HOSTING

A video hosting service allows individuals to upload video clips to an Internet website. The video host will then store the video on its server, and show the individual different types of code to allow others to view this video. The website, mainly used as the video hosting website, is usually called the video sharing website.

Impetus

Because many users do not have unlimited web space, either as a paid service, or through an ISP offering, video hosting services are becoming increasingly popular, especially with the explosion in popularity of blogs, forums, and other interactive pages.

The mass market for camera phones has increased the supply of user-generated video. Traditional methods of personal video distribution, such as making a DVD to show to friends at home, are unsuited to the low resolution and high volume of camera phone clips. In contrast, current broadband Internet connections are well suited to serving the quality of video shot on mobile phones. Most people do not own web servers, and this has created demand for user-generated video content hosting, which the likes of YouTube are catering to.

Purpose of Video Hosts (for users)
Save on bandwidth costs, often eliminating costs entirely
Creating a common place
Make a hassle-free experience, where uploading a video and streaming or embedding would normally require advanced programming knowledge. It is now commonly achieved through a web browser, with little or no programming experience.

Copyright issues

Wikipedia hosts around 200 videos in the Ogg format on its servers. Wikipedia actively discourages non-free videos and formats: videos added to Wikipedia are supposed to be freely available for reuse. This contrasts with video hosting services such as YouTube, which can hold copyrighted material, though some rights must be given up to such companies in return for the hosting.

Mobile video hosting

A more recent application of the video hosting services is in the Mobile Web arena, where video and other mobile content can be delivered to, and easily accessed by mobile devices. While video-hosting services such as YouTube have developed means by which video can be watched on mobile devices, mobile-oriented web-based frontends for video hosting services that possess equal access and capability to desktop-oriented web services have yet to be developed.

Cloud Computing by MODCOMP

A social network hosting service is a web hosting service that specifically hosts the creation of web-based social networking services, alongside related applications.

List of social network hosting services

Big Tent

BricaBox

Crowdvine

DZOIC

Flux

IGLOO

Insoshi

Intuu

KickApps

Lithium Technologies

Mzinga

Neighborhood America

Ning

OneSite

Pluck

Prospero

Small World Labs

Soceeo.com

SocialGO

TabUp

The Community Host

The Village

WackWall

An application service provider (ASP) is a business that provides computer-based services to customers over a network. Software offered using an ASP model is also sometimes called On-demand software or software as a service (SaaS). The most limited sense of this business is that of providing access to a particular application program (such as customer relationship management) using a standard protocol such as HTTP.

The need for ASPs has evolved from the increasing costs of specialized software that have far exceeded the price range of small to medium sized businesses. As well, the growing complexities of software have led to huge costs in distributing the software to end-users. Through ASPs, the complexities and costs of such software can be cut down. In addition, the issues of upgrading have been eliminated from the end-firm by placing the onus on the ASP to maintain up-to-date services, 24 x 7 technical support, physical and electronic security and in-built support for business continuity and flexible working.

The importance of this marketplace is reflected by its size. As of early 2003, estimates of the United States market range from 1.5 to 4 billion dollars. Clients for ASP services include businesses, government organizations, non-profits, and membership organizations.

Provider types

There are several forms of ASP business. These are:

A specialist or functional ASP delivers a single application, such as credit card payment processing or timesheet services;

A vertical market ASP delivers a solution package for a specific customer type, such as a dental practice;

An enterprise ASP delivers broad spectrum solutions;

A local ASP delivers small business services within a limited area.

Some analysts identify a volume ASP as a fifth type. This is basically a specialist ASP that offers a low cost packaged solution via their own website. PayPal was an instance of this type, and their volume was one way to lower the unit cost of each transaction.

In addition to these types, some large multi-line companies (such as IBM), use ASP concepts as a particular business model that supports some specific customers.

The ASP model

The application software resides on the vendor’s system and is accessed by users through a web browser using HTML or by special purpose client software provided by the vendor. Custom client software can also interface to these systems through XML APIs. These APIs can also be used where integration with in-house systems is required.

