To us it, all you have to do is copy and paste the code into your web site’s design.  That is it.  After doing so, you will be given a button that allows you to quickly translate your web site pages into almost any other language out there using a number of different translation services. 

Here is my one on one interview with ConveyThis’s mastermind of operations, Andrew Sylvester.

In what way would a web site be benefited by putting the Convey This translation tool? 

Any websites that wants to expand its user base, attract more visitors or transmit its message to anyone across the globe would benefit from ConveyThis.  Machine translation is the simplest, easiest, and fastest way to convey the content of a website to users who may not fully understand the webmaster’s native language. 

ConveyThis offers a very unique and useful function for webmasters in that it simplifies the translation process both for themselves and for their visitors: the ConveyThis button code is generated instantly and can be copied and pasted directly onto any page, and the button itself is fairly small and elegant, unlike the huge, bulky translation toolbars offered by most translators.  Additionally, visitors can select their language from a simple drop-down or pop-up menu, then choose any translator of their preference that supports that language.  Some people may prefer Google, others Babel-Fish, and so on, and rather than having to visit each translator independently and copy and paste a site’s URL onto a form, they need only to click two buttons and the entire process is taken care of automatically. 

On top of that, registered users can log back in to ConveyThis and view statistics on page views, languages translated, translators used and so on.  This data is invaluable to anyone researching his or her site’s demographics! 

What was the inspiration behind Convey This? 

ConveyThis was created by a company that specializes in professional web and document translation by human translators.  We wanted to create a sort-of "gift to the internet" and, inspired by sites such as AddThis, we used our talents in the translation industry to carve our own niche and shift the focus to a field we already had experience in.  As we say on our website, we’re on a mission to convey all the world’s information, and hopefully ConveyThis is great big step in the right direction! 

You just went through a recent update, what was the main reason behind this and what have you improved on? 

We’ve been very busy over the past few weeks going through a major ConveyThis update, and it’s already making a big, positive difference for our users.  We knew when we created ConveyThis that we had a unique tool that any webmaster would find useful, and we were very pleased–and certainly surprised–with not only how popular it became, but how fast it was growing, too. 

In order to accommodate the sudden influx of new users we upgraded our servers and reconsidered our original button codes to make everything as efficient as possible.  ConveyThis should now run twice as fast.  We were inspired while reprogramming the buttons and came up with a new alternative, unregistered buttons, that can be generated and placed onto pages and blogs without needing a ConveyThis account. It’s a great way to try the service out, but translation statistics and other functions will only be available to registered users. 

After some cosmetic changes to our blog and website here and there, we added support for an additional 9 languages, bringing the running total to around 40.  It’s been a busy couple of weeks, but it was worth it; things are running smoothly, and ConveyThis is better than ever!  

Would you like to work on other related projects or is all of your attention on Convey This for now? 

We still have a lot of things in mind for ConveyThis, so for right now we’re going to stick to that direction.  We get a lot of great suggestions from ConveyThis users that we take into consideration, and big things are definitely underway.  More fully customizable buttons, additional plugins (bloggers should check out our WordPress plugin), support for translating RSS and Twitter feeds, and many other features are all under consideration and development.  The future is looking bright for ConveyThis and its users!  

Why should people sign up to use Convey This? 

If you have a website, you have a message you want to spread.  Why not convey it to as many people as possible, regardless of where they’re from or what language they may speak?  ConveyThis is a fast, convenient, safe, and secure way to get all the benefits of every major online translator in a single, unobtrusive button.  There’s nothing to download, nothing to install, and the benefits are priceless–and we mean that literally, because ConveyThis is totally free, and we don’t collect or sell personal information from any of our users! 

I’d just like to close by giving a big "thank you" to every one of our registered users at ConveyThis who have helped spread the word and made us as popular as we are today–and thanks especially to you, Mitch, for not only being an early adopter and supporter of ConveyThis, but for allowing me this outlet to convey OUR story to everyone else!  We wouldn’t be here today without all of you, so thanks again, and be sure to "convey" your thoughts on our button through our feedback form or blog–we love to hear from you all! 

What made you want to organize and create HostingBookmarks.com?

Let me first say “Thank you Mitch” for the opportunity to speak to one of the finest audiences in hosting industry – yours. So, what made me to create HB… well, to be honest I’ve seen an empty niche and asked myself “Why don’t you create a web site with reference to web hosting related content”. I had two options – to develop branded software or to use any Open source application. The first would take much time so I find Pligg used it to create Hosting Bookmarks. I maintain the web site much-more as a hobby than to profit from it.

How has the success been since your launch?

There aren’t too many people who are willing to contribute. There are five to ten people who are looking to bookmark quality content. Others try to spam or mostly to do promote own content which in most cases is far from web hosting. They get banned. Up to date the web site refers to more that 3,000 quality articles related to web hosting.

What is your history with the lady we call web hosting?

