the home to many major international companies including Adidas, AIG, Bank of New York and Google.

The city is also a great place to live with a fantastic restaurant and night-life culture, iconic music venues and excellent sports and leisure facilities.

So a combination of Manchester and our newly achieved lofty position of 31 in The Times Best Companies to Work For list makes UKFast a great place to be in 2009.

Source: TheBusinessDesk.com

Apparently, we have become quite savvy about spotting email threats, so the scammers and malware purveyors are turning to new fertile ground on sites such as Facebook and Bebo.

Advice for staying safe when social networking ranges from not responding to unusual email alerts, to not accepting friend requests from people you don’t know. However, this week I read an article which highlighted a much more fundamental potential security risk users could be exposing themselves to.

The risk is identity theft and it is all to do with what personal details we put on our profiles. Many organisations, such as some banks, rely on our personal information to verify who we are. Things such as date of birth, middle name, pet’s name etc.

This is exactly the sort of information we offer up on our social networking personal pages. On Facebook for example, you can have your full date of birth (and therefore age) displayed.  Cyber criminals can easily harvest this information to attempt to commit identity fraud. So the obvious advice here is to not put your full date of birth on the profile page.

Taking the point into a wider context, identity fraud is a serious matter for businesses. Companies have a responsibility to protect their customers’ sensitive details, while on the other side customers will not give their business to those they cannot trust.

As a hosting provider, we at UKFast hold very sensitive data, so our security needs to be impeccable. We operate state-of-the-art data centres that boast best-of-breed multi-layered security measures and we have a unique password protection system in place for every client. So we wont be asking our clients their date of birth!

Google, in fact, suggests that speed is the most important factor of all in determining search engine results making it therefore vital for online businesses to ensure they have the server infrastructure that can deliver consistent top performances.

Apparently, the speed that your website loads by can vary from browser to browser, that is why the major players have been battling it out in the quickness stakes with Chrome and Internet Explored both bringing out recent research that suggests that they are the speediest.

However, the browser selected is irrelevant if web traders opt for second rate hosting. UKFast prides itself on having the fastest network in the UK. If you want to check out the speed of your site to see if your business is being harmed by a lack of server grunt visit the UKFast home page at www.ukfast.co.uk.

Meanwhile, Google’s Chrome continues to battle with the likes of the afore-mentioned IE, Firefox and Safari for browser supremacy. User reviews indicate that Chrome has got the speed x-factor but it still lacks the usability and toys of the more mature offerings.

In May last year there was uproar when Google announced that it was changing its rules to allow paid search ad bidders to bid on rival trademarks. The development was highly controversial because it effectively allowed companies to highjack the traffic heading for their rivals, thus undermining the rivals’ hard earned market profile.

One of the few crumbs of comfort the 2008 changes offered was that bidders would not be allowed to use rival trademark words in their Google search ads. So at least a searcher would not be confused by seeing the company name they wanted in what turned out to be a rival’s ad and link.

But that crumb has now disintegrated. Now barely a year later and Google has decided to flex its might again by allowing the use of trademarked words in ads. This means firms now face the prospect of Google searchers inputting their name and getting a top result containing said name prominently BUT the link will be to a bitter rival!

How many searchers will just click the link oblivious to the intricacies of the situation?

The developments represent a fresh round of worry for businesses and potentially more Google advertising expenses. So how can the search titan justify it?

Well, Google says that it all goes to giving the user a better experience and the accuracy of search returns will actually be even better. Part of this argument has merit. The new rules will allow retailers to use the trademark names of the brands they sell, so better representing their products to searchers.

However, many would argue the real reason lies within the recent concession by Ari Balogh, Yahoo’s chief technology officer, that Google has clearly won the search engine game.

The defeatist revelation comes as Balogh says that Yahoo is looking into social networking as a new expansion frontier. It also shows that Google’s market dominance is such that it has the luxury of dictating terms to business clients.

Whichever way you see it, the result can be said to be another positive step for Google!

But I wasn’t sure. Twitter’s format seemed so limited that I struggled to see the commercial viability. Many companies have a Twitter presence. In fact figures now suggest that the majority of firms now have some sort of Twitter account. But is this just lip service?

