The Internet is prime platform for any business and organization to present its products and services before the world. Not only does it throw open your business to unexplored business markets but also ensures that your online store is open 24 X 7, whenever a customer visits your store. Online business is becoming a crucial, if not an essential part, of every business.

The Internet is growing today at a much faster pace than ever before. In fact at the Internet Innovation Alliance this year it was found that while the national network growth is about 19%, internet growth is at about 40% annually and increasing. This can be attributed to the growing number of websites coming up and also the high quality videos being uploaded by internet users. According to the San Francisco Chronicle 20 homes will generate more Internet traffic next year than the total Internet traffic in 1995.

Global consumer Internet traffic is projected to quadruple by 2011, according the Cisco and the New York Times.

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One of the biggest fears that most people have is that of being alone and isolated. In the last few decades lifestyles across the globe have changed so much that people are bound to their hectic work schedules and have little time to connect with others and even with their inner selves.

Web 2.0 is a term coined by Craig Cline and Dale Dougherty. It is used to refer to a new phase in the World Wide Web where software developers are making rapid changes so that the end users are able to play a more active role in content development on the internet. Web 2.0 sites facilitate effective communication and information sharing and provide internet users a common platform to interact on.

Web 2.0 has not just dramatically changed the face of the internet but also the way internet users are living. While it seems nearly impossible to stay in touch with friends and family in the real world, social media sites have reduced the physical and political barriers and facilitated effective communication. Unlike what some people misbelieve social networks are not restricted to teenagers. In fact the age profile of Web 2.0 users has changed and now includes a large section of the 25 to 44 year olds as also the 35 to 44 year old category.

There seems to be a buzz in the air, and not just the virtual world, but also the real one. People are communicating and reaching out like never before. This seems rather momentous as there seems to be a tide of change coming over the way people think and believe in issues. What is more is that internet users are open to contradictory opinions and willing to share their ideas.

So how does the Web 2.0 affect your life?

It helps you stay in touch with your friends and family and even helps locate long lost buddies. It also gives you an extension of your community in the real world. You can join communities where you share a common interest such as a hobby like gardening or reading.

Social media sites are fast becoming the voice of the most trusted opinions and recommendations. From what your baby’s first food should be to the kind of refrigerator you should buy, Web 2.0 is the place to find all the answers. It has also become a great resource in times of emergencies. Timely interventions have been possible in cases where Web 2.0 user was in danger. In emergencies too, social networks have been known to play a great role. The fact that one can receive notifications on cellular phones even when one is on the move and not online, also contributes to the tremendous impact that Web 2.0 has on your life.

Web 2.0 can be effectively used to communicate within a business or company and also with clients and customers. Social network accounts are becoming the face of businesses that customers relate to and trust. You could even join a professional group on a social network and enhance your knowledge and skills in the field. With global recession and people losing jobs it is interesting how other internet users are stepping in to share business contacts and provide much needed advice and support.

How did you witness history on Inauguration Day?

By and large, most people will be able to answer part of the “where were you when” question with five words: I watched it on television.

Roughly a third of the households in the top local television markets watched the Inauguration, The Neilsen Company reported. That could make it the most watched Inauguration since Ronald Reagan’s in 1981.

Millions unable to watch Inauguration Day coverage of President Barack Obama on TV turned to the Web, straining some of the most popular sites and setting video viewership records.

Internet traffic in the United States hit a record peak at the start of President Obama’s speech as people watched, read about and commented on the inauguration, according to Bill Woodcock, the research director at the Packet Clearing House, a nonprofit organization that analyzes online traffic. The figures surpassed even the high figures on the day President Obama was elected.

“The peak is the highest measured to date, and it appears to be mostly a U.S. phenomenon,” Mr. Woodcock told The New York Times, adding that it did not appear that global records would be set.

According to PC World, among those experiencing significant slowdowns were the sites of ABC, CBS, Fox Business, the L.A. Times, NBC, National Public Radio, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal, according to Keynote Systems, an Internet measurement and testing company. Government sites that buckled under the traffic included those of the White House (promptly updated by the new administration), the U.S. Senate and the National Park Service, according to Keynote. Gomez, another Web performance-tracking company, also noticed a performance problem at the National Public Radio Web site.

The viewing troubles may have been more a result of the limited Internet capacity coming to offices and houses, rather than a lack of overall bandwidth from the media companies, Woodcock said. The United States continues to suffer from less-than-robust bandwidth, ranking 19th in terms of worldwide broadband penetration, according to Point Topic, a UK-based company that collects data and reports on broadband information services.

“Traffic is completely through the roof,” a CNN spokeswoman said told Computer World. The spokeswoman said the Web site had generated 160 million page views, with 25 million live video streams for the 12 hours between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., beating CNN.com’s previous video stream record of 5.3 million live video streams for Election Day last November. Also, 1.3 million live concurrent streams were served in the critical moments between Obama’s taking the oath of office, and his inaugural address.

NBCChicago.com had the most live stream views to date, but didn’t release official numbers.

And while sitting in front of their computers, many weren’t just passive consumers. CNN.com partnered with Facebook to provide “status” updates pertaining to the inauguration. Early reports from Facebook show that an average of 4,000 Facebook status updates were set every minute during the inauguration. They peaked the minute Obama began his speech, with 8,500 status messages set in those 60 seconds.

