A blog by Dublin-based web design company, EdenWeb
If you’ve been nominated for an IIA Net Visionary Award or are sponsoring a category, you may want to display a badge on your web site or blog. You can grab a JPEG for your category over at the Eden Web resources page. The full suite of categories are catered for including Web Designer of Excellence, Internet Marketer, Entrepreneur etc.
The logos will also be available directly from the IIA site and newsletter shortly.
I’ve been nominated for Web Designer of Excellence in the latest IIA Net Visionary Awards.
I’d love your vote so if you like our work please vote for EdenWeb here - http://www.netvisionary.ie/vote2007.htm
Thanks!
Peter
The IEDR today announced relaxation of the rules for registering personal dot-ie domain names for individuals. This means you can now register YourName.IE for approx 25 Euro per anum. Furthermore, most combinations of your first, middle and surname are acceptable.
An applicant named ‘John Paul Smith’ can register the following alternatives:
Johnsmith.ie [first name / surname]
Johnpaulsmith.ie [first name / middlename / surname]
John-smith.ie [first name / hyphen / surname]
John-paul-smith.ie [first name / hyphen / middlename / hyphen / surname]
Johnpsmith.ie [first name / middle initial / surname]
John-p-smith.ie [first name / hyphen / middle initial / hyphen / surname]
Jsmith.ie [first initial / surname]
Jpsmith.ie [first initial / middle initial / surname]
Jp-smith.ie [first initial / middle initial / hyphen / surname]
J-smith.ie [first initial / hyphen / surname]
J-p-smith.ie [first initial / hyphen / middle initial / hyphen / surname]
Paulsmith.ie [middle name / surname]
Paul-smith.ie [middle name / hyphen / surname]
Psmith.ie [middle initial / surname]
P-smith.ie [middle initial / hyphen / surname]
You should contact your preferred hosting, web services company or the IEDR directly for further details.
Update (Sept 13th 2007): The IEDR press release is now online
If there was one industry related to my profession that I’d love to plan, design and build a website for, it’d probably be a Hosting company. UK, Scottish, Taiwanese, Canadian or Irish, they just can’t seem to communicate successfully to their target audience(s) and consistently misunderstand what potential customers are looking for. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t doubt for a second that most of these guys know their audience inside out but that knowledge rarely trickles onto their web presence. Perhaps it’s their technical nature that lets them down?
There is huge scope to dramatically increase hosting companies conversion rates and vistor numbers based on the evidence and feedback I’ve been listening to over my several years as a web designer. Sure, there are some companies out there that are doing it well but as both a customer and a family-member/friend/aquaintance to many, many people who have tried to source hosting services, I find that they are failing on key areas of their web sites and that this is losing them business.
UPDATE…(the above was drafted last week)
Just today I was wondering why hosting companies often have such terrible websites when I received a great little promotion in my email from hosting company, RackSpace. In an industry where most companies are in a race to the bottom and all about the lowest price, these guys are selling to me with clever campaigns, great design and benefit-driven messaging.
Now that the new Garda comissioner has been named, I wonder will someone at HQ add County Wicklow to their map of Ireland?