Common features associated with ASPs include:

ASP fully owns and operates the software application(s)

ASP owns, operates and maintains the servers that support the software

ASP makes information available to customers via the Internet or a “thin client”

ASP bills on a “per-use” basis or on a monthly/annual fee

The advantages to this approach include:

Software integration issues are eliminated from the client site

Software costs for the application are spread over a number of clients

Vendors can build more application experience than the in-house staff

Key software systems are kept up to date, available, and managed for performance by experts

Improved reliability, availability, scalability and security of internal IT systems

A provider’s service level agreement guarantees a certain level of service

Access to product and technology experts dedicated to available products

Reduction of internal IT costs to a predictable monthly fee.

Redeploying IT staff and tools to focus on strategic technology projects that impact the enterprise’s bottom line

Some inherent disadvantages include:

The client must generally accept the application as provided since ASPs can only afford a customized solution for the largest clients

The client may rely on the provider to provide a critical business function, thus limiting their control of that function and instead relying on the provider

Changes in the ASP market may result in changes in the type or level of service available to clients

Integration with the client’s non-ASP systems may be problematic

Evaluating an Application Service Provider security when moving to an ASP infrastructure can come at a high cost, as such a firm must assess the level of risk associated with the ASP itself. Failure to properly account for such risk can lead to:

Loss of control of corporate data

Loss of control of corporate image

Insufficient ASP security to counter risks

Exposure of corporate data to other ASP customers

Compromise of corporate data

Some other risks include failure to account for the financial future of the ASP in general, i.e. how stable a company is and if it has the resources to continue business into the foreseeable future. For these reasons Cisco Systems has developed a comprehensive evaluation guideline. This guideline includes evaluating the scope of the ASP’s service, the security of the program and the ASP’s maturity with regard to security awareness. Finally the guidelines indicate the importance of performing audits on the ASP with respect to:

Port/Network service

Application vulnerability

ASP Personnel

Physical visits to the ASP to assess the formality of the organization will provide invaluable insight into the awareness of the firm.

A wiki farm allows users to create individual wikis. When multiple individual wikis run off of one installation of wiki programming, this is a wiki farm. This does not include cases where the spaces (or, groups of pages) within a single wiki instance are dedicated for specific topics. Wiki farms are run from a server or an array of servers in which core wiki code is installed.[clarification needed]

Prior to Wiki Farms, the administrator of multiple wikis had to install each wiki independently. This resulted in much wasted time, deploying redundant code and configurations on the server. With wiki farms this process is greatly simplified. The administrator established unique space on the server(s) (the field) and uses the core installed code (in the farm) to execute the functions of each individual wiki. This development may also be used by a number of publicly-available wiki hosting services, as evidenced by the tendency of these services to, not only classify themselves as “wiki farms”, but to define the entire concept as solely within the domain of a hosting for multiple wikis. Before these public services were available, users who wanted to share information on-line through their own Wiki had to install a Wiki server of their own, configure it, connect it to the Internet and maintain it. Today, the public services have eliminated this requirement.[original research?]

Both Non-commercial and commercial Wiki farms are available for users and online communities. While most of the wiki farms allow anyone to open their own Wiki, some impose restrictions. Many wiki farm companies generate revenue through the insertion of advertisements, but often allow payment of a monthly fee as an alternative to accepting ads.

An image hosting service allows individuals to upload images to an Internet website. The image host will then store the image onto its server, and show the individual different types of code to allow others to view that image.

How it works

Typically image hosting websites provide an upload interface; a form in which you specify the location of an image file on your local computer file system (using a browse button). After pressing a “Submit” button the file is uploaded to the image host’s server. Some image hosts allow you to specify multiple files at once, in this form, or the ability to upload one ZIP file containing multiple images. Additionally, some hosts allow FTP access, where single or multiple files can be uploaded in one session using FTP software or an FTP-capable browser.

After this process, your image is hosted on their server. Typically this means it is available on the web (to the public). You may also be allowed to make inline links to the hosted image, to embed it on other websites e.g.