I entered this industry in 2000 when I founded a hosting company called Host Color. After managing it for 5 years I’ve decided that I need some change, so I moved to journalism and blogging. I also have some other businesses besides web hosting. But I feel very good watching the hosting market development. Take a look at the green issues for example. No one would even though about it 5 or 6 years ago. The same was with overselling, something that is killing the industry.

You have another hosting blog Daw Web Hosting Blog.  How is it going and do you have any other projects you are working on currently?

I love Daw blog because it is not a typical web hosting blog, at least not from my perspective. I’m trying to tell stories there, like the recent one – for a guys who calls himself – The SEO Rapper. I don’t work on any new projects, but I’m going back to web hosting to working as a consultant to web hosting companies. I’ve become very good in helping various business to develop unique web sites as well as to build and implement web marketing strategies    I’m serious. If anyone thinks I’m bragging I would suggest them to exit the web hosting industry at least for an year and then to reenter. I don’t know why people are getting smarter after they leave it… probably because it is not the most inspiring one. But what I’m talking about… I like web hosting!

2,000 years from now, when people are digging through blogs and people in the hosting industry, what do you hope people will remember or admire most about you?

Hmmmm… We are now talking abut my legacy. You know Mitch I’m too young (only 35) to think of this. I’m still single and I’ll should take some time to discuss a future marriage before getting 50. So as you see I have too much time to think of my legacy. Web hosting is rapidly changing industry and if I can project how it will look like within 10 years, I’ll probably would be able to make so much money to stay alive within the next 2000 years.

But let me tell you something serious. I like what you’re doing and that’s why I have a message to hosting addicted out there: “Hey, I want you to visit Mitch web sites every single day and to listen carefully his podcasts. Then come to visit my blog. See you in year 4008!”

The large database there is also handy if you want to search around and find an application for the job or tool you wish to make better.  I recently had a chance to chat with the guy behind the magic there Matteo Alessani about the FeedMyApp.com web site and what it is they do there.

What was the reason for starting the FeedMyApp.com web site and what keeps you going with it?

Matteo:  The main reason we started FeedMyApp was that there wasn’t anything similar on the web. There were lots of sites and directories listing web 2.0 apps, but we just wanted to create a simple, easy to use and up-to-date site with the latest and best web apps. Most web app directories, list entries with their respective logos. We thought that most users couldn’t gain much information from a single visual. So we focused on describing each web app with a title, a short tagline (sometimes written by us) and a screenshot. Moreover we are always surfing for new apps, so why not put gather and share them all with our readers?

Do you have a team of people behind the web site, or are you a one man team?

Matteo:  I normally work on FeedMyApp on my own, even though my other two colleagues help me find and add new. When you surf the web you always come across interesting new apps. So as soon we find a new one, we add it to FeedMyApp!

When finding new Web 2.0 apps out there do most of them come to you or do you do most of the finding?

Matteo:  We do most of the finding although a small portion (99% are pharm/spam apps) are authentic and not yet listed on other web sites. del.icio.us is another excellent source of new sites and web 2.0 apps.

In your opinion, what does it take to get a lot of people’s attention these days?

Matteo:  Simple, updated, new content. I could grab people’s attention by adding some useful features to the web site. But I prefer to follow the “keep it simple” mantra: do less and do it better than anyone. However, we are planning some cool new features for our web 2.0 directory.

I know you can’t make use of them all but, out of the hundreds that you have reviewed, which Web 2.0 apps are you using in your day to day life?

Matteo:  In my day to day life I mainly use Last.fm, Flickr, Gmail, del.icio.us, LinkedIn, Twitter, Basecamp, Feedburner, Digg and Facebook. At Extendi we always use Ruby-on-Rails, Prototype and script.aculo.us for our web 2.0 projects!

Remember to check out FeedMyApp.com and let him know I sent you there.

One of the popular blogs out there that I really enjoy a lot is CyberNet. They always have fresh content, good reviews and reminds me of a younger and more influential Lockergnome.com. The minds behind the project – Ryan and Ashley are brilliant at what they do and have had a lot of success along the way. Then it came to me, who better to ask for advice about taking your blog to the next level than them? E-mails were sent, virtual handshakes were made and a conversation was had…

When did you know it was time to really put your all into CyberNet and try to do your best at making some money with it? Was it your goal from day one or was it something that you decided to do later on down the road?

Ryan: Our goal from day one wasn’t to make money; CyberNet was originally started as a hobby. Our goal was to do our best and put our all into it, and to write great content and tutorials that you wouldn’t find on many other sites out there. I guess you could say we were focused on quality and not quantity. We were actually surprised at the time it took to maintain a site with quality articles and we realized if we wanted to continue to provide the content, we had to find a way to make money with it. It wasn’t until about a year ago that Ashley and I both started working on CyberNet full-time.

