We finally got the new shared hosting offering ready for public consumption in in August - not quite a year overdue, but not far off it!

One of the things we have learnt over the past few years is that no matter how well prepared you might be things can and will go wrong. The delays with launching the new products and services caused us a lot of heartache and pain, as we'd been hoping to launch them a lot sooner. I don't like going back on my word, but if it's not ready, it's not ready. What can you do?

We also launched an offsite blog for our technical announcements ie. when stuff breaks or when we're planning on breaking it (I mean upgrading it *cough*). The offsite blog is completely independent of our network and doesn't even use our nameservers, so as long as our staff can get net access they can post updates to it.

To help people keep track of what we're up to we also got a presence on both Facebook and Twitter. We'll be pushing out more of our promotions and special offers via those channels in the coming months - so watch that space!

What else have we been up to?

On the staff side of things we expanded even more, with some new faces joining the team, while some others moved on to other things.

Our planned office expansion / remodelling project is on the backburner again, but at least we're in the fortunate position of having the extra space in the building when we need it.

It's been an interesting year in the hosting and internet business globally, with a lot of acquisitions and mergers. New technologies are proving popular, while some of the companies that have been around for years now face uncertain futures (think Yahoo!).

With that in mind I travelled to both DomainFest in LA and the ICANN meeting in Paris. The DomainFest event was great fun, but also a wonderful opportunity to see what people are up to in other countries. The same is true of ICANN meetings - I always come away with new contacts and ideas (we won't talk about how sane the ideas are!).

2009 is going to be an interesting year for us, as we push out some new stuff for our clients to enjoy.

Let's hope it's as good (overall) as 2008 has been!

After all the doom and gloom of the last few months we all need to look towards 2009 with a positive aspect.

Nobody can know for sure what 2009 will hold for any of us.

One thing, however, is sure, it's going to be anything but boring!

Businesses both large and small are going to have to make changes and watch how and where they spend money.

In many respects this should, in theory at least, lead to more efficient businesses, though there will also be quite a few businesses that will end up losing out.

I guess for some people this economic downturn is probably their first experience of an economic slump. For those of us over 30 it isn't.

We can all remember the 80's and early 90's when the Irish economy was dire and unemployment was a fact of life. I remember the queues in the dole office in Cobh being so long that they literally went round the corner from the post office!

But there's no point being negative about it.

Economies rise and fall. It's cyclical.

You can have an economic boom, but you can't expect it to last forever.

Hopefully we'll all be able to make it through the current downturn without too much difficulty, but it's not going to be easy. People will lose jobs, other people will have to learn to live on lower salaries.

In our sector I expect some of our clients and partners are going to feel the pinch and cutback, while others will expand.

Online businesses that have a solid revenue model should be able to "weather the storm", while those that have been basing themselves on a "fluffy" model probably won't.

People are going to shop around more and more for the best deal, be that for insurance, food, drink or any other product or service that they need to consume. I know that we've been forced to re-assess a lot of our costs over the last few months and while we don't cut corners, we have made changes to how we buy certain products and services so that we can get the best value.

So how will 2009 pan out for us all?

It's impossible to say, but, as I said earlier, we have to be positive about it. If everyone spends all their time and energy focussing on the negative aspects then nobody will make any progress.

We've got a lot of cool projects in the pipeline for 2009 that will bring new services to our clients without "breaking the bank".

We will try to maintain low prices on as many products and services as we can.

We will endeavour to improve the level of service and value that we provide to our clients in the coming year, as we feel strongly that a good level of service is something that everyone deserves.

So to all our clients, friends, partners and suppliers - here's hoping that we all have a great 2009 and that we can avoid the doom and gloom!

I like surprises! Who doesn't?


About an hour ago I got an email to let us know that someone had nominated us for the DomainInformer Readers' Choice Award 2008!!

Winners will be announced on January 15th

That's pretty cool!

We're up against some of the biggest names in the industry, so it's really nice to see our name alongside such heavyweights as 1 and 1, Afternic, DomainsBot, Sedo, eNom, Tucows and so many other names that I recognise.

If you can spare a minute we'd love your vote!

Since Christmas day is only a couple of days away I suspect that a lot of our clientele have already vanished until the New Year.

To be perfectly frank I don't blame them! I'd love to be heading off to warmer climes, though I doubt if Ireland's real capital counts (Cork - if you're not Irish!).

