By Josh Ewin and Andy Mahler
Website Magazine
(original article)

The face of e-commerce is about to change in a big way. In the coming months, the Payment Card Industry (PCI) implements DSS — the new standard in security practices for e-commerce companies. Whether you are an online merchant, webmaster or Web host, it is vital to understand the fundamental requirements of the PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) to keep your business and your clients from incurring stiff penalties. (more…)

HostingCon 2008 - The Photos.

Setup of the DedicatedNOW booth on Monday.

The DedicatedNOW / Applicure Press Conference.

HostingCon 2008 Show Givaways.

Meeting with The Press.

Booth Teardown.

Back from HostingCon 2008…

The Chicago HostingCon 2008 show was terrific. Though I can’t vouch for the seminars (though I did attend one really good one by Johnny Levin) the exhibition hall was great. It was a good crowd; lots of old faces, lots of new. I’ll post up some photos from HostingCon before the weekend. Thanks to all.

If you have any questions about the show, recent articles or DedicatedNOW feel free to reach out to me at jewin @ dedicatednow.com.

Big changes are brewing in the SEO/SEM space. My last article was focused on M&A activity in the SEO space - the Microsoft acquisition of facebook.com. Google has acquired YouTube.com and Yahoo! has launched the beta version of it’s own Digg-like social networking website and has already acquired Flickr and del.icio.us.

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Rumor on Wallstreet this week is that Microsoft is bidding on a 5% stake in the social networking platform, facebook.com. According to the Wall Street Journal, the $300-$500M bid would value Facebook at $10B. The rumor, which by the way, seems to have started on the exact day of Microsoft’s release of Halo3, is reported to have been started by Facebook, not Microsoft. There is little doubt to this, as Microsoft wants all eyes on its much anticipated release. (more…)

If you listen to the chatter regarding global markets today, the two power-houses to watch are (drum roll, please), India and China. Although e-commerce is still booming in the US and Europe, year over year growth will, at some point subside and match other ‘brick and mortar’ industries. Internet penetration (i.e. the percentage of users with Internet access) in the US is nearing 70%, followed closely by Australia and Europe. What really fuels the growth of Internet sales now is a shift from retail sales to online sales. So, savvy marketers have their sights set on new game, with the same potential for growth that the US and Europe had nearly a decade ago. (more…)

Subprime mortgage fallout fears have brought the market off of it’s July highs, which saw the Dow in the neighborhood of 14,000. Since then, it’s been like a kiddy ride at a carnival… up, down, up, down, down down… you see where this is going. The DOW and NASDAQ are both 5% off their summer highs. But, is it all really Doom and gloom for the markets? With pressure on Bernake to cut rates and the looming fear that the falling of the housing market will topple the whole row of dominos, I think its likely that we’ll see another rate cut from the Fed before the end of the year. Whether this will signal the bottom of the market and redirect the economy in the long run is doubtful. In the end, the market needs to truly and completely correct from the real estate bubble that has built up over the past few years. (more…)

Beyond providing a fluid user experience, intuitive navigation, search engine friendly source and a secure transactional environment, website operators also need to concern themselves with preventing the unimaginable - hacking. Every day, new vulnerabilities in server operating systems and software are found - and used, to compromise commercial websites. Although your ISP should provide daily security scans and frequent audits on all of your servers, it behooves every e-commerce company to put its best foot forward by ensuring the security, uptime and redundancy of it’s servers. (more…)

Anyone reading on changes in the hosting industry understands that web clients are seeking more comprehensive and less expensive services. Internet service providers that strike deals with providers of third party applications (i.e. cPanel) gain two things; 1) added value for their product and 2) additional revenue via affiliate or profit sharing with the application provider. Obviously, the extent of both the value and additional revenue depends on the deal terms and vendors within the given scenario. In this article, we’ll examine how web development companies can expand by taking advantage of their vertical markets. (more…)

For the purposes of this article, we’ll assume that you, the reader, know nothing or very little about online marketing in general. With that in mind, I’d like to share common means of advertising online.

Planning
The first key to marketing, whether it be online or not, is planning your campaign. If you don’t have a business plan now, you need to write one and come back to this article. Joe Kennedy has written a terrific guide on business plan development in his book, The Small Business Owner’s Manual. I highly suggest reading it as you complete your plan. (more…)