Videos May Slow Online Sales: Hostway (December 9, 2008) - In light of the boost in traffic online retailers are likely to expect over the holiday season, web hosting provider Hostway (www.hostway.co.uk) released a warning to online retailers on Tuesday to plan for extra website capacity this Christmas, especially if they've got a lot of video content on the site, or risk losing customers to competitors.
Although this trend of heightened traffic during the holidays isn't a new concept, Hostway's focus on video-heavy e-commerce sites raises an interesting point as more and more online businesses are beginning to offer high-bandwidth video trailers and reviews of their products through their websites, which could result in slow website performance or downtime during peak season shopping demands.
"Video content is the new ticking time bomb for online retailers," says Thomas Herbert, product manager at Hostway. "Although most e-commerce operations have now dealt successfully with website performance issues, video content brings a gamut of new problems this Christmas. If a large number of people access video reviews or trailers at the same time, this can really slow down websites, and as we all know, poor performance can often be a deal-breaker for Christmas shoppers."
Despite speculations that retailers will be expecting a slowdown this year, online Christmas sales are set to increase by 10 percent this year as more consumers use the Internet for their gift and food shopping, according to recent research by Deloitte.
Recent figures from Jupiter also reveal that consumers in the UK are predicted to spend an average of £710 online in 2008 and will make an average of 9.3 purchases online during the year.
As such, Hostway says companies should actually be planning for a higher volume of traffic this Christmas and be especially prepared to maintain their websites if they use videos to promote and feature their products.
"With proper planning and the right tools, online stores don't need to experience these problems, and can make sure that they maximize their revenues during the festive season," says Herbert.
Hostway UK Offers CDN Network (March 27, 2008) - Web hosting provider Hostway UK (hostway.co.uk) announced on Thursday that it now offering its content delivery network services on its UK website (hostway.co.uk/edgecaching), a service that is designed to meet the constantly rising demand for video and other rich media content on the Web.
While the offering is new to Hostway's European operations, Hostway's North American operations (hostway.com) have been offering its "edge caching" content delivery services at least since August 2007.
Edge caching is the ability to distribute content from a local Web server to caching servers that are closer to the end user, or nearer the "edge". By using a number of Foundry ServerIron 4G switches, Hostway says it can route users to the server nearest to their location, ensuring that content is tailored to the user's location and providing valuable business continuity and redirection services.
"Almost all large companies have their website accessible on a number of servers around the world, but traffic to these servers is rarely intelligently routed," says David Foxley, enterprise technology manager, Hostway UK.
Accessing a website in Sydney from a PC in London, for example, can have a considerable effect on how quickly images load. However, by using the CDN, Hostway says it can ensure that all content loads as quickly as possible, by storing it as close to the user as possible.
"Although broadband speeds are accelerating, user experience is frequently far from optimal," says Foxley. "However, this isn't always down to connection speed - a great deal depends on the hosting environment and website itself. By introducing the content delivery network, we hope to give our customers a competitive edge by ensuring that their websites always load as quickly as possible and provide the best possible experience."
Looking at the company's website, Hostway UK seems to be offering the CDN services immediately and encourages customers and interested parties to contact the company directly to work out a customized plan.
Hostway Urges .Asia Registration (February 21, 2008) - UK domain registrar and Web hosting provider Hostway (hostway.co.uk) announced on Thursday that it is advising companies to promptly register for their .asia domain names following the opening of the land rush period on February 20. Companies and other individuals who do not act quickly to protect their brand identity risk losing the domain name to other companies or cybersquatters, says Hostway.
With 60 percent of the world population living in the Asia-Pacific region, and over 400 million Internet users, companies may be risking their pan-Asian brand identity if they fail to register for their domain name, says Hostway. This can result in the undermining of company trademarks and the expensive re-acquisition of the name later on.
"With global brands such as Google investing strongly in this area - exemplified by its acquisition of a stake in Chinese social networking site Tianya - the Asian market is seeing significant potential for growth at the moment," says Thomas Herbert, product manager at Hostway. "Anyone who hasn't yet registered shouldn't waste any more time. The cost is minimal especially when you compare it to the cost of not registering."
During the land rush period, which is open until March 12, the .asia registry will consider all domain name registration applications as received at the same time, giving companies the opportunity to bid on domains with multiple applicants. After a short break to process applications, the live registration period will begin again on March 26 where registrations will be considered on a first-come-first-served basis.
Hostway's North American division launched two .asia promotions earlier this month.
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