Anyhow....

Our offices will be open until lunchtime on Christmas Eve (24th December 2008).

We will have support staff working on the following days:

• Monday December 29th
• Tuesday December 30th
• Wednesday December 31st

Our offices will re-open for 2009 on Friday, January 2nd 2009.

Over the holiday period we will, naturally, be monitoring stuff 24/7 and if you have a dedicated server you will be able to contact our emergency number at any time.

If you have any questions or queries please feel free to contact us as normal, though bear in mind that our offices will not be fully open until 2009, so email is probably the best option.

For sales queries please email sales@blacknight.com
If you need technical support then you should email support@blacknight.com
If you have a billing query email accounts@blacknight.com

If you do get a chance then I'd strongly recommend you take a complete break! Disconnect yourself completely - stop checking your emails - spend time with your family and friends!

The clock is ticking....

With Christmas only a couple of days away we'd just like to give people a gentle reminder - if you want to register any new IE domains or make any changes the IE Domain Registry will be closed from Tuesday, so you should really do it before then!

I've already posted our opening hours for the break.


As for the puppy?

Well my dog owning staff were complaining, so I had to do something to appease them..

There is currently a backlog of IE domain registration requests.

We are processing any requests that we receive and making amendments as quickly as possible, however we have to rely on the IE domain registry and their staff to process them.

At present there appears to be a backlog on their end, so we cannot do anything to speed up the process.

If you have applied for an IE domain please ensure that you send us all the relevant documentation as quickly as you can.

If the domain is going to be using someone else's nameservers please make sure that they are properly configured in advance. You can check nameservers using tools like ZoneCheck

If you are in need of a domain in a hurry, why not register a .eu or a .co.uk domain?

If you've ordered any IE domains from us recently or are planning on doing so this post is for you!

Since the IE Domain Registry requires specific documentation for each and every IE domain that you want to register we spend a lot of our time playing "email ping pong" with both you, our clients, and the registry staff.

One of the biggest frustrations with this is that unfortunately a lot of people forget to send us the documents and they can end up "losing" their chance to register a domain.

That results in frustration / anger / annoyance / disappointment all round.

It's not nice - but it happens.

We've been tweaking stuff on our end over the last year to try to ensure that it happens a lot less...

As of yesterday afternoon we've made a small, but significant, addition to our domain registration backend system.

We've finally turned on the "nag" system.

Basically what will happen is that every working day at around 9am our backend system (think computers, servers, lots of 1's and 0's) will send you an email to remind you to provide the documentation.

As soon as the domain is fully registered these reminder (nag) emails will stop.

Now I know that some people are going to find these emails really really annoying.

I am sorry, but you'd be even more annoyed with us if your really "cool" name was registered by a competitor, wouldn't you?

And if you're not sure which documents you need to give us, then let our sales staff know - they'll always try their best to assist you.

One of the wonderful things about our line of business is that so many of our clients are happy to share their experiences with us in public. A lot of them send us emails, blog about us, twitter or post on forums and mailing lists.

Of course not all of their comments and feedback are going to be positive, but if we listen to what they are saying we may be in a position to capitalise on the feedback.

While we can't work miracles many of the issues people encounter while interacting with us can be easily rectified. It can be a simple matter of changing the wording in an email slightly or moving a link.

Unfortunately there will always be things that we cannot change or where we have to take the feedback, accept that is valid, but still aren't in a position to do anything about it in the short term.

In some cases it's simply because the technology or process is beyond our control (think EPP keys for domains). Other times it's because we made a decision to do things in a particular way and the underlying reasons for this may not be accepted by all our clients as readily as we might like (not allowing ssh access to our new hosting platform for example).

It's really encouraging to read people talking about their positive experiences and what they've learnt along the way.

Hugh, for example, did an interesting post yesterday on how upgrading his VPS led to an improve not only in his site's responsiveness, but also in its Google ranking. It's the kind of story that great case studies are made of.

We didn't ask Hugh to write about his experiences and he's not always going to say 100% positive things about us. His feedback is genuine.

Dealing with really negative feedback is awkward at the best of times.

Over the past few years we, as a company, have changed quite a bit.

When I came back to Ireland from Milan in 2003 there were 1.5 people working for the company. Five years later we have 16 fulltime staff in our offices and several contractors working for us on a fairly regular basis.

