An online education

Lawrence Jones, February 6th 2008, 2:25PM

Throughout the last month at UKFast we’ve welcomed a number of educational sites onto our network. This influx reminds us just how useful the internet is as a learning tool, and how many institutions are now beginning to realise this.

Typically, schools, colleges and universities have used the internet as a place to display achievements and attract new pupils. Universities in particular have to market their courses, and the internet is an obvious place to do this.

In recent years however, many learning institutions are modifying their online presence to include materials for study. Programmes are now in effect which offer direct access to lecture notes. And more and more, institutions use the internet to establish social networking sites for communications between pupils and teachers.

Due to the many different variations in content, online learning can be undertaken in many unique ways. Video clips, interactive features, PDFs, graphics, webinars and forums are backed by the fact that the internet is the largest publicly accessible store of information on the planet.

But is all this making our scholars more intelligent, or simply more lazy, as they know they’ll always have the answers at their fingertips.

In my opinion, the internet for scholars serves the same purpose as the calculator for mathematicians. Even a student with the greatest store of information possible cannot benefit from it if they don’t have the background knowledge to begin with. Just as with a top of the range calculator, if you don’t know the theories it doesn’t matter which buttons you press, you won’t get the correct answer.

What the internet does provide to learners is the possibility to do research and therefore complete work more quickly. And businesses can benefit too.

Online webinars by Google already play a large part in the training of the UKFast marketing team. Watching a live seminar on the web eliminates the need to travel to far flung locations (like London) and gives up to the minute information from expert speakers.

Basically it levels the playing-field of learning for businesses around the world. Unlike reading text online, you are also given the option to ask questions which are answered immediately.

I’m pleased to see that educational and business establishments are taking note of the internet as it is a valuable educational resource. Organisations are taking the internet very seriously by hosting sites on dedicated servers, helping them to provide a high level of service and cope with volumes of traffic.

Amazing revelations are taking place in educational online content already and I am very excited to find out where it will lead.

Tags: education, hosting, ukfast
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Northern Rock plummets online

Lawrence Jones, September 19th 2007, 3:26PM

In the last few days we have seen Northern Rock suffer a dramatic loss in consumer confidence and consequently customers. In spite of the Government issuing a guarantee that Northern Rock customers would not loose any money, customers have queued in their thousands to withdraw money from the wavering building society.

Ironically the longest queues were experienced with those trying to log in online.

The biggest area where we see consumers being unforgiving in this instance is when they cannot access the Internet site to view or transfer their money. We are all programmed to expect to access our regular and favourite websites 24 hours a day.

So often I come across clients who spend a fortune on their web site and then underestimate the environment where the site then resides. Ironically, the hosting of the site is probably the most important factor in both winning new business and retaining clients, as it directly affects the customer service your users will experience.

Google keep their cards close to their chest with the rules that may give one company a competitive advantage over another; however one thing that is clear and has been apparent for a few years now is that clients investing in servers that provide a better experience to their customer receive a better ranking from the search engines.

If you are unsure on the importance of a fast site over a well designed but slower site, it is easy to demonstrate. How many times have you come across an ugly text based site that ranks highly on the search engines yet the clever flashy ones selling a similar product appear much lower? It happens all the time. The answer is Google rates sites on the speed they deliver their information.

The Northern Rock’s online calamity is indeed unfortunate. It is always difficult to predict the extremes; however it is possible. In fact it is easier to do now than ever before.

The simple way to do this is create an environment that is scalable. At the same time you need to minimise the risk of downtime and probably the best way to do this is, is with database replication. It may sound complicated, however there are companies who specialise in this type of hosting.

Tick these 2 boxes and you are some way to creating the perfect online environment. Capacity and resilience are key to guaranteeing your customers get the best experience.

So why are Northern Rock customers unhappy, and are they right to be unhappy?

The answer to this is down to the fact that their confidence is dented. It is one thing having to get information second hand via the news or word of mouth. It is another if your site that you rely on disappears. Sadly I think Northern Rock should really have been ready for this sort of potential disaster. I’d imagine they may have felt that having the absolutely massive infrastructure to deal with this unusual problem was unnecessary as the chance of this happening was unlikely.