Others have their doubts too. In its April edition EN magazine argues that Twitter does not offer the marketer anything new and that phone and email are still stronger communication tools.

Then there is the debate over the future of Twitter itself. New research suggests that after the first month Twitter loses about 60% of its new users. This attrition rate is much higher than for other forms of social media and it worryingly suggests that the rapid blogging site’s user numbers may be widely overstated.

There are many well know companies with Twitter profiles but these are set up as free accounts just as an individual would use the service. The do not represent income for Twitter.

So, as one commentator has stated, is Twitter trying to saddle the commercial horse after it has bolted out of the stable? If companies are happy to use Twitter as a marketing message board for free and with concerns over real user numbers, can Twitter really be effectively commercialised.

Maybe the venture capitalists backing the service also don’t really believe its commercial potential. Maybe they are just hedging their bets on someone like Facebook offering to buy Twitter for big money with its own misguided belief that it can generate revenues from Twitter!

So I remain unconvinced. Just because an online platform proves popular does not necessarily mean it will be commercial success. If anyone, the real winners are likely to be the businesses that use Twitter for free to post links back to their real online commercial tool – their own website.

In terms of pure visitor numbers the likes of YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are undoubted giants of the internet but all are yet to successfully convert their popularity into commercial gain.

YouTube for example is predicted to have 375 million unique visitors in 2009 by Credit Suisse but the Google owned video streaming site is also predicted to make a loss of $470m by the same banking organisation.

Not the idea ecommerce model!

Making money from sites such as YouTube, Facebook etc. is immediately hampered by their high running costs. If you have millions of visitors requesting video or interactive features you need lots of servers and lots of broadband capacity.

Going back to the YouTube figures, Credit Suisse calculates that it will spend $360 million on bandwidth costs this year because of 75 billion video stream requests.

The other side to the uneven equation is the lack of commercial leverage. YouTube gets money from in-video ads and from broadcasters to host their content. But this has so far been more limited than expected and disagreements have resulted in many content providers pulling out of deals.

Meanwhile, Twitter is just embarking on tentative steps to commercialise its offering. This exercise will be fascinating to watch as Twitter is arguably a more restricted format than YouTube.

And then there is the dirty phrase in social media of ‘paid-for services’. Whispers have started up about Facebook possibly becoming a paid for site if bought out.

This is the most direct form of leveraging income as it charges the user not partner advertisers and in theory it could deliver huge incomes. However, sites would take a big gamble with this strategy. Social media users seem to hold strongly to the idea that they should be free to the end user and are likely to, at worst rebel and boycott, at least drift away to a free rival. Look at friendsreunited.com for an example.

No doubt Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion with an eye to raking in the revenue. Facebook was similarly valued (at one point last year) at $15 billion based on theoretical commercial value.

The reality is social media have yet to deliver a successful commercial model. Can it be done? And who will be the first to succeed?

The golden ticket continued into the 90s with the Windows series of operating systems and desktop applications becoming not just the most popular options but the accepted standard. And now into a third decade there are many computer users the world over that are probably unaware that there is an alternative to Windows, Word and Outlook.

Yes, Microsoft has been the archetypal business success story of finding an underserved market, developing the right product, securing a dominant share and then convincing the buyer that it is the market. Those who tried to compete were crushed under the Microsoft juggernaut as it continued along its path of irresistible force.

Until now that is! Microsoft’s mega truck is still going strong of course but now a small dent has appeared in its bodywork in the form of Encarta’s demise. The software giant has announced that Encarta will be taken offline in the autumn in the wake of the realisation that it cannot compete with internet source such as Wikipedia.

It is not a massive blow for Microsoft as Encarta was a tiny piece of the puzzle, but the symbolism is big. For the first time it is Microsoft’s product that is out off date and obsolete. What it used to regularly do to others has now been done to it and finally Microsoft has found itself behind the innovation curve.

Microsoft is still going strong, with a raft of quality products but the days of total domination are probably now confined to history, as will be Encarta soon.