Back
To School Web Hosting
Back To School Web Hosting
It’s that time of year again when kids, teens, and adults
head back to school. It’s a time of renewing. A time for….Web
Hosting! This might sound odd to a lot of people but the fall is
traditionally one of the best times of the year for web hosting
companies. And with the advert of new hosting packages catering
toward bloggers, online photos, and podcasting this fall promises
to be the best market yet.
Every year as school starts web hosts see an up tick in orders
as entrepreneurs and stay at home parents have more free time and
the vacation summer season winds down to the shorter days of winter.
Many hosting companies plan special fall campaigns designed for
these small business startups. But lately there has been another
wave around this time of year and it comes as specialized hosting
packages for students and parents.
Increasingly we are seeing websites for bloggers, online photos,
resumes, family forums, podcasting, and web cams. This variety of
new technologies has spawned a larger need for web hosting. Someone
has to host all of this content and information. And in some cases
like web cameras, photos, and podcasting the hosting needs are pretty
large.
Seniors and juniors in college are using simple resume websites
with “their name”.name to help promote their skills
and give potential employees a place to research them. These websites
can give a lot more information and if designed well are a tribute
to the professionalism you are trying to portray. This is an easy
thing to use on job hunting websites and to include in your email
signature. You can usually find a website like this for around $40/year
with tools to help you easily create it.
Blogs, blogs, blogs. This is certainly one that we here about all
of the time. But students, teachers, and even parents love to blog
about their education experience from college down to elementary
school. Blog websites have become extremely easy to setup and many
very full featured ones are free! These websites give anyone a forum
to express their views and experiences, and education seems to be
a topic people love to talk about.
The next buzzword after blogging is Podcasting. This is the art
of taking a blog to the spoken level. People can record whatever
they want and upload it to a pod casting website for the whole world
to hear. It is very popular for people to create virtual tours of
museums and universities for people to download and walk around
with in their ipod. Or it can simply be a recording of your personal
views for the whole world to hear.
What do parents who like to see their child’s classroom and
voyeuristic college kids have in common? Web cams. Another step
up from blogging and podcasting your thoughts and voice, is actually
filming yourself. Web cams are finding their way in to all sorts
of places and the back to school season seems to spur an extra boost.
Web cams are being used by schools to allow parents to view their
child, they are being used around campuses and neighborhoods for
security, and also by parents and children separated by distance
to see each other.
Another smaller type of website that we have even heard of is Family
forum boards. As a family gets spread out with multiple kids in
multiple colleges across the country, a forum board offers a convenient
way for everyone to communicate on their own time and keep up with
all of the conversations of the family.
Most hosting companies offer free forum boards with their hosting
plans and these are very easy to install and setup. If you look
for a web hosting company with an auto-installer script, such as
Fantastico, you will be amazed at how easy it is to get started.
The final type of back to school website are online photo albums.
With the proliferation of digital cameras people are now turning
to online photo albums as a place to store their family treasures.
This also allows your far away college student to post pictures
of his dorm room for the extended family to see as well as for the
family to post pictures of the good times they are having. A picture
is worth a thousand words.
There has been the creation of web hosting companies specifically
designed for this task. This is called Image hosting. Type “image
web hosting” into any major search engine and you will find
all of the companies you need to choose from. Also, most web hosting
offer free online photo album scripts that you can install. And
as mentioned previously, if they advertise an auto installer like
Fantastico, then the install and setup is done for you.
The fall months historically offer increased web hosting demand,
but with the advent of recent technology trends we are now seeing
an increased demand in specialty hosting during the fall that caters
to students, parents, and friends. These are just 6 specialty hosting
needs but I’m sure there are other ways people are using the
internet to enhance their educational experience and reduce the
distant that it sometimes puts between family and friends.
About the Author Rodney Ringler
is President of Advantage1 Web Services, Inc., which owns a network
of Web Hosting Informational Websites including HostChart.com, ResellerConnection.com,
FoundHost.com, ResellerForums.com, and HostingKnowledge.net. Rodney
has over 15 years industry experience from programming to internet
marketing.
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