FatCow is excited to announce our ”moovelous” giveaway, “Host Smart, Drive Smart!” A few lucky winners will drive away with a smart fortwo coupe, a Vespa scooter, or one of four Shwinn bikes.

FatCow is giving any person who signs up for a hosting plan an automatic entry into the giveaway. “The Original FatCow hosting plan, much like the company, is a unique breed,” says Sophia Nobrega, a member of the Moo Crew. “Not only is it beefed up with everything one needs to build a successful website, but it also provides friendly 24x7support with the Moo Crew, and a guaranteed ‘green’ online presence.”

There are multiple ways to enter the giveaway in addition to purchasing web hosting. Become a MooMoney affiliate, Refer a friend, or add a client to your reseller console and you’ll automatically be entered to win!

FatCow encourages customers to enter the giveaway in as many ways as possible before it ends on September 30^th, 2010. For more details, view our Official Rules.

No purchase necessary to enter or win. Host Smart Drive Smart Giveaway is open to legal residents of the 50 United States (and D.C.) 18 years or older. Promotion starts on May 17, 2010 and ends at 11:59 pm ET on September 30, 2010. Void where prohibited. For full entry details see Official Rules at www.fatcow.com. Sponsor is FatCow Web Hosting, 70 Blanchard Rd., Third Floor, Burlington, MA 01803. Smart USA Distributor, LLC, Piaggio USA, and SCHWINN, a Divisions of Dorel Industries Inc, are not affiliated with FatCow or this promotion.

A new study produced under the auspices of the venerable environmental group Greenpeace focused on the climate change impact of cloud computing and web hosting. According to their study, many components of web hosts and cloud computing service providers like Google, Yahoo and Facebook provide power to their servers by using fossil fuel derived power. According to the Greenpeace study, the combination of power generation from coal and the increasing size of cloud computing could contribute to global carbon emissions and the climate change that results from carbon dioxide emissions.
The study is designed to increase consumer consciousness of the energy costs related to web hosting and cloud computing and spur development of ‘green clouds’ and web hosting services that get their power from renewable or carbon-neutral power. Here at Fatcow, we’ve already thought about the impact of our servers and anticipated most of the findings from Greenpeace’s study by moving to wind powered servers. That’s right, at Fatcow we’re actually one step ahead of Greenpeace when it comes to environmentally responsible web hosting.

For more about Greenpeace’s study, look here: http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/033010_Greenpeace_Says_Cloud_Contributes_to_Climate_Change

The number of satisfied customers purchasing through e-retailers has reached an all-time high according to a study from Foresee Results. The study was completed on the top 100 e-retail websites as reported by Internet Retailer.

The study showed that, on average, the overall satisfaction increased by 5 points on a 100 point scale receiving an average score of 78.

“The state of the economy really forced e-retail to step up their game,” said study author Larry Freed, president and CEO of ForeSee Results. “Customer satisfaction is not a byproduct of a healthy economy. Instead, a healthy economy is a consequence of satisfied customers.”

Industries that were a part of the review included: books/CDs/DVDs, specialty (non-apparel), computers/electronics, and much more.

Who’s On Their Way Up?

Companies who saw the largest jump in customer satisfaction were Abercrombie.com, Etronics.com and MarketAmerica.com; which saw the largest jump at 12 points. Nexflix continues to lead the pack for the sixth year in a row with a satisfaction score of 87, which was also an increase from the prior year. Amazon not too far behind to the video rental and streaming company retained their position of second place. A full report of all top 100 retailers is available at the website for ForeSee Results.

Between the recent Greenpeace report on the state of cloud computing and recent adoption of data center efficiency metrics developed by The Green Grid, a data center regulation and efficiency organization, the world is beginning to take serious notice of the energy costs of computing. With the increase in web activity and the growing popularity of cloud based computing, the energy (and climatic) impact of the Internet has become an increasing concern for environmentalists. Part of the problem in addressing the energy costs of the data centers that provide much of the muscle behind web hosting and other Internet services has been a lack of universal standards to gauge how efficient a particular data center is.