Linking with HTML code

Linking with BBcode

A clickable thumbnail that is linked to the full image

Usually, the image host will put restrictions on the maximum image size allowed, or the maximum space or bandwidth allowed per user. Due to bandwidth costs, free services usually offer relatively modest size limits per image when compared to paid services, but allow users hotlinking their images. Individuals needing to host large images should consider purchasing image hosting services or purchasing webhosting services, so that they may operate their own website.

Tools

Image hosts also allow tools such as the ability to create photoblogs/galleries with your images, or add them to a slideshow for easier viewing. Some offer more advanced tools such as the ability for an individual to add notes to an image they uploaded, sideloaders, or browser sidebars. Other hosts have introduced novel features such as the ability to automatically resize images down to a user-selected size. A Flickr tool allows you to upload photos using a camera phone with email capability.

Cost

Many image hosts are free. Of the free image hosts, the vast majority are supported by advertisement, mostly on their top pages, thumbnail pages, or ‘not found’ pages. Showing advertisements to users has enabled image size and bandwidth limits to increase.

Some free hosts have optional paid image hosting functions, while other hosts offer only paid services. Features and storage available are generally better for paid services, while cost is still much less than the cost of purchasing webhosting to operate a website. Paid services often allow users to have password protected photo albums, customizable skins, and customized subdomains. There are many other paid services available that offer different packages of features, options, and costs.

A guild hosting or clan hosting service is a specialized type of web hosting service designed to support online gaming communities, generally referred to as guilds or clans. They vary from game server hosting in that the focus of such companies is to provide applications and communication tools outside of the gaming environments themselves.

Typical Features

The services typically offered by such a service include:
Public and/or private forums for members to communicate with each other, or other tools for communications such as instant messaging or chat servers.
Tools for tracking the roster of characters that a player might have in an MMORPG.
An application for scheduling and organizing raids, tournaments and other gaming events.
Applications for tracking treasure, items, or points accrued toward redeeming treasure (often referred to as a DKP system).

History

Originally, most people who decided to create a website for their guild used bulletin board software such as vBulletin and phpBB on traditional web hosting services. However, as the complexity of online games increased–accompanied by larger memberships, needs for more sophisticated scheduling tools, and roster-management features. One of the earliest such companies was GuildPortal, formed in 2001. In 2006, GamerDNA combined the features of a social network with guild hosting, to provide guilds with the ability to network with each other, as well as their own members.

Guild hosting services address a guild’s basic need to have an online presence and allow guild members to communicate with each other outside of the game. While it is possible for any guild to do this on their own, setting up and maintaining a site requires constant maintenance, upgrades and integration of new software. One of the key reasons for the popularity of guild hosting services is their focus on relieving the guild from this overhead and freeing them up to spend more time playing the game. In 2006 Guild Launch was formed to directly address the need for reducing this management overhead, to expand the existing social network of the guild into other areas, and to build long term communities within the guild by delivering high quality and easy to use tools. Also launching in 2006 was MMO Guildsites, a option with many advanced features, some of which have been made freely available for use with any hosting service. In 2007 Guildomatic was launched to provide a guild hosting platform specifically for World of Warcraft guilds. In 2008 MyGuildHost, a new player in guild hosting, launched version 2 of their guild hosting and management control panel — powered by open source PHP and AJAX technologies. In September 2008 GameStreet.net, a gaming social network launched its own brand of guild hosting with extreme flexiblity and ease of setup with a drag-and-drop designer for guild managers.

Weblog software (also called blog software or blogware) is software designed to simplify the creation and maintenance of weblogs. As specialized content management systems, weblog applications support the authoring, editing, and publishing of blog posts and comments, with special functions for image mangagement, web syndication, and moderation of posts and comments.

Server models

Many weblog applications can be downloaded and installed on user systems. Some of these are provided under free-software and open-source licenses, allowing them to used, modified, and redistributed freely. Others are proprietary software which must be licensed for a fee, although free-of-charge versions may also be available.

Other weblog applications are offered only through their developers’ hosts, either free of charge or for a fee. Services are typically limited to hosting of the blog itself, but some services offer the option of using the hosted software to update a blog published elsewhere.

