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2008 is finally over and I for one am thankful. All in all it was not my worst year to date nor was it my favorite by a long shot I must say. Like many people I saw my investments plummet, nervously awaited the end of a LONG political campaign (didn’t they start campaigning in 2006?) as well as wildfires in my native state (California). I don’t mean to sound pitiful and I know there are many more people out there who suffered far worse than I but I get the feeling that we all had a little bit of these painful happenings in our lives and I am sure for a lot of us we are glad 2008 is now behind us and I know that there are many like myself and the other editors here who are looking forward to getting back to work and do what we can to getter ourselves and our communities.
Having said that I think that 2008 taught us some lessons and showed some advantages for others. Let’s take a look at Yahoo for instance. As we have said Yahoo is a great web hosting company for those of you who are beginners and who want a solution which is very easy to get up & control but which is not really going to allow you to do much in the way of customization. Yahoo is really the host we recommend to people just getting started in ecommerce and who know very little about what they are doing. Yahoo will get you up but we usually see people leaving Yahoo within the first 18-20 months as they learn that they need more to run their online business. Yahoo’s web hosting services could have expanded many times within the last few years so that they could create a more stable environment for their more experienced clients. Unfortunately they did not do this and they have continued to lose clients.
2008 was rough for Yahoo. After bringing back former founder Jerry Yang as the returning CEO they rejected a bid by Microsoft to be purchased, then they saw their stock price fall (later to plummet) a rejection by Microsoft of coming back to the negotiating table, the ouster of Jerry Yang as head of the company and a reduction of marketing efforts toward bringing on more hosting clients so that their base of clients they have on their beginner platform leaving. Needless to say that while we still think Yahoo is a great starter option for many companies out there that we believe that some others may be a better fit as more people become more tech savvy and more companies are offering simplier services so that they can attract those same beginner ecommerce clients. Watch for a company like PayPal to possibly come in and fill that beginner ecommerce void left by Yahoo.
Another company we think you should watch for is Godaddy. Godaddy for years has been offering web site hosting services and they are one of the largest reseller hosting companies in the world. Their core competency has always been registering and managing domain names and they continue to be the leader in this area. They have spent a great amount of time money and resources to make the management of their domain names probably the best API anywhere for domain management. We have seen for a long time that they have offered web hosting services and email hosting for the domain names you register but in the last few years they have begun to offer more and more services. As you go through a domain registration with Godaddy you will have to pass through about 6 pages of value added extras and addons which they want you to buy to upsell you and make more profit for every domain name purchased. AS they offer more and more of these “value added” services they continue to move away from hosting being their main secondary revenue stream and you know in this environment that if something else is becoming a larger contributor of the bottom line then that value add is going to take more precedence of Godaddy’s time and attention. The trends don’t seem to good for Godaddy in web hosting and we’ll keep an eye on them and update our readers as we move through 2009.
Thanks and have a peaceful and wonderful 2009
Eloise Beall
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