BlogSmall business, Marketing, Promotion and Web Design

Social media gets more diverse every time someone uploads the video on YouTube. It gets more popular every time someone watches that video. And, obviously it gets more social when you pass a link to or embed a video into your blog or web site. It’s hard to say who exactly came up with this idea (I think it is instinctive thing), but “do as I do” routine almost never fails.So every time some creative video gets out there, some other people think “hey, I can do that too”. And they try to.

Forget the reality shows your parents used to watch. WWF is a good stunt work. Next generation reality shows are going to be different. Studios still casting people who look good on TV, but that’s about to change. In the world where everybody can become his own video producer for less money than cost of a semester in a decent private college, next TV would be whole home-made. People increasingly watch videos online instead of regular TV. Ubiquitous broadband (including high-speed mobile), YouTube on your mobile device (hello, iPhone) and next-gen TVs with network hook-up will let you watch your favorite web site in your favorite cafe, in the comfort of your living room, on the go. Or upload your footage just as easy.

Just make sure you get that lens cap off before you start shooting.

Popularity: 25%

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Beginning this year I grabbed couple of special hosting deals with Netfirms. I was attracted by low cost and ability to run PHP4, PHP5 and .NET all under same account. As I spent more and more time trying to figure out why the heck a bunch of familiar and well-worked out scripts wouldn’t run on Netfirm’s hosting platform I came to know how messed up the whole deal was. Tech support responded to my e-mail after 4 days (I already forgot I filed a ticket). Performance was iffy at best - sometimes on par with my home-run server, sometimes way slower. ASP.NET application that runs without any tweaking on my company’s internal server failed to start in seemingly similar environment on Netfirms. You think I could use their tech support? Yeah, right.

So couple of days ago, as both my domain and account were reaching expiration date, I decided to move out. Transferring domain was the easiest, so I did this as soon as I have made the decision. Canceling account, however, is a much more difficult task. First of all - there is no way you can cancel from your control panel. And, there is no way of canceling via e-mail request to support. The only way to cancel the account with Netfirms is to call their toll-free number (I don’t want this idea to really get out, but I was expecting a 900- number) between 9am and 5pm EST and request the cancellation over the phone. Let me check what year is this? Right, still 2007.

Generally, I wouldn’t go over such a routine task as canceling some online service unless there was some incentive. Well, the incentive is as follows - nowhere on Netfirms’ web site nor in their knowledge base does it say how to cancel the account. While doing the digging I stumbled upon some blogs that describe exactly same problems with Netfirms I was facing - poor service, non-existent customer service, hard-to-find cancellation procedure.

However, I don’t see anyone at Netfirms to care. They seem to be overly busy taking new sign ups.

Popularity: 34%

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It’s been in the works for quite some time. AT&T, in fact, did announce that they are expanding their 3G/HSDPA network and other good things will come to those who wait. However, last couple of weeks I did experience some cell service outage and started thinking that moving to AT&T’s GSM network wasn’t, probably, the best idea. Today, however, I was very much surprised, when while standing on a subway platform in Brooklyn instead of regular E icon I saw 3G . This is indeed very good, since now my newsreader is able to finish downloading all the packages in no time and I can, finally, follow the links from the blogs and feeds I am reading while on the subway.
On the same note - Verizon phone was showing EVDO icon for quite some time now. I just wasn’t really paying attention to it.

Let me brag a little on how this should benefit the small businesses (one of which I am a proud owner of). First of all - it lets you justify purchasing some of those cool smartphones or PDA phones. Not iPhone though, sorry, iPhone is still on a slow EDGE. Second, you may be able to beef up your sales pitch with the help of your web site - some of our clients have been doing just that (they report that the impact is tremendous). Third - it’s cheaper to communicate via e-mail/messaging/web then through the phone, although most of us don’t realize it yet. This, actually, allows you to purchase a plan with less minutes and use data connection for messaging. I am yet to test Skype on my HTC Advantage, but I am sure it’ll work much better then on EVDO.

With all that said - I can’t wait for WiMax. Oh, and Verizon - where’s my FiOS?

Popularity: 39%

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