Clients

Maintenance through the Internet is a nearly universal feature of weblog software. This is usually done through a browser-based interface, enabling authors to create and update content on the site. Most software also supports the use of external client software to update content using common APIs such as the MetaWeblog API and the Atom Publishing Protocol. Third party developers have created many such clients, allowing bloggers to publish entries using desktop software rather than the web-based interface. The WordPress website has an extensive list of clients that support most APIs (not just WordPress). Examples include ecto and MarsEdit.

Features

Post and comment management

All weblog software supports authoring, editing, and publishing of entries in the following format.

Title, the main title, or headline, of the post.

Body, main content of the post.

Permalink, the URL of the full, individual article.

Post Date, date and time the post was published.

Blog entries can optionally include the following:

Comments – Comments allow readers to discuss blog entries, correcting errors or otherwise expressing their opinions on the post or the post’s subject.

Services like coComment aim to facilitate discussions through comment tracking.

Categories (or tags) – indexes to subjects discussed by the entry

Trackback and or pingback – links to other sites that refer to the entry

Other features

Most weblog applications also have various linking and web syndication features. Web syndication is usually offered in the form of RSS or Atom. This allows other software (such as feed aggregators) to maintain a current summary of the blog’s content. Some services and organizations also offer extended features to aid communication, such as the wiki capabilities in Socialtext and Traction TeamPage.

Many weblog applications allow the user to define static pages which can be placed into a hierarchy or tree. Such pages are often used to present information about the blog and its authors. Extensive use of pages can result in a blog that looks more like a website.

Most weblog applications support English and many other languages. The user selects a language during installation.

Post moderation requires users to register before commenting, or requires individual posts or comments to be approved by a moderator or administrator before they appear in the blog. Weblog applications use various user account systems that allow readers to post comments to a particular blog. For instance, users with Blogger accounts may comment on any Blogger blog. Other weblog applications allow users to post content or comments only to blogs where they have an account.

The posting API varies among different weblog applications. The typical interface is a form to be filled out online, with a varying number of fields. Applications such as Movable Type offer a greater number of form fields and choices than applications such as Blogger. Some applications also have plugins for Firefox that integrate into the browser’s menus so that right clicking on selected text on any given web page brings up a small window that allows the user to post directly to their blog.

Most types of blogware support adding thumbnail images within blog posts. Photo blogging is a separate genre of blogging that deals primarily with images.

A new trend in blogging software is drag and drop WYSIWYG editing, which allows users to easily modify page elements on the fly. Companies pioneering this effort include Squarespace and Weebly.

Documentation and support

Different blogware packages feature varying levels of community support and documentation. Because the installation of some types of software requires an advanced knowledge of computer administration, community support and documentation can be very helpful. The web servers and database software can be more difficult to install than the blogware itself. Also a strong and active community surrounding the blogware gives advice on integrating the blogware into a personal site.

Examples

A partial list of notable weblog software follows:

User hosted platforms

Software packages installed by weblog authors to run on their own servers.

Free and open source software

These software packages are offered as free and open source software:

Apache Roller (Java-based)

Battle Blog (Classic ASP)

b2evolution (PHP/MySQL)

blosxom (Perl)

DotNetNuke (VB.NET/ASP.NET)

Drupal (PHP)

FlatPress (PHP)

Frog CMS (PHP)

Elgg (PHP)

Habari (PHP)

Jaws (PHP)

Joomla (PHP)

Livejournal (Perl) (Also available, developer hosted)

LifeType (PHP)

Movable Type (Perl)

Nucleus CMS (PHP)

Open Blog (PHP)

Serendipity (PHP)

Slash (Perl)

Subtext (C#/ASP.NET)

Textpattern (PHP)

Typo (Ruby on Rails)

WordPress (PHP)

Proprietary software

These packages are under a proprietary software license. They may require the purchase of a license key to use them. The specific licensing terms vary but some are free of charge for personal or non-commercial use.

Community Server

ExpressionEngine

Traction TeamPage

Windows Live Writer

Developer-hosted platforms

Software services operated by the developer, requiring no software installation for the weblog author:

Blogger

LiveJournal

MySpace

Open Diary

Skyrock

Tumblr

TypePad

Typo

Windows Live Spaces

Wordpress.com

Xanga

Vox