Out of all of the money making methods out there today, which has been the most and least successful for you thus far?

Ryan: We’d have to say that Google AdSense has definitely been the most successful for us so far. Part of this is due to the fact that we have a large international audience, and Google serves ads internationally. Google has also done the best with displaying ads relevant to the content that we write. Also worth mentioning is Tribal Fusion because they’ve been really good for us as well. Since they charge on a per impression basis, we have been able to make money without needing people to click on the ads. By serving up these types of ads, our regular readers who aren’t likely to click on the ads are able to contribute to our success, just by visiting the site.

The least successful money making method for us has been Chitika. It’s something we tried in the beginning and what we found is that their ads were for products and our audience isn’t really the type to turn to an advertisement to make a purchase. We received a very little return using Chitika, and so we stopped using them.

You deliver a wide variety of content on just about anything and everything technology related. Ever find yourself getting burnt out on tech?

Ryan: We never get burnt out on tech in general. What we do get burnt out on though is simply writing. This is why we’ve made it a point to distance ourselves from the site most weekends so that come Monday morning, we are fresh and excited to get back into it.

Another way we avoid getting burnt out on technology is by writing about a variety of topics. We’ve seen gadget sites write 5-10 articles per day on a sole topic like the iPhone. Our brains would go crazy if we wrote about a single topic that many times in a single day! A variety of topics keeps things exciting.

Let’s say you find that one of your posts has really started to take off in popularity today. It’s getting mentioned all over the place and you see an increase in traffic. What is your usual course of action?

Ryan: Well, first we pull out the helium tank and blow up some balloons. Then we bust out a cake, open up a bottle of champagne and do the happy dance!

Joking aside, on a server side, we don’t really have anything to worry about when there’s an increase in traffic. We’re confident that our host can handle any surges in traffic that we may have.

From a content perspective, we try to keep up with the comments on the article and get involved in conversations that may get started so that the audience can see that being active in our community is one of our top priorities.

For anybody out there wanting to take their web site to that “next level” as far as professionalism and reach what advice would you give to them?

Ryan: We thought of a few things for this one, so we’ll just outline them in bullets.

• Success takes a lot of time and an extreme amount of patience
• You’ll get a lot of criticism along the road, people questioning your intelligence and your credibility
• More often than not, you’ll have negative people telling you what you should be doing instead of positive people telling you what you’re doing right
• Do your best to form a community and participate in it. Our community is our most valuable asset on the site right now. A lot of great readers, commenters, and members of the forum have made us what we are today
• Take time to acknowledge just how far you’ve come and the progress you’ve made
• Set goals of what you’d like to achieve and refer to them on occasion to help keep you on the right track

I want to thank Ryan for his time, and please all of you (even you there, sitting in the bathroom with your notebook PC) go visit CyberNetNews.com. Also be sure to check out our archive of other past interviews with some of the brightest minds on the Web.

Marketing in general has really always excited me, so I thought it might be a good idea to talk with somebody who does this as their day to day business. Daryl Kennedy is the VP of Operations over at TechWyse Internet Marketing. When approached about the interview – my first thoughts were “Whoo hoo! Now I can pick the brain of somebody who really understands this Internet marking stuff” and I have to say I was not disappointed.

How did you find yourself in the Internet marketing world? Most people on the web want to get to the top themselves in popularity. You guys specialize in helping other people make a name for themselves.

Daryl: Getting into the Internet marketing world for myself was quite by accident. I have always been a resourceful person. I have always enjoyed efficiency and understanding new technology. After being in the business of developing web sites, I decided it would be far more resourceful to learn and understand the newer search engine phenomena then hit the streets cold calling which was far more traditional.

After studying search engines for about 6 months, I quickly found that by following search engine principles I could get our own company on the first page of Google, Yahoo! and MSN rather easily. Ironically, many other companies across North America and especially Toronto, Canada began noticing themselves! Since this was clearly a way for companies to begin to generate revenue they began asking me to help them in the same way.

The rest is history. We have branched out now to become a full service Internet marketing company with more than 50 people in 2 different locations. I have never been an egocentric person, I simply enjoy the Internet marketing industry, and even further than that, understanding how to build and analyze different companies marketing efforts as effectively as possible.

Internet marking is a very large tent. At TechWyse, what are some of the services you really specialize in?

Daryl: It has sure developed into a ‘very large tent!’. Put as simply as possible; our goal is to cultivate, promote and measure the marketing efforts of companies. Our focus is on developing a full marketing strategies which include the following process:

• Planning & Measurement – gaining an understanding of the company goals and building a blueprint to develop a successful online marketing campaign.
• Creative Development – developing an online persona that matches and promotes the ultimate goal. Having an effective online brand and conversion friendly design ensures that all the traffic we get your site converts at a higher rate.
• Promotion – the successful launch of previously developed Internet marketing campaign, which may include anything from organic optimization, pay per click, email marketing, Facebook advertising and other social media utilities.
• Analysis – by launching an effective analytics program we can now analyze every facet of a company’s marketing plan.