Worryingly they collapsed with real customers however the biggest threats on the Internet come from Service Denial attacks. These could happen to literally anyone hosting a site and they are very common these days. A service Denial attack is when a computer or multiple computers around the Internet all try and log on to a site at the same time, literally flooding the network, switches and servers. The result is down time.

Most businesses who take hosting very seriously will have this at the top of their agenda when designing their network. If Northern Rock had a scaleable infrastructure they would have dealt with this matter far more effectively.

Some of the larger businesses in the UK often suffer from wanting to host their main database in their office. This creates a bottle neck in the time of adversity and high bandwidth. The modern approach is to host your company data on the Internet in a purpose built datacentre, protect it as you would if it were in your own office and host it to as near the hub of the Internet as possible.

Do this and you are guaranteed success.

Do you ever see Google fall over? Google is a company who takes its hosting very seriously indeed, and they have got quite an impressive online track record!

If you ever want help on this matter, or if you have questions, drop me a line at UKFast. I love this subject. Clients who take my advice make millions literally. It is the future and it needs to be taken so seriously if you want to be successful as a business person.

For all the Northern Rock customers who have had a bad time, as the press dies down so will the traffic and eventually they will be able to deal with all your traffic again. If you move to another bank sadly you have no guarantee that they’d have been able to deal with a similar problem.

Tags: customer service, google, hosting
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Optimising your Online Presence

Lawrence Jones, June 8th 2006, 11:24AM

How do you create a successful business online? That is the question I was asked last night at a seminar on Optimising your Online Presence. The event was commissioned by Manchester Digital and organised by Don't Panic and was attended by around 70 marketing professionals from the North West.

I break down true online success into 3 categories.

1. Invest in the right infrastructure
2. Respect the search engines
3. Put your web site at the heart of your business

1. As the managing director of a hosting company, I am in danger of looking biased when I say that your hosting platform is a key ingredient, but I am well placed to give this advice. Since 1999 we have seen the rise and fall and the rise again of this fantastic industry. With over a thousand successful clients we are in a good position to analyse what companies are doing right and also what they are doing wrong.

There are some definite trends emerging. Out of every successful client we host, each one of them takes their hosting environment very seriously. Why? Because customer experience is important to them. They have learnt that fast web pages mean happy customers.

Have you ever gone to google or yahoo, typed in something and then clicked straight back because it took too long? Of course you have. You do it every day. Well there is a danger so are your potential customers. You might think your site is acceptable, but then again, is it cached in your machines memory? So wherever you host, do it right.

2. Respecting the search engines is a complicated conundrum. It was described by one of my fellow speakers yesterday Clare Johnson from Adoofa, as a “dark art.” She is absolutely correct when she said that no one can promise to put you top of the search engines and guarantee it. The reason being is that you would come across someone equally competitive who potentially will knock you off your pedestal. All you can do is treat it as a race that never ends. Once you are committed, you see the benefit and you are hooked.

There are so many pitfalls to SEO (search engine optimisation) that I cannot do the subject justice, so I will be revisiting this topic regularly, and inviting others to contribute.

3. Put your web site at the heart of your business and give it the resources that it needs to survive. I went on a solicitors site yesterday as I am moving house. I knew who I wanted to use, I just needed their phone number. I gave up looking after clicking through about 5 or 6 pages. The irony is that firm of solicitors has clearly spent a lot of money developing its online brand. Yet they are able to make fundamental mistakes which will frighten off prospective clients. I would never do business with someone who does not clearly show their contact details on a web site. I also prefer to do business with people who are passionate so this needs to come across in every aspect of your business dealings. Again there is much to discuss on this topic too and I am keen to explore this in great detail and hear from other marketers about their experiences.

To get a brief summary about last night from Jonathan Bowers communication manager at UKFast click on Jonathan's link
So what questions do you have? Where do you need help?

Tags: hosting, marketing, search engine, seo
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