Green Grid’s metrics and standards will, now that they’ve been adopted by most of the developed world, allow efficiency technicians to understand exactly what energy costs can be improved on and where the most effective changes can be made to improve the economic and environmental impact of data centers. While these efficiency reports and measurements will improve computer efficiency and improve how green the average web server is, converting web servers away from fossil fuel power supplies will also help make the net green. For example, we here at Fatcow already get the power for our web hosting services from purely green sources.

For more on this, check here http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/040510_US_Europe_and_Japan_Agree_to_Use_Data_Center_Efficiency_Metric

During Twitter’s first official conference, Chirp, the CEO of the social network revealed it was creating its own link shortener and dumping the bit.ly shortener it had made so popular. The CEO of bit.ly, John Borthwick, wasn’t too concerned.

Bit.ly Not Official, But Still a Favorite

Even prior to the network promoting the use of the link shortening tool, it made up for 5% of all link encodes and has since fallen to just 1%, noted by Tech Crunch. Even so, this still amounts to 3.4 billion links because many of the desktop and mobile Twitter users still use the shortener. This may also be the reason no one seemed to notice the shortner was dropped by Twitter in December; most of the network’s power users access the site through a platform such as Tweetie or Tweetdeck.

The Ups and Downs Of Link Shorteners

Twitter’s move into areas previously filled by other applications has left developers disgruntled. How do they know the applications they build next will not be taken over by the social network? With the introduction of promoted tweets and commercial accounts, Twitter will certainly have the money to do it.

On the upside, the numbers released by bit.ly is an indication of exactly how popular link sharing has become. Therefore, the easier business owners can make it for visitors to share their content, the more likely it is to be shared, read, and enjoyed.

If you’re a Tweeter, make sure you’re following FatCow on Twitter!

Web hosting is a constantly expanding industry, with millions of new users requiring additional services, which in turn require new servers to handle the load of hosting web pages. Web hosting and cloud computing have driven an intense amount of competition between producers, which leads to a number of rather creative marketing approaches intended to distinguish a given company’s product. Sales incentives designed to push a given product, are common in many industries but the fast paced and intense competition over web server sales has produced a number of pretty strange incentives. The most recent winner of the ‘strangest incentive’ award is most likely ServerBeach, a hosting company that promised to give a free piercing ‘of their choice’ with every server purchased on April 1st.
No, this was not an April Fool’s prank.
And it wasn’t quite as out of left field as it may appear. Other sales incentives and marketing plans in server sales have included tattoo based human billboards and other body art for successful sales members. The recipients of ServerBeach’s newest sales incentive can pick up their piercing at the Internet World conference in London in late April.

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2010/03/31/want-a-body-piercing-with-that-server/

In the thousands of years since humanity developed writing, we’ve come up with countless variations on its production, storage and transmission. People have written in pictures, words and ideograms, on paper, stone, clay and papyrus, and shared their words through books, telegraphs and now the Internet. But the act of reading has remained essentially the same: a passive process where words on a page (or what have you) are consumed by the reader.
Now a German Artificial Intelligence researcher has developed a new approach to text. By combining AI with a simple eye tracking device, Ralf Biedert and his colleagues working at the German Research Center for AI have come up with active text. Predictably dubbed Text 2.0, this new approach to text follows the attention of the reader and automatically produces content in response to the rates of speed and latency time on specific words. By submitting this information to the AI at the heart of Text 2.0 the computer can provide translations or definitions for unknown words, give pronunciation tips or even highlight important words in a sentence to facilitate speed reading or skimming.
If you’re interested, there’s a fascinating video demonstration of the technology here: http://hplusmagazine.com/articles/ai/does-headline-know-you%E2%80%99re-reading-it.

When you consider the amount of information that’s now accessible online and how connected everything and everyone is, security is a huge concern. In many instances, if someone were to gain access to a useless Social Network you tried once, they can use that information to gain access to everything including your email and even more frightening, possibly your banking information. Here are some common mistakes people make with their passwords:

Using Common Phrases or Words

LifeHacker recently published a post entitled ‘How I’d Hack Your Weak Passwords‘. In it, the author John Pozadzides listed ten words and phrases people often use as their passwords. And while the name of your spouse might be a bit more difficult to guess, a little bit of quick research online should take care of that. After all, we reveal this seemingly innocent information all the time in regular conversation.

All it takes are one of the free software programs out there or a simple script for a computer to automatically figure out your login details. Therefore, always add numbers, symbols, and upper-case letters to make the password more complex.

