It was the summer of 1990. I just turned 21. I was sat at a piano in Menlo College Campus in California, whiling away an afternoon on an 8ft concert grand that had seen better days. It was a creative place for me and whilst it was mid holidays and the majority of students were on vacation, I really got a sense that I was in a special place. I had a great summer and made some lifelong friends and although I considered moving there, I was fundamentally a musician and back then, wild horses would have not dragged me from my vocation. I never realised just how important Palo Alto was going to be in the technical revolution that followed. With Stanford University on its… Read the Rest »
I was quoted in the press this week commenting on the budget and the recent changes the chancellor has made. Whatever my politics and whatever my beliefs, what is plain to see from where I am sitting, there is a brighter horizon approaching. I am ever the optimist and I have been wrong more times than I have been right on most subjects, however it does feel as if the mood in the board rooms of businesses is continuing to lift. It is difficult to ignore the politics in other parts of the world, there are so many countries and people fighting for a myriad of causes. It certainly is a reminder to us all how fortunate we are in the UK. Yet back here… Read the Rest »
This week saw the fashion retailer Henley’s file for administration. It only seems like yesterday when Simon and Ben the 2 owners sat with me at a Sale Sharks match discussing online retail. One of the boys confidently said, “our customers need to touch and try on our garments, we will never do more much than the £10,000 per month we are doing now. The online shop can’t compete with our high street stores” This sounded very much like a challenge. And as someone who hosts hundreds of online retailers, some huge ones too, I knew I couldn’t lose. I bet them £1 I could prove them wrong. Sitting with my web designers and marketing team, we immediately found ways of improving their system. Their… Read the Rest »
When we set up UKFast in 1999, no one really knew what to expect. There was huge excitement at the birth of a new industry which was reflected on the stock exchange and the first internet millionaires were created without really producing any viable products. A massive downturn ensued and people thought, that was that. Back in 2001 after the bubble burst, no one could have predicted how technology would evolve at such a pace. In a decade everyone’s lives have changed. The internet is bigger than TV, Radio and Press put together and it’s just the beginning. Google came out of nowhere, (or rather a garage in San Francisco) to challenge Microsoft with alternative ways to search the net providing innovative ways to advertise… Read the Rest »
“Rupert Murdoch has bigger balls than you Lawrence.” That was a comment from Nick Jaspen from How-Do the great online resource that keeps Manchester upto date with the latest business news and current affairs. I had described Murdoch as a dinosaur at a round table event held at UKFast. It wasn’t meant in a derogatory way at all. Find me a man who didn’t love dinosaurs as a kid. They were incredible species. The biggest, the best, the fastest, the most aggressive, they were just awesome in every way. Then one day, poof, they are gone. All we are left with are memories from people who have picked up the pieces of times gone by. There is no doubting Rupert Murdochs achievements, but I still feel… Read the Rest »
UKFast clearly wins the hottest Owner competition at the Internet World competition. Share holder Gail Jones (right) and Rachael (left) PA to Lawrence Jones in their hot pants are just 2 of 12 UKFast Girls making a real stir at the Earl’s Court exhibition. The fact that the girls understand the complexities of clustered hosting and work for various departments with in UKFast really does impact on the visitors when they approach the stand and ask for help. Director and owner Gail Jones said “we are really having fun here. If you sell on the Internet and you are near to London come and see us and have a glass of champagne.” Posted by Chloe UKFast.
Whether or not you like Bing as a search engine you have to be impressed with recent events. Google the internet giant that grew from a garage start up in San Francisco has a competitor. As an underdog myself in the hosting world fighting to grow our business, I have to favour the smaller player. It is not often that you can refer to one of Bill Gate’s enterprises as a smaller entity. But smaller for how long? A little like a boxer who smiles at his opponent in the ring when he feels a punch that cuts him to the quick, he makes too much effort to hide the pain. Recently Google have been sparring in similar style scoring points with Microsoft over petty… Read the Rest »
I had a couple of great discussions yesterday with an SEO expert who challenged UKFast on their “fast servers deliver better results” message. Google actually reduces your cost per click on faster sites and penalises you, charging you more if you have a slow site. FACT. (See the quality score rules in your Google Adwords account.) Why is this? Is Google acknowledging that faster sites give the customer a better experience? Absolutely! Is traditional SEO as we know it dead or is it evolving at such a pace that it has caught a large proportion of the SEO enthusiasts and internet users by surprise? Could it be that speed has always been a major deciding factor in ranking and no one knew about it? Or… Read the Rest »
Obama’s inauguration caused record-breaking streaming video traffic online. CNN more than quadrupled its previous record of 5.3 million streams set on the US’s election day in November. The online news service delivered 25 million live video streams between 6 am and 6 pm, peaking at 1.3 million users just prior to Obama’s address. However, millions around the world were unable to access the historical event because of websites unable to cope with the traffic. Several sites were slow or inaccessible for many users due to the interest in Obama’s inauguration. Twitter’s feed was flooded by nearly 100 people per second and the internet’s top 40 websites slowed by as much as 60 percent by the time the inauguration began. This was a seminal moment in… Read the Rest »
Peter Jones of the Dragon’s Den recently stated that we are talking ourselves into a recession. I wholly agree with that sentiment. Whilst the newspapers bemoan plummeting house prices and wail about the soaring cost of living, our spirit becomes downtrodden and people forget what it is to fight. Think positive. Things aren’t as bad as they seem in the hyped-up media. Businesses can still thrive in the current economic climate. Mass psychology determines the directions of markets in the same way mob mentality determines whether a Big Brother contestant is liked or not. Because people sell as soon as they think a market is going down, it will decrease in value. Market recession is a self fulfilling prophesy. The rate of growth in the… Read the Rest »