Twitter, too, was abuzz. According to a blog post by Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, the rate of “tweets” per second hit as much as five times the normal rate. While there may have been a delay in posting for some users, the site — often with frustrating downtime — didn’t crash entirely on Tuesday.

On a blog post Tuesday afternoon, Yahoo! provided a sneak peak at inaugural search spikes. According to the company, people were keen to read about “john roberts flub” as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court stumbled slightly on the oath. There were questions about Aretha Franklin (perhaps her hat), and there was some confusion about her name, as many people searched for information on “Anita Franklin.” Others searched “Dick Cheney Wheelchair,” wanting to know why the former vice president was confined to one.

For more information regarding website monitoring, go to www.webserviceguard.com.

The five major causes of website service interruption.

As a business owner with a web site, you know how important it is that your site stays up and running at all times.

Unfortunately, it is all too common for business owners to experience interruptions in their web site service. And in most cases, the business owner is not even going to be aware that it happened.

Web site visitors – who are potential customers – will be aware, however, when they try to visit the web site and find it is unavailable. This can give those potential customers an unfortunate impression of the business; after all, if even the web site isn’t working, doesn’t that mean the business itself isn’t very reliable?

Business owners with web sites should make it a top priority to ensure that their site is always up and running.

What causes these outages? There are many, many factors that can contribute to a web site service interruption.

According to Steve Walterhouse, Vice President of Web Service Guard, the five major reasons for IT failure are; software application failure, operating system failure, hardware server failure, network failure, and misconfiguration.  

20 percent of downtime is caused by technology failures, including hardware (servers and network devices), environmental factors (cooling and power outages) and natural disasters.

Forty percent of downtime is caused by application crashes, including bugs, incorrectly done updates, and software changes. The remaining 40 percent of downtime is caused by human error.

There are clearly numerous factors that can cause a website to go down, with potentially disastrous results for business owners.

“Our average customer facing website is down for over a total of 77 minutes (over an hour) every month,” according to Steve Walterhouse, vice president of Web Service Guard. “This is referred to as ‘customer outage minutes / month’. Web Service Guard helps our customers reduce their ‘customer outage minutes / month’ by notifying them as soon as their site goes down.”

The web uptime monitor service that www.webserviceguard.com offers allows the business owner, or webmaster, to practice what is called the ‘management by exception’ technique.  ‘Management by Exception’ is defined as a management technique in which the manager only intervenes when employees, or services, fail to meet their performance standards.

Web Service Guard, the premier website monitoring company, offers uptime and performance monitoring for websites and servers.  For more information, check our Website Monitoring page.

If you’re a business owner who depends on having a website for part or all of your business, you know how devastating it can be when your website goes down.

When customers go online to place an order or check on the progress of an order or ask a question about your services…the worst message that you can send them is a big white page with a “404 not found” message, or any other indication that your website is not available.

It’s the equivalent of a customer trying to go to your brick and mortar store in the middle of the day on a weekday, and finding that it’s locked up for no reason. It erodes trust and confidence in your business.

So the recent announcement by AT&T, the telecommunication giant, that the internet will start having serious outages by the year 2010 is especially alarming.

According to Jm Cicconi, vice president of legislative affairs for AT&T, outages will occur because of the massive increase of demands caused by user-generated content, and by uploads of video and other types of media that tend to take up large amounts of bandwidth.

As more people switch to high definition video, which takes up more bandwidth than regular video, the strain on the internet’s infrastructure will only grow worse, Cicconi said.

Cicconi said that it is estimated that the internet will literally be at capacity by the year 2010, and widespread outages will occur.

An independent research group called the Nemertes Research Group has reached a similar conclusion.

The Nemertes Research Group has released research showing that increased internet usage is going to cause a drag on bandwidth and a slowdown of internet speed if infrastructure limits aren’t addressed soon.

If this happens, it’s going to have a significant impact on businesses who depend on a web presence.

Even before the internet reaches the point where it’s overloaded, there are all kinds of glitches that can interrupt service to a website without warning.

"Events occur every day that cause website outages, usually without the website owner or technical administrator’s knowledge," said Steve Walterhouse, Vice president of Web Service Guard.

Web Service Guard is a leading provider of electronic website uptime monitoring and notification services worldwide.

Deliberate attempts by hackers, system failures of a website hosting company, server issues, power outages caused by storms or other natural disasters, rolling brownouts that occur during the summer months when power companies are overloaded…all of these scenarios can knock your website offline.

If your website goes down in the evening, you may not find out about it until the next day. In the meantime, frustrated customers in different time zones who are awake and trying to do business with you will be shut out for hours.

Huge revenue dollars are lost.  The loss of customer trust and goodwill in a case like that can never be regained.

As demands increase and outages occur, proactive website monitoring is key.   An electronic monitoring company like Web Service Guard can immediately notify you if your website goes down, allowing you to take instant action to rectify the problem.

The web uptime monitor service that www.webserviceguard.com offers allows the business owner, or webmaster, to practice what is called the ‘management by exception’ technique.  ‘Management by Exception’ is defined as a management technique in which the manager only intervenes when employees, or services, fail to meet their performance standards.