Using the Same Password Everywhere

Tim Nash and his associates recently experimented with password security and they discovered 92% of people use the same password for their email and all other sites. They also blindly gave permission for websites to use that information. This means that many people willingly give up this information leaving them open to hacking and theft of all kinds. Never use the same password!

Password security is extremely important at FatCow and that’s why we require a ‘strong’ password criteria and have certain ‘rules’ that need to be followed when choosing your password. You can find out more about our password security in our knowledge base. Just never use PASSWORD, as your password!

Email marketing can be an extremely effective tool, particularly if you already have a list of targeted recipients interested in the information and products you have to offer. Unfortunately, a lot of spammers use this same method, so it’s imperative to be smart and get this type of correspondence right from the start. Here are three important tips to boost the effectiveness of your next campaign:

Avoid Spammy Phrases and Industry Specific Slang and Abbreviations

If the subject line or email sounds like the normally spamming content that fills our inboxes, chances are pretty good that people aren’t going to bother opening them. Instead, use power words like ‘free’, ‘save’, and ‘guaranteed’ to grab attention while inspiring trust in the reader. It also helps to personalize the email to give your email marketing a sense of quality while making the recipient feel important.

Don’t Fall For ‘Pretty’ Emails

Emails loaded full of graphics, posted on pretty stationary, and in HTML might look great, but it greatly decreases the chance the email will get read since many people only read text emails and have images turned off. These graphics and textures can also make the text difficult to read and distracting, which can cause people to miss important information. Stick to simple text emails with concise content.

Use a Reliable Email Service

Sending large amounts of email can get you blacklisted for spam, but you can avoid that and improve your delivery rates by using a reliable email service. As an added benefit, these types of services can provide you with templates, tracking, monitoring, and list management to make email marketing quick and easy.

With FatCow and Constant Contact, you’ll find it quick and easy to create beautiful templates, use email tracking and reporting, and improved deliverability. Find out more about Constant Contact and FatCow’s email marketing services today. Right now we’re offering a 60 day free trial!

Twitter is a great service for both individuals and businesses, but both need to learn to use proper Twitter etiquette. Like any community, Twitter has certain unspoken rules which members follow. Thanks to spammers, identity thieves, and other unsavory types, Twitter users are becoming more cautious and more willing to stop following Twitter users who don’t seem to follow the rules. Having proper etiquette will make it clear that you can be trusted.

Don’t Tweet Too Much

The entire point of Twitter is to send tweets to your followers, but that doesn’t mean you should send ten tweets an hour. Sending out a huge volume of tweets is an etiquette no-no and will make you look like a spammer rather than a legitimate user.

Avoid Prolonged Conversations

There may be times when Twitter users respond to your tweets and you want to respond back. Remember, Twitter is not an instant messenger. If you are having a real-time conversation it is proper etiquette to use direct messages instead of tweets.

Leave Out the Specifics

When tweeting about personal information, be vague. There is no need to tell all of your followers that you’re going to the bank on 42nd and Walnut with a wad of cash. Being too specific can be a personal risk and will also make you look a little naive.

Tweet with a Point

Make sure that your tweets have some rhyme or reason to them. Some Twitter users will constantly tweet completely random, out-of-context thoughts. This is terrible etiquette – you’re wasting the time of your followers! If they can’t figure out what you’re talking about them may decide not to follow you at all.

Keep it Short

Twitter has a character limit for a reason. This isn’t the place to write the next great American novel. It is proper Twitter etiquette to keep tweets short and useful. Also remember to use abbreviated links when linking to a website.

Play Nice

The anonymous nature of the Internet often allows nice people to say bad things, but Twitter isn’t anonymous. Never forget this. If your tweet would be considered rude in real life it will be considered rude on Twitter as well.

Plug in Moderation

Twitter is often used to try and drum up excitement for blog posts, events, or products. This is fine, but etiquette requires it be done in moderation. Also, make sure that the tweet is useful. A tweet which says “Visit my blog!” is much less useful than saying “Check out my review of Avatar.”

These are the basics of Twitter etiquette. If you follow the rules you’ll keep your followers happy. Follow FatCow on Twitter at twitter.com/fatcow