It is not as focused as it once was, but the truth is that it’s essential to help companies grow!

What is the one marketing tip you see overlooked the most? Such as you see web site after web site and say, “Oh my gosh – why are they not doing this?”

Daryl: This one is easy Mitch; Companies invariably, almost always come to us wanting to promote and build traffic to the corporate web site without first looking in their own yard to make sure it’s as inviting as possible. This is why myself and the entire TechWyse team always discuss the importance of web site conversion or put more simply – what is the ultimate goal of your web site. Figure that out, and develop accordingly. By doing so we can maximize the efficiency of your marketing dollars.

Does it make you mad to see the “easy” offers to rise your search engine rankings? You know the ones that have 101 tips and promise to get you to the top of Google for any keyword as long as you pay $69.99 for their ten page ebook?

Daryl: Hah! You hit the nail on the head with that one. I find it rather comical that even we receive the bulk emails from companies that can get us on the top of Google within 24 hours! My rule of thumb is that if it sounds too good to be true — it probably is. Most of these tactics are those that prey on those that do not know otherwise. Over the last few years, however, I have watched the public grow wiser to this.

Having said all of this, it is definitely possible to get ranked at the top of search engines if you follow a proper plan. Internet marketing done right still means not only the cheapest cost per acquisition than any other marketing strategy but also the most measurable.

My biggest piece of advice for those that do not who to choose; Do some research on the company. Type in the company name into the search engine and see what else comes up. Ask for testimonials and ask those people what exactly the company has done for them. Pay attention to the details; even simple things like collateral, site design mean a lot in this business!

How do you deal with the clients that say, “I want to be at the top of Google for the keyword ‘muffin’ tomorrow!”?

Daryl: There are several different questions to ask to answer properly. It is firstly important to discover if the word “muffin” will get the company the most targeted type of visitor as possible. In this case, if you are selling a recipe book, for example, wouldn’t “muffin recipe’s” be more targeted? Or what if you make muffins in Toronto and want people to come to your muffin store? Why not focus on “Muffins Toronto?”

In the end, there are some instances where not using a long tail strategy is best. In that case it is possible to rank the highest for the word “muffins.” If this is the case, it is very important to build a campaign that effectively engages the major search engines to the point that you are the most relevant search when someone types it in. It usually comes down to having a wealth of content, and also something that is unique that people will reference online to improve your own link popularity.

Give me a solid argument as to why somebody reading this interview should invest in TechWyse and its Internet marketing and analytics services?

Daryl: I am the type of person to outwardly promote why you should use TechWyse services. What I do take great pride in however, is that our company does focus on capturing the entire purpose to your online marketing campaign. While getting results is important, it is just important effectively measure campaigns for results. There certainly are a handful of companies in the world today that do this, but the truth is this is still such a new industry, that you still see a lot of pretenders that take advantage of many lack of knowledge.

Our company is an avid supporter of Google products because this is still the mecca of search. We also put a great deal of emphasis on delivering effective, measurable campaigns that you and your account manager at TechWyse can work together on implementing successfully.

The final thing that I feel speaks volumes about TechWyse is the bandwidth that we have. When companies come to us, they have a group of more than 50 individuals dedicated to their own special area in Internet marketing. Very important!

Thanks Mitch, for the opportunity to speak on your blog. It has been a pleasure answering your pointed questions. I enjoy reading your blog. Keep up the good work!

Final thoughts: Many thanks back at Daryl, and be sure to tech out TechWyse for all of your Internet marketing needs.  They are an awesome company that seems to be more than happy to do anything in the world for you when it comes to online marketing.

So when the chance came up to talk one on one with Adam Ostrow, the editor over there at the social web juggernaut I couldn’t let the chance to pick through a Mashabler’s brain.

Mashable got its start being more based around the social networks out there, and since then has spun off into covering anything that is tech-worthy or Web 2.0ish related. Why the change what I guess you could consider a bigger tent?

Adam: I can’t really speak to our editorial policy pre-early 2007 or so when I joined up with Mashable, but I have to imagine the shift was due to the fact that there is just simply so much more going on in the space than social networking now.

First you had the tools that plugged into social networks – widgets and things of that nature – from companies like Slide, RockYou, etc. This was one of the initial trends that Mashable picked up on. Then, there were applications that integrated on a deeper level with social networks – starting with Facebook and its application platform, and now, most of the other big social sites too. Finally, now we see social features being integrated into virtually every type of Web service – from search, to maps, to mobile. So, I do think there is still a little bit of “social” laced into most of our stories, though, perhaps not as singularly focused on social networking sites.

Additionally, I think because our site has grown so much in terms of traffic and revenue, we simply have the resources to employ more writers and cover a broader arrange of topics relating to the Web – which is ultimately how we grow our business.

