It has been a while since I have talked about my love affair with the Canadian wireless industry, but it is time to praise WIND Mobile, yet again. In a previous post titled New Wireless – WIND Mobile, I discussed how Globalive is using the WIND brand to change the wireless industry in Canada – a great relief for many of us that are passionate about the industry.
Not only is WIND trying to change wireless, they are also changing the hiring process. A major new entity, such as WIND, must have a strong focus on quality recruiting in order to become successful in an already established industry. How are they doing this? The recruiting team has been using the power of social media to reach out to motivated and passionate job-seekers. Specifically WIND has employed the use of Facebook, Twitter and a community-focused website to establish amazing two-way communication.
Check them out!
WIND on Facebook
WIND on Twitter
WIND CEO, Ken Campbell, on Twitter
Globalive CEO, Tony Lacavera, on Twitter
WIND Careers on Twitter
WIND community site
Here is to hoping that WIND starts to hire for marketing/product/analysis roles soon!
I have received quite a number of questions regarding my move from shared hosting to a VPS, so I would like to take the time to go into a little more detail in how I justified the move and the overall process.
What is a VPS? Virtual private servers enable users to experience dedicated server-like performance, but at a discounted cost. Essentially, multiple VPS’s will exist on the same server hardware, but are each run independently thanks to operating system virtualization. For a more detailed explanation, hit up Wikipedia.
Why did I move to VPS? Cost efficiency and control were the two main reasons for the transition. On a monthly basis, I was paying $12.40 to Squarespace and a combined $11 for my two shared hosting accounts. While I am now paying over double that sum, I have a superior level of control and room to grow. When it comes to control, I am referring to the ability to install applications, enable features and reboot the server on my own. When my shared host of choice could not offer SSH, FFMPEG or Ruby, I knew that it was time to move on.
Read on for a list of things to consider when shopping around for a VPS!
Read MoreAs I mentioned in part one, Squarespace was an excellent full-service host and offered an online WYSIWYG editor that shames even some stand-alone software. The real value of the Squarespace service is handling traffic surges and scaling at no extra charge. If you are looking to host a highly-trafficked blog, I highly recommend checking out Squarespace. Okay, let’s get to a discussion on my experience moving from Squarespace to a VPS.
WordPress theme. Before I started the transition, I was well-aware of what I was going to need. First of all, I needed to find a WordPress theme that suited my brand. I was very happy with the design I came up with at Squarespace, so I largely wanted to replicate that, while making the content more of the focus. Thanks to ThemeForest, I found a phenomenally customizable theme called BigFeature that was ideal. The price was right and for $25 I had a brand-spanking new theme that I could adjust to my liking.
Well, the move is complete! I have successfully installed and configured WordPress and moved existing Rural Technocrat data from Squarespace. Let me first say that I was extremely impressed with Squarespace throughout my tenure, but as my Web host requirements changed, I figured that it would be best to host my blog on a shiny new VPS (virtual private server)!
Finding the perfect VPS is no easy task. There are thousands of providers and filtering through the garbage takes time and work. Thanks to the power of Twitter, my short-list was narrowed very quickly – Liquid Web and WiredTree. I was looking for a reasonably priced and managed VPS in the $40 to $50 range. Liquid Web was on the upper end of this requirement and Wired Tree was on the lower. I decided to test the support staff at both organizations so I called their support line to get a feel for how long it would take to get through – both were phenomenal and picked up the phone within thirty seconds of my call.
When all was said and done, I decided to go with Wired Tree. I spent some time reading reviews on the Web Hosting Talk forum, where I found flawless discussions regarding Wired Tree, but a few negative posts when it came to Liquid Web. The negatives were largely related to rude support staff and, as Liquid Web is so large, it seems logical that they would have a few “bad eggs”. The real deal breaker for me was the Wired Tree CEO, Zac Cogswell. Zac routinely posts on forums and is a former director at Liquid Web. I honestly feel that my needs would have been met at either firm, but Wired Tree won my business.
Stay tuned for an upcoming post regarding the switch from the Squarespace platform to WordPress!
URL-shortening services such as Bit.ly, Is.gd, Ow.ly, the classic TinyURL and my personal favourite Tr.im have revolutionized the way Web links are shared across all forms of digital communication – particularly character-limited services such as Twitter. As demand grows, these services become expensive to host yet remain difficult to monetize. Ease is crucial, and as such, requiring a site visit, sponsored by ads, is often not feasible so how can money be made or costs, at least, covered?
In my opinion, the sale of extremely short, shortened URLs is the way to go. I realize that was probably a mouthful for some, so let me explain. Using Tr.im, http://ruraltechnocrat.com gets shortened to http://tr.im/A36R, but what if I could BUY http://tr.im/RT? It is something that I would definitely consider if the opportunity were posed. The pricing structure could be as simple as $100 for a single character, $25 for double character and $5 for three character (4-character+ would, of course, remain free). Assuming all single characters ($3600), all letter-only double characters ($16,900) and 25% triple letter-only ($21,970) URLs sold the company would have raised over $42,000. This is just an example of how it could play out as the prices and quantities sold would most likely be different.
Sure, the purpose of this is largely trivial and may appear to only remove a couple of characters from the end of a URL, but it also has potential to add to online branding with firms that routinely spread their Web presence using social media.
EDIT: It would also be cool to be able to have the right to the sub-folder URLs. This way all of my Rural Technocrat articles could be shortened to [URL shortener]/RT/[character][character]. As most URL shorteners are 4 to 6 characters, this would give me a 5 character shortener with 36+36*36 = 1332 custom short-URLS. It would also encourage me to login (*cough* ads *cough*) to create page-specific short-URLs.