We've gone from having so few servers that I could actually count them, to a number that I don't even want to look at.

With the changes have come many improvements. We're offering a lot more services and at a lower price than previously, but in order to do that we have had to remove some of the "personal touch" and to standardise a lot of things. When you have to deal with some of the backlash that comes with these changes it can be quite traumatising. Business is business, but it's hard not be personally invested in your own company. I can feel great pride in the kind words, but I will, naturally, take the negative as closely to heart.

So how can you deal with these changes?

I honestly don't know the answer!

What I have found helpful, however, is some of the lessons in "Crossing the Chasm". Ross Cooney suggested I grab a copy a few years ago and it has helped make sense of some of the chaos!

It still won't make dealing with the extremely irate clients any easier of course, but I'm not 100% sure if anything truly can. What it has taught me, however, is that not all customers are going to have the same expectations and that we need to learn how to deal with the different ones as best we can.

While it would be lovely to be able to please everyone it simply isn't possible.
Take the negative feedback onboard.
Don't ignore it.
Maybe you can change something for the better.
Maybe you can take a customer's bad experience and put it to good use.
Maybe you can't.
Try to keep an open mind.

Just don't stick your head in the sand.

That someone would come up with an award for the best generators of content under 140 characters ie. twitter, strikes me as genuinely interesting.

While I still do have reservations about Twitter (or maybe it's just the fanboys...) I now use it actively, so I'd be a hypocrite to be overly critical..

You can read more about how it all works here

I've been to DomainFest global for the last two years running and was planning on giving next year's event a miss.

Stress on the "was".

Now I'm not so sure!

DomainFest always pull out the stops to organise an amazing event, but next year's event sounds like it's going to be a real cracker!

First off it's being held in downtown Hollywood in the Renaissance Hotel, which is a really nice venue, but to make it all the more interesting they've organised the opening party in Universal Studios!

But if that wasn't enough for them, the closing party is being held in the Playboy Mansion!



Last year they had several playmates at the opening event, but to actually have a party in the Playboy Mansion!!

Now where did I leave my credit card?

Every few months somebody somewhere will publish yet another article or report claiming that blogging is dead and that something else has come along to replace it.

Today's Sunday Business Post IT supplement is no different.

You can read the article via the link I've provided above, but in essence they're trying to make out that blogs are being replaced.

Personally I don't agree at all.

I've been blogging for about 5 years at this stage. I started off doing it on a purely personal level, but over time my posts began to cover topics that were related to the business and the industry I work in.

Eventually I decided that there was no point not having a company blog, so I set this one up.

Facebook, Bebo, Twitter, Jaiku and any of the other "networking" sites that may appear in the future, are all wonderful tools in their own way.

Each site serves its users in its own particular manner and is probably geared towards a specific demographic. Just because a site exists does not mean that its demographic is really suited to your business. (Obviously this depends on what you are selling)

However, I honestly do not think that you can categorically claim that Bebo or Facebook can replace a blog.

We are active on both Facebook and Twitter, but we have also hooked our two existing company blogs into both systems, so instead of one replacing another we are using the RSS from the blogs to enrich the content we are publishing elsewhere.

You might also notice that every single page of our main website has the RSS feeds from both blogs and the forum. We also provide links to the two blogs via the customer control panel.

What that hopefully means is that people will be able to access the information we need them to access easily.

Unlike "traditional" marketing techniques RSS powered media, such as blogs, use "pull" instead of "push".

What does that mean in reality?

Well instead of us sending you a marketing message (or industry information) we make it available in a manner that allows you to choose if you want to get it or not.

That doesn't mean that we have abandoned more "traditional" marketing techniques - we still send out email newsletters to clients for example, and we spend quite a bit on print media advertising in Ireland, the UK and the US.

Some people talk about blogs and other media as being a way of engaging in a conversation and I guess that description is probably quite appropriate. We put ourselves "out there" whenever and wherever we can and are more than happy to take on board constructive feedback. Of course not all of our interactions with the public are successful and sometimes I'll say something very harsh that I might not have said if I'd taken a few minutes to think before speaking!

If we can take action based on the feedback then hopefully we'll be able to offer a better service to our clients and, in turn, make more money.

Yes - I am more than happy to admit it. We are a business. A business exists to make money. Period.