You have to get a lot of “Hey, will you talk about me!” e-mail requests. How many companies a day do you get e-mails from and think, “Oh no, not another one of these guys again…”?

Adam: I don’t actually think “oh, no …” too often, but the “I’m building a social network for [insert topic here]” pitch is getting tiresome. Nonetheless, occasionally you will see a really cool social network aimed at a specific niche, so it would be reckless as an editor to just automatically dismiss anything that at least a subset of our readers might find interesting. We get hundreds of emails per day though, so to standout, you really need to be doing something relatively unique, or offering a cool new spin on an idea that is already out there.

Which has been more at the source of Mashable’s growth, being linked to (or talked about) by the right people or having quality content?

Adam: It’s a combination of both. The links help not only because of the direct traffic they send, but because in the long-term, they improve your search engine rankings, which means you get more traffic from Google (and Yahoo, Ask, etc.). Quality content is what drives these links, so it’s a fairly obvious and rewarding circle in the long-term. That said, it takes years to build that up – Mashable was just Pete Cashmore for about two years before it started grow exponentially in 2007.

For those people out there who say, “I want to be the Mashable of ‘insert area of expertise here’” what advice do you have for them?

Adam: I think the most important part is timing. I think when Mashable started, Pete was in part making a bet that social networking was really going to take off, which, was still not a foregone conclusion in 2005. It’s no different than a new startup – not only are you making a commitment to working hard and doing something cool – you are also depending on the market becoming interested in the area you’re focusing on.

So, if you’re looking to start a blog right now that’s going to become big, I think you need to make a bet on a future trend – something you think is in its infancy and going to get really hot over the next few years. You could be wrong – but it’s a lot easier than starting yet another blog focusing on social networks, Web 2.0, gadgets, etc. There is always room for new commentators about topics that are already well-covered, but I think the battle to become one of the leading brands in a saturated space is a very uphill one unless you’re coming in with tons of contacts and money (for example, Silicon Alley Insider).

Do you feel that the “social” aspect of the Web is just getting started, reached its peak or is about time for a wheel chair and a retirement home?

Adam: I’m heavily biased since I depend on the continued growth of the space for both my day job (Mashable) and my various business interests (MindSay, ReadBurner), but I think we’re just getting started. Traditional media has only really caught onto “social” in the past 18 months or so (via acquisitions of Web 2.0 companies and their own homegrown efforts). For example, look at iReport, CNN’s citizen journalism effort. The biggest name in cable news is clearly committed to “social,” and that says something.

That said, I think there will be a shake-out of many of the “me too” companies, and we’re already starting to see that with startups joining forces to combine technologies and employees. But it’s hardly like the late 90s bubble where companies are going public and retail investors are losing their shirts betting on dotcoms.

I want to thank yet again Adam Ostrow for his time, and you don’t need me to go tell you to go and visit Mashable.com for more because like myself, your probably already a subscriber. From head to toe, Pete has a great team working for him.

How did you get your start on the Web?

Emory: My path into the web began in the mid 1990′s. I was a fairly uninspired surfer and email user until I discovered online multiplayer gaming. Meeting others and competing with them in a virtual world fascinated me. I spent a lot of time gaming back then when I should have been reserving domains like games.com. Looking back, I guess you could say that playing multiplayer games was my first online social networking experience. But, instead of the polite introductions we have with today’s social networking sites, you broke the ice by joining a game and chasing people around, taunting and blowing each other up.

Soon, I started building my own user maps. The next thing I knew I was learning to create graphics, then my first Web site which was a Duke Nukem fan site that had an address of something like someurl.com/~emory/dukenukem/, then writing PC game reviews for Gamezilla and UGO and just generally enjoying the whole Internet experience.

Who is the bigger star, Emory or Clickfire?

Emory: The best way to answer that question is by comparing the number of people who stop by my place to visit (friends, magazine salesmen, mailmen, etc) with the number of people who stop by Clickfire to visit. Emory might get one visitor per month. Clickfire gets many thousands. Clickfire can serve a lot more people than Emory ever could. It really makes you think about the leveraging power of the Internet. I could be standing on the street outside my home with a sign that said “Free 100 dollar bills” and I’d never get as many visitors, solve as many problems or meet as many cool people as Clickfire allows. Creating and maintaining my own Web site has has been one of the most enriching of life experiences.

Across Clickfire.com you cover lots of different web developer topics and discussions. What is your favorite area of the massive tent of web development and why?

Emory: I am still having a great time playing around with RSS/XML. Every major social site these days has a feed for the mashing. WordPress has individual category, post and comments feeds. I like to pull pieces of them from my own site and present them on a static page. Then, there is the mobile side, which I haven’t even begun to experiment with yet.

I would say you’re one of the longest running webmaster resources, with your roots going all the way back to 1997. What has made you want to stay in the game so long?

