Emerson Arthur

Back when the internet was a wild frontier of scrolling banners, obnoxious tiled background images and seizure inducing neon text it made sense to go it alone.  Who better than you to manage your backend, backup your data, update your software and keep your site secure?  Today is a new day.  The software that manages your content and contacts is highly complex and updating ad securing an independent installation is not a good use of your time or resources.

What is fully hosted?  I define it as http and https access only and access only to the CRM or CMS.  Meaning you have no ftp, ssh, cPanel, phpAdmin or other  access to your site.

Why go hosted?

• Load Balancing (speed, scalability, unlimited bandwidth)
• Data Security
• Software Maintenance and Updates
• Cheap as Hell (compared to devoting your time or resources to maintaining a independent hosting environment)

Most people who go independent usually justify it by saying they need the flexibility and access of an independent environment.  I could go on and on about why this is a myth, but instead I challenge you to present some use cases that you don’t think could be achieved in a fully hosted environment.  Post them in the comments and I will respond with a hosted solution.

Below are a few of the fully hosted environments in which my projects dwell…

Continue reading ‘Going Hosted’

Despite a plummeting cost of entry, most aspiring new media participants have much bigger dreams than budgets to make them a reality. Ambition and talent can make up for lack of funds, but is also helps to have a cheap aesthetic. One can achieve huge impact with very low production values. In fact often an overproduced aesthetic is a liability on the web. Check out this PSA produced by a young MTV animator for the Break the Addiction campaign. Its a good example of how cheap can have impact. The illustrations are just enough to hold your attention and the music and simple messaging get the point across and get you curious. It works for broadcast but also has online potential. No actors, no video, no voice over, no animation; just some illustrations and some music.

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People are starting to get the buzzwords down and are increasingly investing time and resources into new media, but are they getting the point. The significance of the internet is not in its ‘newness’, but in its ‘youness’. If you talk to people in the trenches of the netroots you don’t hear the talk of trends and technology, you hear words of revolution. They get it. If democracy is a battle of ideas, and I certainly hope that it is, new media is nothing short of a revolution. Broadcast, cable and print are largely shut off to the average citizen, creating a one directional bullhorn controlled by a handful of mega-corporations. This leaves many voices shut out of the public square. Hit particularly hard are anti-commercial, pro-consumer and anti-war voices that are in conflict with the interests of the biggest media advertisers. Enter the internet, an even playing field with low cost of entry and largely people powered content and content filtering. Its yours, and it is a revolution.