We have certain values that we consider to be important, but ultimately the main reason we decided to embrace the various outlets was to improve our sales and spend our marketing budget more intelligently.

It's a simple philosophy.

If we can give people a good level of service and they are happy then we can make more money.

When I was first employed by EuroDisney 16 years ago they sent us all on a two day training course to give us an overview of the company, its history, values and more. One of the key lessons I learnt then and that I will always value is that of the happy customer vs. the unhappy one. An unhappy customer can cost a business a fortune. Their direct spend may not impact on your bottom line, but as most people give greater weight to personal recommendations a vocal critic can cost you a lot more than what they would have spent themselves. Conversely while happy clients may recommend you business more of them are likely to simply not say anything at all ie. you're more likely to hear about your critics than your fans.

Does it work?

It's hard to judge exactly how well it works using standard metrics. If we run an ad campaign on Google Adwords we can easily see how well that converts, but blogs and other "social media" (I really hate that term!) aren't as easy to track. In many respects they are not that different from print media advertising - you only notice the real impact after a longer period of time.

Unfortunately the "web 2.0" phenomenom (if that is the correct word) seems to have spawned a lot of "consultants" and self-proclaimed "experts" who seem to spend more time playing buzzword bingo with their clients money than actually producing any real results.

Anytime I see people talking about "thought leadership" or "intelligence" or "increasing an organisations IQ" when talking about blogs I have to fight an overwhelming urge to puke.

More often than not the "consultants" who use those terms have little or no clue about business. Sorry, but that's the distinct impression I get.

You can advocate social media until the cows come home, but you need to stop using stupid buzzwords to make yourselves appear more intelligent.

Business people don't understand marketing buzzwords - they understand tangible examples.

If you can show them how embracing blogging and other media can help them make more money or reduce their customer service issues, then maybe you might make progress.

I would, of course, say something very similar to Open Source software advocates. Telling people that Microsoft is evil isn't constructive. Showing an SME how they can achieve the same results for less investment by using Open Office is a lot more useful.

In summary blogs aren't going anywhere anytime soon and while other platforms and media may be useful you'd be better off looking at incorporating them rather than dumping one medium in favour of another.

Maybe I don't have a clue what I'm talking about, but I know what works for me!

Unless you've been on another planet for the last couple of months you're probably aware that the global economic situation has been going through "a spot of bother".

A couple of months ago I mentioned domain pricing, as we were watching the currency markets quite closely. At the time we had no way of knowing how the Euro and the dolllar would match up against each other over time...

So now, unfortunately, we are going to have to raise the price of .com domains by a few cents, as we cannot keep selling them at a loss.

We won't be increasing the price on .eu or .ie domains for the moment, as we get billed for those in Euro.

I don't like upping the price, but I've no choice!

I really should apologise to the dog lovers for my choice of "cute animal", but this little fella was irresistible! (Besides I own cats not dogs, so deal with it!)



Anyhow ...


Christmas is only a few weeks away, so I thought it best to give you all plenty of advance warning about open hours and deadlines...



First off...


Office Hours

Our offices will be closed from Wednesday December 24th until Friday January 2nd 2009.

If you have a sales or accounts query feel free to submit it, as we will have staff checking up on stuff over the break - we just won't be opening the offices fully (there is a logic to this - believe me!)

Hosting is a 24/7/365 business, so we will be offering technical support over the Christmas period....

For colo and dedicated clients please use the out of hours contact details that you have been given - if you don't have them ask. Seriously.

If you want to know what's going on with servers on our network (and yes we do monitor them 24/7/365 - believe me!) check out our status site which includes a server status monitor.

We will have support staff working on the following days:

• Monday December 29th
• Tuesday December 30th
• Wednesday December 31st

IE Domain Orders

While you can submit orders for new IE domains at any time please bear in mind that the IE Domain Registry will be closed from Tuesday December 23rd at 5.30pm until Friday January 2nd 2009 at 9.00 am. So no new orders, including updates, will be fully processed during that period.
If you want to register a .ie domain before Christmas we'd strongly recommend that you do so by close of business the previous Thursday (you may be lucky and get a domain fully registered with a shorter timescale, but 2 -3 working days is probably saner).


In case I forget - which can happen - we hope you all have a pleasant and peaceful Christmas with your friends and loved ones!