Emory: I enjoy it. Why I enjoy it is something I’ve thought about a great deal. I like having my own “place” online where I can do creative stuff like writing reviews and building free tools. Visitors read the reviews and use the tools and comment; that makes me like doing it more. I can earn revenue by adding affiliate marketing into the mix. So I enjoy it even more. I can increase that revenue with SEO. Now my career is in search marketing and I’m having fun and getting in even deeper. So, I meet even more interesting people like yourself who inspire me to be creative–the cycle starts again.

Are you afraid your going to wake up one day and have the sudden urge to quit and sell shoes at the mall?

Emory: I have no talent outside the Web, so I am sure that will never happen. Besides I can’t sell. I’d probably offer the customer an objective review of the shoes and then give him a pair for free. If I had to make money the brick and mortar way, I’d be broke. Being a webmaster is too much fun.

As far as web hosting goes, which two web hosts out there impress you the most and why?

Emory: You saved the toughest question for last . It seems that all the big shared hosts are offering more bandwidth than you can shake a pipe at. As I’m sure you are well aware, webmastering can be a lonely job and often keeps you up late into the night. If your site goes down at 3:00 AM, you can’t scream. Opening a support ticket online doesn’t seem to satisfy the human need to know that someone is listening and just might care. It’s probably no coincidence that the only two web hosts that have ever won 5 out of 5 Clickfire stars both have 24 hour phone support lines, BlueHost and HostGator. I will say that Lunarpages was the highest rated host we reviewed last year and I really like LP’s pro customer attitude. I am also hosting some sites on HostDime, which I like so far. And HostICan seems intriguing, which we are reviewing now. I think that’s more than two so I’ll stop and bid farewell before I get carried away.

Thanks, Mitch, for giving me the opportunity to share with your readers. And thanks for the free therapy because I have learned some new things about myself now. Keep up the great work with the Web Hosting Show and Mitchelaneous.

He has his hand in a number of different cookie jars including Powersite, Pleth Networks and his own personal blog the Cotton Club.

I was lucky enough to get a few free moments of his time to ask him about the hosting world, alligator fights and everything in between.

What advice would you have for somebody who is just breaking into the web hosting or web development world and wants to get started with their own company or service?

Cotton: I would advise anyone wanting to get into the hosting business to first research out their infrastructure for a while before making a decision. Important factors to look at would be bandwidth, scalability, and backup solutions. With Pleth, we feel that we are positioned well with our hosting infrastructure, we utilize a private rack solution with a 5 day running backup interval. We also are taking advantage of newer technologies like virtualization, etc., which has allowed us to go after the growing VPS market that is starting to emerge stronger than ever.

For anyone wanting to get into the development business I would advise them to sharpen their skillset, I am strong in PHP, and that’s my weapon of choice when building apps. My business partners also have their areas of expertise also, for instance, my partner Greg is a CSS guru and Stephen is our business manager that handles our day to day business stuff. It can be overwhelming for one person to try to do everything, nothing is worse in my opinion than being on line 500 of a piece of code or halfway through a cool flash animation and having to stop to check a clients account balance.

Another piece of advice that we have had to just learn as we go is how to refine our bidding process so that we don’t undersell or undervalue our services. One of the first big projects we took on helped us figure this out the hard way. One other thing that has helped us out is having an extended network of freelance developers that we bring in from time to time to help out on projects. Having been in this business for a while I have a network of contacts that I have worked with off and on for several years on various projects, this has been invaluable.

Who would win in a fight between Bob Parsons of GoDaddy and an alligator?

Cotton: I’m gonna call this one a tie. The gator would likely swallow Bob whole but later get choked on his huge diamond earrings and Bob would crawl out of the Gator with the help of his GoDaddy Girls!

With web hosting support, do you consider it more important to be well prepared with your quick responses in hand, answer each question without the crutch of pre-typed responses, or a mix of using both techniques?

Cotton: When we first got started with Pleth I envisioned us having some type of large FAQ Support Section with advanced ticketing, etc., but learned later that that wasn’t our business model. Most of our clients come to us with their support issues either by telephone or email, and we typically start exploring the issue right away for them.

I don’t think that we would have had the level of client retention we have had over the years had it not been for our accessibility and individualized responses during support issues. Yeah, it takes a lot more work to do it this way but that’s why we charge a little bit more in the end. We try to remedy each clients support requests as quickly as possible and with as much personal service as possible.

You’ve worked on so many different projects in the past, asking you for your favorite might sound kind of silly. Instead, what is one goal, tactic or task you see that any project must do eventually that not many do that well without expertise?

Cotton: My partners and I will usually all go over a new site a few times prior to its launch to check for it’s “flow”, to make sure that everything is easily understandable to the end user. If it is an e-commerce application we usually will go through and make a few test transactions. A lot of times clients come to us with specific ideas as to how they want their site to flow, this can be a two-edged sword.

