Buzvia Blog

Social Networking Sites are a tangled web of friends, enemies and indifference.

So far at this point in my life, I see little to no value in joining-up to a social networking site. I view them as nothing more than a friend-collection system and I am too busy in my own life to intrude in that of my friends and associates.

Why do a test between Facebook, MySpace and Friendster?

Well, depending on where you are in this world, you are either a Friendster, MySpace or Facebook type of person. I enjoy traveling so I got a sprinkle of people on all three systems so I decided I would do a test to see which is the most useless.

Test parameters

I just set-up an account using the same (new) e-mail address, thanks live.com, and put in identical information in all three. I uploaded a photo for my profile picture (can’t figure this out on Friendster) and put in a brief intro (below), my real birth date, university I graduated from, location and name (Jon Cantin).

I am the founder of i3DS International Corporation, which owns in whole many web properties including DreamClue.com, WoodMarvels.com, LegendaryLife.com and Buzvia.com. My company also provides web and 3D animation services to companies around the world.

Differences

It was nice to see that I am able to post a public profile in Friendster with my own custom url but their user interface is a mess, I still can’t figure out how to upload my profile picture! See http://profiles.friendster.com/i3ds

MySpace is using an equally as frustrating user interface as Friendster but they also allow public viewing of my profile page. Just for signing-up, I also got a friend now so all my social insecurities can go away. See http://www.myspace.com/i3ds

Facebook has the easiest to use interface for putting in your information but doesn’t allow public viewing of my profile (why?). If you want to see it, just login and search for Jon Cantin.

Wait and see

Now, I will just promote this in a few areas and see what happens and report on it in future updates on the Buzvia Blog. My guess at this point is that these profiles will quickly pick-up a lot of people I don’t know but let’s see what the fisherman can pull in over the holidays.

The Bottom Line

Patience is a virtue that is best served with additional patience.

Buzvia: Friendster.com, MySpace.com, Facebook.com, Live.com

Update 20min later: Just figured-out how to add a profile picture to my page on Friendster.

Doesn't matter how you manage to backup your files, it needs to be done regularly and methodicaly!

We have just completed what I hope is our last migration of all our properties and related sites. Content migration from a host to another has been greatly simplified over the past years and this means there is intense competition to get and KEEP customers.

Why is there so much hosting competition?

The main reason why there is so much hosting competition is because the price of entry has fallen off the map! Hardware and bandwidth costs use to be stratospheric but now, the cost of bandwidth drops along with hardware while both their speeds goes up. There are also a lot more options out there, from cloud computing, resellers and even the big guys themselves diversifying into the field. For example, Amazon has made available their cloud computing system which they, themselves use, for their online store for well over a year now.

Why are local ISPs so expensive!

As national and increasingly, international hosting providers proliferate onto the scene, I find it odd that most small, Mom and Pop ISPs still charge an arm and a leg for their hosting solutions! If the 30-60$ per year domain registration charges don’t give you any hints, their monthly 10-30$ hosting bills should. Up to this point, I still can’t figure-out why people even use them anymore. The big guys who specialize in hosting like MediaTemple, SimpleHelix and even GoDaddy all offer incredible value and service for rock bottom hosting charges… some as low as under 5$ a month!

Now… why are backups so essential!

I can’t describe the number of times, in my own online businesses, where digging-up an old backup of some of our systems saved us a heck of a lot of grief, pain and suffering in lost data and man hours. The fact that so few people backup their own computers is scary but what is even scarier is losing an entire online business you spent years establishing, growing and promoting! I even had one customer go bankrupt because of their lack of attention regarding backups (long story I will tell another time)! If you don’t have any backups of your online systems and you live off the income they generate, you are nothing short of stupid. Backups, sequential, daily and yes, in many different places (computer, other hosting providers etc.) are ESSENTIAL! Especially if your ISP or hosting provider say they already do this!

The return of this blog

Our buzvia blog has been on hiatus for a few months now and I am happy to announce we are back. During the past few months, we had two complete server migrations due hosting and service issues but we have found a fantastic host now whom we look forward to creating a long lasting business relationship with. Growing an portfolio of online companies is difficult, doing it with an unresponsive hosting provider just makes things even more so. We have tried a number of hosting providers through the years as well as maintaining our own clustered systems but through all that time, when ever a provider becomes unresponsive to our concerns, we learned it’s always best to drop them ASAP and move-on.

The Bottom Line

A good hosting provider is as important as backups!

Buzvia: MediaTemple, SimpleHelix, GoDaddy