Ultimately we want our clients to have exactly what they want but if we see a way to enlighten them on a “better way” we try to do so, after all that’s what they are paying us for. A lot of less experienced firms I have found out there today will try to provide their clients with “exactly what they want” instead of “what will actually work”. We look at this as saving our clients the time of having to find out things the hard way. We put a lot of thought into designing a website project, I think that a lot of sites out there today, especially small business websites, aren’t well thought out before they go live.

What is the difference between the hosting the Pleth Networks does and the web host down the street that offers a $1.99 a month plan?

Cotton: Probably the biggest difference with Pleth Clients would be the support that they get from us. All of our clients have access to my partners and I, we are also very responsive to emails sent after hours as well, not that we don’t have lives or anything because we do, but we usually try to put fires out as soon as they come up. We also build relationships with our clients that extend beyond our business services, for instance, one of my clients was in my wedding three years ago, our client retention is phenomenal.

It’s fun for us to watch our clients businesses grow. Another big difference outside of the service realm would probably have to be our network infrastructure, we have larger bandwidth allocations, high end virtualization services and control panels from SWSOFT with manufacturer support. Our NOC is also located at The Planet in Texas, this has served us very well so far, we have contacts there and have even had dialog with their CEO in the past, a lot of these $1.99 a month hosting companies just provide barebones hosting with maybe a generic control panel and ticketing system for support, if that, and expect the customer or end user to do the rest.

99% of our clients don’t have the internal IT infrastructure or knowledge and training required to benefit from this type of solution, they require services from a firm like ours that handles it all, development, software installation, dns, email, etc. We call ourselves a hosting and development firm but we are more of an extension to our clients IT department.

Kayla Fleming, the Vice President over at Surpass Hosting is one of those people who I had always read or watched (no wait, that makes me sound like a stalker doesn’t it?) but never introduced myself to till a few days ago. I needed an interesting personality to talk with and she seemed to take the proverbial cake. I have been a big fan of her work and wanted to learn a little more. According to her profile over at the WHIR…

Kayla has experience in all areas of web hosting from conducting market research to securing server environments. Kayla has worked with Internet companies for nine years and has been involved in the web hosting industry since 2002. Under Kayla’s direction, Surpass has reached record growth each year. She is also responsible for the company’s forum, one of the most active communities among web hosts.

Now your caught up to the same spot it Kayla’s story I was at before this greatly enjoyable chat between the two of us.

How did you “break in” to the wild and wacky world of web hosting we live in today?

Kayla: My first job was doing tech support at an all Mac powered ISP. That was powerful inspiration to stay on the geek path. I watched sites like Blogger.com pop up from thin air and saw a lot of trends unfold. I think it happened very naturally and I was at the right place at the right time.

Where is hosting going to be in the next 10 years? Will it be the same or will we all be controlled by the servers we control right now?

Kayla: I would say that hosting may be going home, that is to home servers and increasingly faster Internet connections. But no matter how many do-it-yourselfers are out there, web hosting is still providing a service, a helping hand, and a look into where the Internet is headed. I feel that in 10 years, it will be very much the same as it now.

What is the one thing that Surpass offers that you think nobody can match you on? I want something you look at, and just think, “Damn, we are pretty good at that”.

Kayla: When I think of Surpass, I immediately think of “friendly” and “personable” above all. I think our forum at www.surmunity.com is one of the largest hosting forums. Most of our staff chat on Surmunity when they’re off the clock and at home. We enjoy what we do and want to help people get their businesses and ideas on the web. If anyone has a bad experience then there won’t be anything fun about that. So I think we are good at ensuring people will have a good experience.

Would you rather be known as a personality inside of the hosting world or would you be happier just sitting behind a desk doing your job? From what I can tell there are two different types in web hosting. The social ones that love to mix and mingle, share ideas and put their faces out there and the ones who hide in a basement somewhere in Montana, which are you?

Kayla: In the past year I have enjoyed traveling more than ever and hope to attend more conventions (excuses to take photos for my Flickr). But deep down I am still a content geek in front of the computer for hours; I’m not very complicated.

You are the VP over at Surpass Hosting. There are not many women in powerful positions in the hosting industry. Is that just because there are more men than women in the hosting area or for some other reason?

Kayla: I think this stems from the tech industry in general. Web hosting is also a very unique sector of the entire tech field. Until the average person can answer “What does web hosting mean?” with perfect confidence, it will take some time before both sexes are commonplace.

Why are there so many different web hosting choices out there?

Kayla: It seems like any type of profitable market will become saturated. I was in Buenos Aires, Argentina for New Year’s and while at a street fair, I saw someone selling fresh orange juice. Then a few blocks down there would be another person doing the same. You’d also see people selling the exact same ugly wallets that no one was buying. The key difference here is that people will always enjoy eating and drinking, but will never have a constant need for ugly wallets. Yet, if people see certain products being sold, they’ll want to try it, just to see if they can do it as well or better. Even if it may not seem possible or profitable at first. So all of the good web hosts are glasses of delicious orange juice.. and the bad ones are ugly wallets.

I want to thank Kayla for taking time out to talk with me, and if you want to see more of her work be sure to check out Surpass Hosting, her WHIR.com blog, and her own personal site.

How important is user feedback and experiences (good and bad) when it comes to the Pageflakes product?

Dan: It’s extremely important and we have ongoing dialogues with our users through the blog and support forum. We monitor this full time and read & respond to every email. Our product plans include user requested information by way of reviews and feedback. We always have a representative from customer services support team involved in our product sessions.

This is to not only know how our site is produced & written, understanding sessions etc but also to represent the user base and their comments/suggestions into our future plans. They aggregate the most popular requests and common denominator feedback so we acknowledge this as paramount in our product plans. Ongoing dialogue internally and with our users are taken extremely seriously into our product design development strategies.

Start pages have a history of being something that people spend five minutes on, get caught up on whatever they want to watch – clocks or kitten saying funny things. Why should somebody invest the time to spend more time with Pageflakes?

Dan: A great number of users spend more time on Pageflakes than email and social networking sites. The old generation of personalize pages i.e. my Yahoo would result in people clicking for a moment and then visiting another site. But the old RSS information was sports, news and stocks related so if the user wanted to read more, they’d click through or venture to other websites.

With Pageflakes, users can check bank balances, email, network, visit social networking flakes so the interactive elements on Pageflakes is richer and includes flakes that users couldn’t do before. We are revolutionizing what people are doing on the Web. Technology has changed and Pageflakes is more of an engaging experience by definition to keep users on the page longer. They are learning and digging deeper into topics individually and interacting with other like minded individuals.

Focusing your attention to several new projects to aim your pages at a lot of niche audiences (like what you plan to do with education) do you hope to move the project along further than that 5 minute or less eyeball viewing time most start pages get?

Dan: Reiterating the above again, people are using Pageflakes longer than 5 minutes. This is their environment and not just a website. Pageflakes has been active within the educational community globally for 15 months so what we are doing is not just attracting a niche audience, but letting the users create an entire community of say, teachers. They use Pageflakes in the classroom, share through private collaborations and have students visit the pagecasts regularly for assignment updates.

It’s a group product service. We support them and thrive on this grown in the new education paradigm. Pageflakes has been involved with thousands of schools in the USA, Ireland, Scotland, Australia and more. Earlier this year, Pageflakes won a Gartner Award in the Enterprise Category.

This is a reflection on companies who also use Pageflakes as their new internal portal for projects, management, tracking industry research etc. Small businesses use Pageflakes to promote themselves i.e. SoulSistah100 who’s music is basically her business. Companies now use their Pageflakes home page on their business card as a primary example of the work they’ve produced.

From your history at both Yahoo and Google, you have obviously seen what works and what does not work. How have your past experiences helped shape the way you’d like to brand and mold Pageflakes going into the future?

Dan: Past experiences have shown what users want and don’t want in personalized start pages. I now have the opportunity to focus exclusively on delivering the best home page and experience to our users. In terms of shaping and branding, we have simply given the users an incredible set of tools to build their homepage and share with others in a simple and easy format. Our user shave really shaped Pageflakes future for education, business and social networking. We gave them the tools to make their own themes, logos, photos and their own branding experiences.

In the past, products working well were part of an overall company strategy with various different priorities alternating and interlinking. With Pageflakes we get to focus on one thing and excel in this as a true mass market innovator and user driven product initiative that our users can enjoy, personally and professionally.

What are some of Dan’s favorite flakes and pagecasts?

Dan: My pagecast is http://www.pageflakes.com/dancohen and obviously this is my favorite pagecast. I’m also interested in our user’s pagecasts such as SoulSistah100 and nancypants. These users take Pagecasting to new heights, for personal use and business.

I like to see what all users are producing and it’s fascinating to live and visit their lives i.e. what it’s like to be a housewife in Calgary with 4 children, an educator in Scotland or a singer in Osaka, Japan. It’s fun to experience their personas and a bonus for other Pageflakes users to explore.

I also like viewing our new series of open Pageflakes Pagecasts that we’ve produced incorporating flakes from our community section, seasonally and ongoing such as Christmas, UK New Years and our exciting new Super Bowl 2008 pagecast. These are an ongoing campaign that are not only fun but extremely useful for information gathering, copying flakes and you don’t need to be a Pageflakes user to visit these.

I regularly check my universal video search (listed on my pagecast) along with updates on music with a weekly podcast. And local events for my family and I to enjoy this one.

I want to thank Dan Cohen, CEO of Pageflakes for giving me a few free minutes of his busy day to ask questions people actually want to know the answers to.